vowing to rule the country with an iron fist. the far—right firebrand, often dubbed the ‘trump of the tropics', has vowed to crack down on corruption and crime and hailed the end of socialism in the country. nasa's scientists have been celebrating after their space probe new horizons successfully flew by the most distant object ever encountered. this is the first image it captured of an icy world on the very edges of our solar system. they called it an historic moment. an 11—month—old baby boy has been pulled from the rubble of a block of flats in russia 36 hours after the building collapsed following a gas explosion. eight bodies have so far been found. now on bbc news, victoria derbyshire looks back on some of the memorable moments from her programme in 2018 — from exposing the problems patients with hernia mesh implants have been

facing, to an interview with two women who were affected by victoria's own breast cancer story. hello and welcome to our programme. over the next half an hour, we'll bring you some of the exclusive interviews and original stories that we've brought you over the last 12 months. since 2016, this programme has been exposing the complications that have arisen for people who've had vaginal and hernia mesh implants. in another first in august this year, we revealed that as many as 170,000 people in england alone could be suffering from complications related to hernia mesh surgery. we heard from some who said the pain was so excruciating, that they had even contemplated suicide. you go... 0w, jesus! would you like to stand up?

no, no. david ellis experiences shots of pain a couple of times an hour. the 57—year—old says today is actually not too bad. that's a good one. yeah. 0w, jesus. yeah, iwill... david discovered he had a recurring hernia in 2014. his surgeons said they would fix it with keyhole surgery. he said they didn't tell him they would be using a large piece of mesh. he woke up in pain and the outgoing man who love to play football, whose son, who worked, began to fade away. being honest, i actually do feel like a freak. when you do have these attacks and you've seen a couple of little ones, people look at you. i know they'rejudging me.

david has spoken to his gp and his surgeon about his worsening pain multiple times. he's even attended a pain clinic where he was given injections, pills and acupuncture. nothing has helped. he felt like doctors didn't believe him so never formally complain. the life that i knew has gone. i can't even sleep properly. i used to sleep on my front. three hours a night if i'm lucky now. regularly take pills. i have to to function. yeah, it's not something that you choose for yourself. so, that's why that's how i feel... yeah, i have, i have so many times come close to ending it because of the pain. how convinced are you that it's the mesh that's causing

all these problems? i'm100%. i don't ever think i'll get my life back, but i want to be better than i am. with it in me, that's not going to happen. this programme can reveal the nhs has carried out at around 570,000 hernia mesh operations in six years. but the procedure has been used since the ‘90s so numbers are likely to be even higher. leading surgeons believe the complication rates between 12 and 30%, which means up to 170,000 patients could be affected. yet we found nhs trust in england have no consistent policy for guidelines on treatment or follow—up with patients. sometimes the issue is the mesh, sometimes it's how the surgeons use it. if there are problems, few have the skills needed to solve them, particularly with in the nhs. what is it like to remove mesh? it's really very, very difficult. because the mesh is

growing into the tissue. the material becomes so stiff, so sharp, that you can really hurt yourself if you touch the edge. this doctor is a leading hernia surgeon in the private sector and has carried out 27,000 repairs. she mainly uses a suture technique instead of mesh, but fears her preferred method is dying out because young surgeons are rarely taught it. all the patients i have done so far, it's 80% without mesh and only 20% with mesh. and why do you do that? because i see so many patients with problems after a mesh repair. i've done more than 3,000 mesh removals because of chronic pain. she says 99.9% of these removals have been a success. i've only have two patient so far who didn't become pain—free after mesh removal. out of 3,000? yes. that story came to us

from one of our viewers. if you have a story you think we should be covering, do get in touch. you can e—mail our programme — victoria@bbc.co.uk. back in march, noel edmonds came on our programme. in a wide—ranging interview, he talked about his life and career, including the moment when he suggested to a cancer patient on social media that he may have developed cancer because of his negative attitude. you were criticised for two things around the issue of cancer. one was this — the gadget the electromagnetic pad, which you suggest it could help tackle cancer. "tackle" being the relevant word that you use. and, secondly, you were criticised because you tweeted to a cancer survivor who'd tweeted you, by saying you are talking quackery and it should be made illegal. you tweeted back, "scientific fact — disease is caused by negative energy and then you asked

