of bangladesh, in what is being described as a landslide victory. the main opposition has called the election farcical, as claims of vote—rigging emerge, and is demanding a fresh poll. questions have been raised over the ability of a shipping company to run extra ferries in the event of a no—deal brexit. the uk government insists it carefully vetted the company, despite it having never run a ferry service before. the clock is ticking for russia to hand over important anti—doping samples from its laboratory in moscow. a failure to meet the deadline could see new sanctions imposed. the world anti—doping agency controversially lifted a three—year ban on the country in september on the condition samples were sent by the end of the year. a man who died after a minibus overturned in the scottish borders yesterday has been named by police. rossjones barker was 59 and came from east lothian.

the group had been on their way to kelso races. our correspondent david cowan sent this report. some of the men who survived this said today they felt lucky to be alive. 23 of them were on board the private minibus, heading from midlothian to the kelso races. tyre marks showed where it swerved off the road. a group of men who had been on the minibus gathered today at a bowling club back in newtongrange. some of them clearly still in a state of shock. none of them would be interviewed, but they wanted to thank two groups of people — the members of the public who stopped here and offered first aid, blankets and cups of tea, and the emergency services who dealt with the aftermath and ferried them en masse to hospital. aged between 2a and 75, many of the group were regulars at this community—run pub in the close—knit former mining village of newtongrange. i know my neighbour,

across the road from me, he got out hospital last night, he was concussed. i know his father—in—law. he was very bad, he was under the bus, very serious. these are all people i know. 59—year—old rossjones barker was pronounced dead at the scene. six other men remain in hospital with serious injuries. all are said to be in a stable condition. david cowan reporting there. now on bbc news, it is time for witness, and a special edition looking back at some of most compelling stories of 2018, from the great niece of the tsar reflecting on the russian revolution to the doctor who saved bulgaria's dancing bears. hello and welcome to witness, with me, razia iqbal.

i'm here at the british library with five extraordinary moments in history, told to us by people who were there. in this special edition, we present five stories from 2018. we will hear about how a us warship shot down an iranian airliner in 1988. the tragedy that wiped out the australian town of wittenoom. the man who rescued the dancing bears of bulgaria. and chairman mao attempts to bring healthcare to the masses with barefoot doctors. but first, we head back 100 years to 1918 when the russian tsar, nicholas ii, and his entire family were murdered by russian revolutionaries. in 1998, after the fall of communism, their remains were unearthed and they were reburied in st petersburg. princess 0lga romanoff,

the great—niece of the tsar, tells the story. following the priests and the nobles, tsar nicholas of imperial russia, with his wife and children. one day, all to find death in a bullet swept cellar. my grandmother was tsar nicholas ii's sister, and my father was tsar nicholas ii's eldest nephew. he called him "uncle nicky". nicholas adored him and he travelled a lot with the tsarina and with the tsar, and was very close with the girls. they used to have cycle races and pony races up and down the palaces. the russian territories are vast and they were incredibly powerful. also, nicholas was

the head of the church. already, there was bolshevik movements, and the russian royal family were not as powerful as they were say in 1900. 0n march15, 1917, tsar nicholas ii, supreme ruler of all the russias, was forced to abdicate in the face of political and economic pressure, that lead in the end to total revolution. nicholas and his family were taken to tobolsk, where they were held, and from tobolsk, they went to ekaterinburg, which is where they were eventually murdered. i think that the bolsheviks feared that if he was on the throne, he might have more influence than they would like him to have. his memory is honoured here, but during his lifetime, the tsar was accused of being both weak and inconsistent, stubbornly clinging to power. but the romanoffs are credited with dignity in the months leading

to their execution. the children, their brother, along with the emperor, nicholas himself, were all shot. after the fall of the soviet union, we heard on the grapevine that the bodies of nicholas and his family had been discovered in a swamp outside of ekaterinburg, and there was a movement that they would get a decent burial in st petersburg, with the rest of the family. in 98, injuly, one of my sons and myself went st petersburg for the first time for the funeral of nicholas ii, and between 52 and 56 romanoffs. as the cortege approaches, it slows down, in keeping

