this is bbc news, i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: happy new year. london begins 2019 in a blaze of fireworks. from red square to the middle east and beyond, crowds join in the new year celebrations. in other news: a man is arrested after stabbing three people in manchester. counter—terrorism police are leading the investigation. the world food programme says houthi rebels in yemen are stealing food aid from the hungry and selling it for a profit. 2019 is being rung in around the world. an hour ago, it was the united kingdom's turn. earlier, paris, dubai, moscow, hong kong and sydney all celebrated the start of the new year with huge firework displays, as caroline rigby reports. australia was one of the first

places to welcome in the new year, and sydney's celebrations went off with a bang, with its biggest ever fireworks display. huge thunderstorms earlier in the evening didn't dampen the spirits, as 1.5 million spectators turned out to watch. just hours before, auckland, new zealand, became the first major city to see in 2019. pyrotechnics launched from the sky city tower. in north korea, a mass choir held a concert in pyongyang. while almost $2 million worth of fireworks bathed

hong kong's victoria harbour in colour, accompanied by a dizzying mash up of auld lang syne sung in english, cantonese and mandarin. russians braved the cold to welcome in the new year in moscow's red square. while warmer weather in dubai saw revellers flocked to the burj khalifa for a spectacular light show on the world's tallest building. in the french capital, the arc de triomphe was bathed in multicolour as a body of fireworks lit up the sky over the shaun gleeson. celebrations wrung out across europe, from the ancient monuments of the acropolis in greece to berlin's brandenburg gate in germany. the new year wouldn't be new year in london without the bongs

of big ben, and the famous bell, which has been silent for renovation work, once again rang out. thousands of people lined the thames to watch the biggest fireworks display in europe. the theme— london is open, a celebration of the city's links with the continent amid the turbulent times of written‘s exit from the eu. whatever 2019 rings, this, a night which saw the world come together in celebration and then hope for the year ahead. celebration and then hope for the yearahead. —— celebration and then hope for the year ahead. —— britain's exit. and in the next power it is rio‘s turn, we will be live on copacabana beach. it promises to be spectacular, sojoin us beach. it promises to be spectacular, so join us for that. three people including a police officer have been wounded in a stabbing at a train station in manchester in the north of england. it happened at manchester victoria station. in a statement, british transport police said officers had responded to reports of a man wielding a knife. one man has been arrested.

a bbc producer, sam clack, witnessed the incident and he told us what he saw. it was pretty scary, i have to say that, for a start. and there was just me on the platform, and as i was standing there, ijust had the most bloodcurdling scream that i've ever heard. the police were very quickly on the platform, they were shouting at him and the guys started backing up towards me and he got to probably six to eight feet of me, and he was looking around very skittish. and at this point i didn't know that anything was happening other than a fight or something. it is new year's eve, people get drunk and have a fight. but i looked down and it might have

been his right hand, i looked down and thought he had a kitchen knife with a long, 12—inch blade in his hand, and he was backing up towards me looking very skittish. and that his point, ifelt a deep fear in the pit of my stomach, and thinking, this is actually — i feel very scared now. and i started to move towards the tracks, getting ready to jump on the tracks, run out of the way, at which point one of the police officers shouted taser. i couldn't say exactly what happened in terms of the next sequence of events, but he was pepper sprayed, he was tasered and he was brought to the ground. food intended for millions of people in yemen who are at risk of starvation is being stolen, according to the world food programme. the un agency says there is an illicit and systematic trade in diverted aid in areas controlled by houthi rebels, and has threatened to withdraw from one area where it claims just 40% of its aid has reached the intended recipients.

reem nada works for the un's world food programme in cairo. she told us what the wfp‘s investigation had found. we have photographs of lorries taking... illicitly taking food from food distribution points to unknown locations, and for the food to be appearing after that on the streets in the markets in yemen, at a time when yemenis are struggling. the most poor, who we are targeting, are struggling to feed their children, mothers are seeing their children dying and wasting away, while they are the rightful owners of this food. we are demanding that the local authorities in sa na'a food. we are demanding that the local authorities in sana'a take appropriate action towards the one organisation that... one partner that we have identified as diverting oui’ that we have identified as diverting our food to undeserving people, and there was a letter sent by the

executive director of the world food programme to the local authorities, and it does indeed say that within ten days, if we do not see action is being taken, we will withdraw our assistance in that area, and we have actually... this has been reported already. in that identified area, 40% of our assistance is what has been reaching the people. residents of an apartment block in russia have described waking up to find themselves falling, after a gas explosion devastated an apartment building in the urals region. four people were killed in the collapse in magnitogorsk, where it is thought the blast ripped through the first floor, before the seven storeys above then collapsed too. dozens more are missing in sub—zero temperatures. georgina smyth has more. the homes of 120 people reduced to a