this twitter user, "is it possible your ill health is caused by your negative attitude." do you regret that, saying that to him? no, not at all. i regret the fact that he didn't answer the question. why would you suggest that to someone, though? because it is a scientific fact that negative energy causes disease and negative thoughts are part of that energy process. if you are faced with a serious illness, you had to come at it with a positive mental attitude. it changes the outcome and millions of doctors and millions of scientists have told me that. i have an expression... don't you think it's a horrible thing to say to a cancer survivor? well, i think it was horrible the way he started the dialogue. no, but i'm asking you about what you said to him. the only concession i will make is, i stopped doing twitter because i realised you cannot have a balanced debate through twitter. but i'm asking you — do you not think it was horrible what you said to him? no, because i asked him a question. it's a perfectly reasonable

question to ask somebody — do you think that your negative attitude has possibly contributed to the situation you find yourself in? do you not think it would upset that person? possibly. does that not bother you? well, that chapter has gone. i'm very, very relaxed with the principle that if you want to tackle big problems in your life and serious disease, you have to come at it in a positive way and there's a whole range of things you can do before you subject yourself to big pharma and chemicals in your body, etc. do you think all cancers can be caused by negative attitudes? no. which one? i don't know, i'm not a doctor. exactly. sorry, the point you are making is? i don't quite understand the link that you're making. you're suggesting to one cancer sui’vivoi’ that his cancer was caused

by his negative attitude... no, i asked a question. is that not the same as suggesting... i wasn't doing a diagnosis, victoria. i asked the question — is it possible that..? and you could come at it the other way and say that somebody should actually think to themselves, "actually, that's quite a good point. "am i in this situation "because i've created a negative energy about my being?" and that could actually be construed as a very positive thing. and, obviously, you know that there are very positive people who get serious diseases who don't make it? correct. yeah, my father being one. so, it's notjust about the positive attitude? this is not binary. what i do think is that we need to explore a lot more about the energy of the human body and we need to understand it's back to my fko, find out the facts, then you gain the knowledge and then you're qualified to have an opinion. 0k. since our interview, noel edmonds has gone on to apologise for those remarks and any upset they may have caused. on our programme, as you know,

we are not afraid to tackle taboo subjects, such as couples who told us their relationships were loving and happy, theyjust never had sex. according to a survey for mumsnet, that was exclusively shared with you, we reveal that one in ten couples under the age of 30 said they had sex less than ten times a year. just in case you have children around and you don't want them to watch this next film, it lasts around five minutes. sex in relationships. are we all at it like rabbits? or does "netflix and chill" mean netflix and chill? is sex the secret ingredient when it comes to a long—lasting and happy relationship? or is it absolutely fine if the only action between the sheets is snoring? do we spend too much time worrying about whether our sex live measures up to other people's?

and if sex drops off the menu completely, does that matter and does that mean it's gone from your relationship forever? hi, i'm amanda and i'm 35 years old. hello, i'm steve and i'm also 35 years old. we have been married for 5.5 years, about 6 years. and how often would you say we have sex? i think we're probably on average about every six weeks! the noise in the background may be indicative as to why. yeah. we also have a 22—month—old son called elliot. who is trashing the place. i'm charlotte. i'm jacob. and we've been together for four years. we haven't had sex for the last three of them and we're not planning to.

yeah, we are very much in love, but it's no longer part of our relationship. hi there, i'm steve. and i'm tom. and we've been going out now for four years. we've been married for a year and i've never had sex with tom. so we identify as asexual, which means that we have no sexual attraction to each other or anyone else, but we're still very much in love. it's possible that people are having less sex than they did maybe ten years ago. we certainly seem to be seeing as more people are reporting that they are dissatisfied in their sexual relationships. whether that's a cultural shift in being more comfortable in regards to talking about sex, or whether people are actually having less sex, i'm not sure. would you say it was quite physical than at the start, when you got together? yeah. no. i wouldn't say so. i'm going to come off quite badly in this. no, you're not, it'sjust the truth. when we get into a good run and we have sex more regularly, it's great.