with the russian tradition in which the coffins of the dead are driven past the place that was their last home on earth. we followed the cortege all the way from the airport to peter and paul fortress, and what struck me, amazingly, there were so many people in the street, and all of them were sliding across and crying... the queen had very kindly sent officers from the scots. the honour guard including a royal piper from the royal scots dragoon guards, tsar nicholas was their commander—in—chief. it was a very long service, they all laid out in front of the altar and it all felt very emotional. it had a feel of holiness and sanctity. it was, you know, it wasjust nice to have them safely buried. princess 0lga romanoff

on burying her great uncle, the last tsar of russia. in 1988, an american warship, the uss vincennes, shot down an iranian airliner, killing all 290 people on board. at the time, rudy pahoyo was a navy combat cameraman, and happened to be on board the vincennes that fateful day. it was a tragedy, to shoot down an airliner. one of those things you just — i am still in disbelief that it could have happened. the mood in the gulf was very tense, iran and iraq were in the middle of a war at the time and the us navy was protecting the oil tankers that came out of kuwait, to make sure the flow of oil kept coming to the united states,

and the iranians were harassing those ships. the speedboats that the iranians were using, they would round—robin the ships while they were shooting and try to catch fire. so ourjob was just kind of like a police force, if you will. the team i was with was my crew, i am videotaping the whole time. and i caught a ride with the uss vincennes cruiser, it is a billion—dollar boat, state—of—the—art at the time. as we were sailing back, we got into a battle with iranian speedboats. during the gunboat battle, we were thinking that they are going to come at us with whatever they have now, that would have been the air force. the year before, in 1987, the uss stark got hit by a missile,

that was launched by iraq, we always had in mind remember the stark, remember the stark. and about five minutes went by and they said there was a target that had left bandar abbas, the iranian airfield, and the military airport and the civilian airport is the same place, so the aircraft, when it took off, was identified as air hostile. they thought it was iranian air force but the plane, in reality, was flight 655, it was an airliner, an airbus. five times a week, there is a scheduled service across the bandar strait to dubai. they travel a flight path... but here the crew is, waiting for another target to come at them when the aircraft takes off. and i believe that one

of the lieutenants, i went up and asked him and i said "what are we doing?" he said "you are going to see some missile action." and i went to the specialist who was watching the scope and he is watching the missiles, because you can track them off the radar, and then he sees it hit the target. but they found out like 15, 20 minutes later, that it was an airliner. an iranian airbus is presumed crashed. please look for survivors or aircraft wreckage. and so that is when it was like what? airliner missing? we didn't shoot an airliner, we shot a tomcat, i thought. there was a lot of soul—searching, disbelief. that's not supposed to happen,

that's not what we're here to do. 290 civilians passed away on flight 655, and of those 290, 66 were children. i felt so bad for the families that lost their loved ones, and sometimes you are part of history and you love it, sometimes you're part of history and you hate it. this is just one of those things where you just wish it didn't happen, but i was there. rudy pahoyo remembering the iranian airliner tragedy. our next story takes us to the balkans. in 1988, bulgaria banned the centuries old form of local entertainment, where captive, chained bears were forced to dance to music. following the ban, the retired and often traumatised bears needed a place to go and one man, dr amir khalil, came to their rescue.

in 1998, it was clear from the announcement that the brown bear needed to be protected. for me, it was a huge challenge. in the heart of the bulgarian capital sofia's commercial and political centre, a tradition from mediaeval times. a 1a—month—old brown bear. she is muzzled and chained by rings through her nose and upper lip to her master. the dancing bear was a cultural problem in bulgaria. for hundreds of years, a tradition. the bear is trained, they take the bear cub and work them on a metal hotplate, very hot, like fire. they smear the sole of the leg of the bear with vaseline and then they start to play with small instruments and music and they put the bear up on the fire, on this hotplate and the bear starts to move his leg up and down

because it's burning him. and they do this procedure many times and for the bear, when they hear this music, they start to move their leg and this is how they have the dancing bear. the bear is also alcoholic. they have one hobby. so that they are working many hours, the bear has to drink also alcohol, like its owner. so we tried to work with the public and make a lot of publicity about the situation and soon enough, aftera month, a lot of hotel owners in sofia on the seaside, they refused the owner of the bear to come to dance in front of his hotel. this bear was born in captivity and don't have the chance to learn how to survive in the wild so we can't let them to the wild. it was very clear there needs to be a sanctuary. for me, it was a huge challenge. like really, how to get the first