pile of rubble. this is the aftermath of a gas explosion in central russia that ripped through the concrete structure of a nine story apartment building early on monday morning, when many were still asleep. rescue workers picked through ricks, mortar and an old metal, desperately looking for survivors. and among the carnage, people's belongings. president vladimir putin flew in to observe the damage, visiting those injured ina the damage, visiting those injured in a nearby hospital. translation: it's december 31 today, the eve of the festivities. unfortunately, such a tragedy took place in magnitogorsk. i would like to express my condolences to the families of the victims, and to assure those affected that we will do everything to help and support them. it is notjust time rescuers

are up against. magnitogorsk is experiencing temperatures of —22 celsius. onlookers, visibly distraught, await any news of more survivors. this woman says they received no information. officials believe the collapse was caused by a gas explosion and exacerbated by ageing infrastructure and poor safety regulations. rescue workers will stay on scene and work into what should have been a happy new year. here in the uk, two border force patrol boats are to be redeployed from overseas to patrol the english channel in response to recent migrant crossings. the home secretary, sajid javid's, announcement comes after he met with border force and national crime agency officials to discuss an action plan to tackle the growing number of migrants attempting to get to the uk. 12 more migrants, including a ten—year—old child, arrived on the kent coast on monday, bringing the total who have attempted to get here since november to 239. this report from vicki young contains some flash photography. kent police examining a vessel

bringing the latest group of migrants to the english coast. nine men, two women and a child landed here this morning, saying they were iranian nationals. almost 100 have arrived in small boats over the christmas period. morning, home secretary. the home secretary has been forced to swap his south african holiday for meetings in whitehall, promising to take personal control of the situation. i'm working out ways with the french to increase the number of returns that we can make, to also send a very strong message that we will do all that we can, notjust to protect human life, because of course that's the right and responsible thing to do at all times, but also to protect our borders. mrjavid announced he is redeploying two of the border force's largest ships, known as cutters, from abroad back to the uk to join other patrol vessels. the mp for dover says

it is important that illegal migrants aren't allowed to stay in the uk. what we need to see now is this dover patrol work hand—in—glove with the french authorities in a new channel compact, so that anyone found in the english channel in one of these unseaworthy craft can be helped carefully and safely back to the french coast, so they know there's no chance of getting into britain. those helping migrants say they shouldn't be demonised. we have to hold on to the fact that people, however desperate they are, are our brothers and sisters in humanity, and that's what we need to keep reminding people about. and they're refugees, unless proved otherwise. in the past, sajid javid has said that deploying more patrol vessels in the channel could act as a pull factor, encouraging migrants to make an extremely dangerous journey because they think they will be rescued. today, he set those concerns aside, but said people travelling from safe countries such as france couldn't expect to be allowed to stay

in the united kingdom. the numbers trying to cross the channel in boats like these are small in comparison to the 26,000 people claiming asylum in the uk in 2017. but political pressure has forced the home secretary to act. vicki young, bbc news. the north korean leader, kimjong—un, says he is ready to meet president trump at any time. in his new year's message, he repeated his commitment to denuclearisation, but said the united states would have to take reciprocal measures. mr kim warned that he would pursue an alternative course if the us misjudged north korea's patience and insisted on unilateral demands. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: the first democrat to signal their intention to run for the white house next year. left—wing senator elizabeth warren says she is thinking about it. the most ambitious financial

and political change ever attempted has got underway with the introduction of the euro. tomorrow in holland, we're going to use money we picked up in belgium today and then we'll be in france, and again, it'll be the same money. it's just got to be the way to go. george harrison, the former beatle, is recovering in hospital after being stabbed at his oxfordshire home. a 33—year—old man from liverpool is being interviewed by police on suspicion of attempted murder. i think it looks good. just good? no, fantastic. that's better. this is bbc news.