bears and convince and prove that this project is possible? this is a retirement house for older dancing bears. the first time, when i have the chance to bring the bears here, to the dancing bear park, first i was very excited. we have to wait all the night outside till the morning coming so i have to dart the bear to remove the chain and bring the bear inside the enclosure. to be honest, i was very scared because i don't know how the bear will react. they will wake up, they are chained, what will they do? he is a wild animal still and i was scared and think the bear also scared so when he woke up, i will never forget this moment. he stands up, he was looking that he was afraid to walk, even to walk, he was afraid to step

in front because he was just chained and his smell, he just smiled. there is no chain, no owner, just food. he is free. in bulgaria, there is no more dancing bear. the last dancing bear in bulgaria was rescued in september 2007. it is a tradition from the middle ages. it no more exists and it will never come back again. dr amil khalil on rescuing dancing bears. remember, you can watch with us every month on the bbc news channel or you can catch up on all our films along with more than 1,000 radio programmes in the online archive. just go to:. our next story is about an australian tragedy.

the town of wittenoom in western australia grew around an asbestos mine in the 19405 but at the time, few people knew that asbestos was lethal and could cause lung cancer. bronwyn duke lived in wittenoom as a child and is one of the few members of her family that is still alive. people were warned but they didn't take it seriously until people started to die. i lost both parents, both grandparents, my brother, three uncles, about four cousins that i can think of and that's just the immediate family in my world. i was born in 1958 in the far north of western australia, in the pilbara, the little town of wittenoom. the blue asbestos mine was the genesis of the time. —— of the town. asbestos is a naturalfibre that is encased in rocks.

they would extract the asbestos out of the mine and the mill would package it ready for shipment, and it was sent to all places around the world. voiceover: fire-resisting, sound insulating fabric known as asbestos is a piece of rock. the practical uses of asbestos are very numerous. at least 18,000 articles are made of it. ranging for packing the steam engines and friction services to bulk heads for aeroplanes. there were a lot of immigrants that came to australia after the second world war. a lot of them were looking forjobs and there were jobs to be had in wittenoom. he was a jack of all trades. he took the guys by bus from town to the mine every day. my mum and her sisters all met their husbands up there. it had all of the elements of a normal country town —

they used to have race days and there would be balls and all sorts of social activities that everyone was involved in. but my parents weren't aware of the dangers at all. i don't think a lot of people in the town were aware of the dangers. asbestos fibres get into the lungs and those fibres can cause asbestosis, or mesothelioma. it encases the lung in cancer and prevents it from breathing. in wittenoom, the asbestos wasn't confined to the mine. asbestos was used in gardens, on driveways, on the roads. it was literally everywhere. and if you went out to play, as all small children do, you were playing in asbestos. one of the flying doctors flew into town and said, as soon as he got there he said, we had to close this, this has to stop.

the mine was very profitable, so it was decided that wasn't the case. it was 1966 before they actually closed the mine. but people had started to die. we left when my dad got sick. we now know in actual fact he had asbestosis at that time. it's almost like having an asthma attack where you can't breathe and you're fighting to catch your breath. my mum and my brother died from mesothelioma. it is an extremely harrowing disease to see someone dying from mesothelioma. there's just hundreds of people from wittenoom that i know of who have gone with mesothelioma or asbestosis. none of my family in that photo is alive, they're all gone, every one of them. there is no compensation for taking away your parents or your family. there is no justice in that at all. nothing.

money doesn't bring them back. money doesn't compensate for their death or what you miss. bronwyn duke on the wittenoom asbestos mine in australia. now in 1968, chairman mao launched a scheme to improve healthcare in rural china by giving thousands of people basic medical training and sending them out to work in villages. they were known as the barefoot doctors. gordon liu was one of them. i became a barefoot doctor after i graduated from high school simply because i was one of the most educated young persons. i had no training, no experience or knowledge in medicine whatsoever. voiceover: chairman mao says the sick must be healed and has caused a real shake—up in china's health services. voiceover: every commune, they say,