the latest headlines: london is among the latest european capital cities to welcome the start of 2019. big ben, the great bell of the clock tower at parliament, was brought out of repair to ring in the new year. across europe, asia and australasia, spectacular light shows, music and fireworks have welcomed the new year. the us democratic senator elizabeth warren has announced she is considering running for president in 2020 with a decision expected early in the new year. she's the first high—profile democrat to put herself forward for the race. ms warren made the announcement in a post on twitter in which she outlined her vision for the united states. a short while ago, she spoke to reporters outside her home. today i announced will be running

the president of the united states. i never thought i would run for anything ever in my life, but america's middle class is getting hollowed out and opportunities that too many of our young people is shrinking. so, i am too many of our young people is shrinking. so, iam in this fight all the way. our washington correspondent, gary o'donoghue, told us more about her message. she's talking about america, washington that works only for the wealthy and well—connected. it will obviously be a catchphrase of her fighting during this campaign. she has said that multiple times already. she said she will build a grassroots campaign with small dollar donations, like bernie sanders and barack obama did when he w011 sanders and barack obama did when he won victory. she is clearly pitching

her stand where we will expect on the left of the party. she would have been a champion if you like of workers rights in terms of representation on the boards of big companies, union representation, she has talked about raising the minimum wage significantly of course, and she has been the scourge in some ways of wall street and those sorts of institutions. it is going to be difficult for her because there are going to be other people on that wing of the party, not least perhaps even bernie sanders himself, who has a huge infrastructure already in place from the last time he ran and all those people who galvanised in that time, those huge rallies. they will be on a similar territory. there could be others as well. but the thing is it will be so crowded, there could be upwards of a dozen, even two dozen people in this field and the issue of course is that not only is their limited amounts of political space to share out between

these people in order to listing which themselves from one another, but the bottom line is there is a limited amount of cash as well and a lot of them will fall out of the racing be because there are campaigns go broke. let's take a look at a few more stories making the news now. sudan's president has insisted he can resolve his country's economic crisis after nearly to weeks of unrest. omar al—bashir pledged an election would be held in 2020. it comes as demonstrators targeted his palace in khartoum. at least one protester was shot dead as security forces protected the complex. israeli prime minister benjamin neta nyahu says he will not resign if he is indicted on corruption charges before his side of the case is heard. mr netanyahu is accused in three graft cases. he denies any wrongdoing. the israeli leader announced last week that a snap election will be held in april. the electoral commission in bangladesh has rejected opposition demands to hold fresh elections despite widespread reports

of vote rigging, voter intimidation and fraud. the governing party, led by prime minister, sheikh hasina, has been declared the winner. our correspondent yogita limaye reports from the capital, dhaka. the morning papers declare the result. a historic third consecutive term, a landslide victory. at her official residence, the prime minister told foreign observers and journalists why she was the people's choice. what people enjoy, now they are getting better lives. but there have been allegations of vote rigging around the country. one insta nce rigging around the country. one instance caught on camera by the bbc. i asked about it. there have been reports from different parts of the country the rigging of revolves in favour of your party. there is

video footage of a ballot box which was filled even before polling began. do you believe this was a fair election? if there is any irregularities, the election is then —— we don't want to encourage that. sometimes something may happen much it is not acceptable. a day after violence marred the national election here, things have been people around the country. the opposition has demanded fresh polls but it is an clear what the path ahead for them will be. many here, the absolute concentration of power with one party for the third time is a cause for worry. the impression that the government is dissent has been growing. earlier this year, government is dissent has been growing. earlierthis year, mass

protests were held by students over road safety. this photographer had criticised how the government handled the demonstrations. he was jailed soon after. there is an affair that there is so much insecurity and bridges and buildings don't give quality of life. at the end of the day, you have people who wa nt to end of the day, you have people who want to breathe again. that is not such an unrealistic desire, i would have thought. for a country lifting itself out of poverty, development is necessary. but many are asking if it is coming at the cost of freedom. a nasa probe is set to make history in the next few hours when it's due to fly past a space rock more than 4 billion miles from earth. if successful, it will be the furthest object ever visited by a space craft. the probe, called new horizons, will take a series of photos which may hold clues about the formation

of the solar system. our science editor david shukman reports. it has taken a long, dark trek through the outer reaches of the solar system. but now, the nasa spacecraft new horizons is on the brink of making history, about to reach the remotest world that humanity has ever ventured to. it's pure exploration. pure science and pure exploration. we're trying to understand the origin of the planets, and the object that we're going to fly by, nicknamed ‘ultima thule', is a frozen time capsule from the era of the birth of our planets. to explain what this mission is all about, let's use our virtual studio, and start with the middle of our solar system. now, orbiting closest to the sun are the four small rocky planets, including earth. then, further out, there are four much larger planets. the best—known of these is saturn with its famous rings. and then, right on the margin, there is tiny pluto, 3 billion miles away.