now has hospitals and clinics providing medical attention where there was none before. perhaps the most striking development has been the training of a vast corps of a barefoot doctors. they have their farm work to do as well, and their training is limited but even if you can teach people simple hygiene, it saves countless lives. we provided very basic services to our villages, mostly for the common cold conditions, infections, diarrhoea, things like that. barefoot doctor simply described that sometimes we had to take shoes off to work in farmland. we were not always barefoot. i do have shoes! i started as a barefoot doctor to not only treat the people but also treat animals. there was one case i still remember. one of my relatives,

she had a teeth problem, she had to go to the county hospital and she returned to the village and it was very painful. she said, "my little brother, can you do something for me?" i said, "i will give it a try." i went back to the chinese medicine books i had, i read the relevant chapters for dental care and i said, "can we try this?" after three or four days, the problem was gone. that news was out to the whole village. this little kid can do something much better than the county hospital, so i was very, very proud of it. big epidemics have been largely checked. this doctor said, "the only venereal disease cases we get in china now are those that come over the border from hong kong. in china, we stamped it out."

certainly, cholera and smallpox claim fewer victims than in the old days. i think most people in china and many people in other countries perceived the barefoot doctor system very highly. my view is somewhat different from that. back in the ‘60s, ‘70s, the result of the cultural revolution, the chinese higher education system was shut down, but if i could choose between going to the countryside for three years or going to college, mostly i would have chosen college but given that was the only choice available to me but yes, there was something positive there. gordon liu, one of china's barefoot doctors. that is all from witness this month at the british library. we will be back next month with more

first—hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history but now, from me and the rest of the witness team, goodbye. hello. as we head into the final 2a hours of 2018, the weather is looking pretty quiet with high pressure dominating. this was the scene as the sun set on sunday in st andrews, beautiful colours there. and as we head through the final day, that high pressure keeps us largely dry and settled during new year's eve,

quite a bit of cloud on offer. there could be a bit of rain in the north—west, particularly for north—west scotland. now, here is the area of high pressure that's holding onto our weather, here's the weather front approaching from the north—west. fairly tightly packed isobars in the north, so quite a windy spell of weather developing for northern parts of scotland on new year's day. we've got some rain working through into the west, but it will become increasingly light and patchy as it moves its way further south across scotland. elsewhere across the uk, we're looking at a largely dry day, spells of sunshine breaking through after a misty, murky start to the day, and again, it's still mild, so temperatures around about ten to 12 degrees during monday afternoon. if you're heading out new year's eve evening then, most of us again dry, with a few clear spells, there could be the odd spot of rain just pushing south into central parts of scotland, but that rain will be easing. so if you're hoping to catch the fireworks, it is looking dry for the majority of the uk. pretty cloudy conditions out there for a time, but as that front weakens as it pushes south, it willjust be a band of cloud sitting across parts

of northern ireland, into wales and central england first thing on new year's day morning. for most of us, it is still going to be reasonably mild. but things are turning colder from the north and that's all down to the fact that this cold front is pushing its way south during new year's day on tuesday. it will be fizzling out, so reallyjust a band of cloud, not much rain on that front. high pressure still the dominating force, but it's not really until tuesday night into wednesday that we see all this cold air really packing in from the north and things will feel quite different by then. this is new years' day on tuesday, more sunshine will develop across scotland, northern ireland and northern england too. further south, we keep some slightly cloudier skies. that breeze coming in from the north introducing some cloud across north—east scotland and eastern parts of england too. so temperatures in aberdeen only around 11 or so. we're still looking at ten to 11 degrees celsius down towards the south and the south—west of england. moving through then into the overnight period and that's when we see some frosty conditions developing. the blue colours on the map indicate where we'll see the lowest of the temperatures tuesday night. not quite as cold around some eastern parts of england with a little more cloud around, but as we start 2019, things are set to turn colder,

the frost returns, but there'll be plenty of sunshine on offer during the day. bye— bye. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. our top stories: bangledesh‘s prime minister, sheikh hasina, is declared the winner of the country's general election, as claims of vote—rigging emerge. but the main opposition has called the election farcical and is demanding a fresh poll. questions have been raised over the ability of a shipping company with no ships to run extra ferries in the event of a no—deal brexit. the uk government insists it was carefully vetted. time is running out for russia to hand over important anti—doping samples. a failure to meet the deadline could see new sanctions imposed. written out of history. why many black argentinians feel they are living in a country that doesn't recognise their

cultural identity.