but it turns out that pluto is just one part of a massive outer zone we only started discovering in the last 20 years or so, thousands of tiny worlds, and lumps of rock and ice known as the kuiper belt. these are objects left over after the planets were formed. one of these is known as ultima thule, and until now, we've only had this artist's impression of it. but after racing from earth on a 13—yearjourney, nasa's new horizons spacecraft is about to fly past it, the most distant exploration in human history. we're going to be downloading data from the spacecraft at one kilobit per second over the next almost two years. now, the great thing about such a slow data transmission rate is that it's almost the gift that keeps on giving. every week or so, we'll get new images back from the spacecraft, and we're going to learn new things for the next two years. three years ago, the same spacecraft flew past pluto, and revealed something entirely unexpected —

that it's far more active than anyone realised. it may even have an ocean beneath the surface. so now, the discoveries about an even more distant world to be made in the coming hours may be just as surprising. david shukman, bbc news. a young american woman has been killed by a linux at a wildlife conservation park in north carolina. she had only been working at the centre in burlington for ten days when she was attacked. tom hanson from the bbc‘s partner cbs news has the details. and in turn helping to clean line enclosure was killed when the animals somehow escaped and attacked. alexandra had been working attacked. alexandra had been working at the conservatorium forjust attacked. alexandra had been working at the conservatorium for just ten days. we are devastated today that

we had an incident on our site that included the loss of life of one of the people who was working with our trained professional staff keepers. the incident occurred during a routine enclosure cleaning. the sheriff office said the line quickly killed woman. it deputies tried several times under that silly to sedate the lion. they eventually shot and killed him. sedate the lion. they eventually shotand killed him. in a sedate the lion. they eventually shot and killed him. in a statement, the family said the recent college graduate died following her passion. i can't graduate died following her passion. ican't imagine graduate died following her passion. i can't imagine the loss they are in during. ican't i can't imagine the loss they are in during. i can't imagine what it must feel like to be them. for now, the park which houses more than 80 animals, including tighter than other big cats, is close while an investigation is under way to figure out the lion escaped. that report by tom hanson from cbs news. new year is celebrations have been going on for many hours across europe, asia and the middle east. we will leave you now with some of the best pictures so far. from all of us

here, happy new year. hello. the closing stages of 2018 brought a lot of cloud across much of the uk. across northern areas of scotland, with all clear skies, and they will slowly filter southwards through the new year's day. increasing amounts of sunshine from the north, but also something much clock —— cold as this weak front moves this way southwards. there is a band of cloud. behind it we will see cold winds starting to dig in. we replaced the mild yellow colours with a cold blue colours and temperatures will be sliding over the next few days. this is how new year's day morning shapes up. it is mainly dry and sunshine. cloud across wales, south—east england and northern ireland. the odd spot of rate —— rain. it will not amount to much. a peppering of showers, sunshine in between. strong and

gusty winds will be easing all the while. a note all will ease across scotla nd while. a note all will ease across scotland and northern england, those winds are somewhat light as he had further south. a fairly grey start for some. that cloud starts to spin and break through the day. it is a mild start to the new year. slowly through the day, with the increasing amounts of sunshine, north or north—westerly winds of digging in. it will feel that he dearly chilly along the eastern coasts. the strength of the wind through the afternoon, it is stronger along the eastern coast starting to ease down across the northern isles. temperatures in a range from five or six across scotland and northern ireland to around seven to 12 across england and wales, mild further south. as we go through new year's day evening and into wednesday, we see clear skies developing perfectly across western areas. holding on to more cloud across the eastern coast, and temperatures staying up a freezing. elsewhere will be a chilly

start to wednesday with temperatures widely at orjust below start to wednesday with temperatures widely at or just below freezing. wednesday looks like a fine day, plenty of sunshine for most. eastern coast likely to be cut more cloud and a noted —— noticeable breeze making it feel much cooler. a dry day for many. plenty of sunshine. we have been stuck under cloud under recent days. temperatures much —— not much higher than three or four degrees. seven or eight further south. for the first week of the new year, south. for the first week of the new yea r, foster's south. for the first week of the new year, foster's or fog south. for the first week of the new year, foster's orfog returns. there will be more in the way of sunshine. this is bbc news. the headlines: london is among the latest european cities to welcome the start of 2019. big ben, the bell in the clock tower at parliament, was recommissioned to ring in the new year. in paris, the arc de triomphe was bathed in lights. earlier, thousands of russians celebrated in moscow's red square. three people including a police officer have been wounded in a stabbing in the northern

english city of manchester. one man has been arrested. a bbc staff member who witnessed the attacks said the suspect shouted allah, and slogans criticising the actions of western governments in the middle east. the world food programme says that food aid in yemen is being stolen in areas under the control of houthi rebels and illegally sold. a separate news agency investigation had found a similar misuse of food aid in regions under the sway of the saudi—led coalition. now on bbc news: it is the year the social media giants came under