like, when we have sex, we have good sex. that's true actually, yeah. the frequency has decreased since we've had elliot, for sure. it depends how many fits and starts, like those fits and starts, the highs and lows you have. sometimes it used to be on average twice a month, but you might have three or four times. two sets of two. yeah. even the other month, like, i think we are getting back into... yeah, we have been getting better. it was like twice in two days. which was great, oh, my god! let's carry on and then elliot started teething so it was like, let's not carry on. yeah, let's just lie here. it's a coma. and for once, or lack of sex life at the minute is down to me. i'm just so tired all the time because myjob is full on, and so it's full on there and then full on at home. and i don't cope when i'm tired. steve just cracks on with it and he's fine and then he'll have the occasional sort of outburst where he's a bit grumpy for a day. but ijust — i totally shut down when i don't have enough sleep. you know, ifind it hard enough

to keep my mood up and then sex just goes to the bottom of it. it's like my libido isjust tired. yeah. we both identify as homo—romantic asexual, which means that we are homo—romantic, so we're attracted to each other, we're both attracted to the same gender and asexual means we are not sexually attracted to people or each other. it's very different to celibacy. it's not a choice, it's a sexuality. and tell me about your first date. what was our data like, the first date we had? we had an indian takeaway at my flat. first time you'd ever had one. first time i'd ever had an onion bhaji. we sat down, we ordered some food. we got the food delivered. we watched a film. halfway through the film, i did the typical, very sort of like... that was the tester, wasn't it? yeah, i rememberthat. yeah, i thought you'd remember that. and it's probably one

of the best one—night stands that we both ever had. then nothing happened, it was brilliant. we sort of tried it to see what worked for us for the first six months. it really wasn't making either of us happy. because it wasn't... i'm asexual and some asexuals can enjoy sex and that's quite normal, but lots of them don't. so i wasn't happy and jacobs told me a lot of times that he doesn't want to be having sex with someone who doesn't want to be having sex, which sounds obvious, but a lot of people don't get that. ultimately, we tried what was normal and that wasn't working. it just wasn't something that i felt was important beyond any other part of our relationship and it wasn't something that was going well for us and it wasn't a deal—breaker in any sense of the term. i mean, it's fun, it's exciting and it's a big deal for some people. but ultimately i had a fantastic relationship with a wonderful person and it wasn't even slightly comparable in terms of what was important to me. i think people understand that

you can have sex without love and people understand the concept of hook—ups and that kind of proves that they are separate concepts that can exist individually. i think it's extremely sad the way some people prioritise sex over happiness when you shouldn't be measuring it by the amount of sex you get, you should be measuring yet by how happy you both are, whether that involves sex or it doesn't. earlier this year i took part in an itv show, along with seven other women whose lives have been affected by breast cancer. in the real full monty: ladies night, we bared all with the sole aim of encouraging women to check their own breasts. two weeks after that show was broadcast, two women wrote to this programme with their touching stories and we brought them together. i got myself a nice big glass of sherry and i sat down and put my feet up on my recliner.

put a blanket over my legs, and i'm looking forward to the next day, because that's when i had family coming, good friday. i watched the programme. i laughed and i cried. i cried with you! and then at the end of the programme, it flashed up, now, ladies, go check your breasts. and i thought, well, i will perhaps do that. but when i woke up in the morning, this flashed across my mind. i read it there in front of me, check your breasts. so when i had my shower, i stood in front of the full—length mirror, and there it was. that one was much shorter than that one. this is the bad one. a nipple had gone right up half inside. i thought, oh. i started to feel around my nipple and there was this craggy feeling lump. total disbelief.

you said you had found you had an inverted nipple and your breast had gone flat. and that's when you had the alarm bells ringing, like i did. i've always had an inverted nipple, but it was slightly more inverted than normal. when i don't wear a bra, i'd noticed that i had a significant dip, whereas before it was quite flat. so i went to my doctors. what do you think you feel about having had breast cancer? i don't think i think anything. i really don't think i think anything at the moment. i think i'm probably still a little bit raw and numb. can i ask you both, what if you hadn't checked yourself? i would have been none the wiser. i would never have thought to go under my nipple to find a lump. and i never would've noticed a difference because i wouldn't have stood in front of the mirror.

it's amazing, what you did. isn't she amazing? well, it's what you did because you checked yourself. that was the key. because of you talking and bravely talking about it in front of however many people were listening that night, we both did something about it. and i don't believe that if... that i would have done something about it. and i'm going to throw it back at you. so, how does it make you feel, knowing that what you did has had this effect on us? oh, that's a really hard question. sorry. that's a really good question. so i'm really sorry that you have and have had breast cancer, i'm really sorry, obviously. but i'm also really glad that you took the message from the programme and you checked yourselves, which is what we wanted.

and, ok, you found something, but actually i think thank god you did. have you thought about the future? do you think about processing what you've just experienced? i don't think i'm looking at it in terms of life or death, if i hadn't. ithink i'mjust... i don't know. i'm really not sure how i'm feeling, do you know, at all. it's not the end of the world. it's just that word cancer. it will affect everybody. if anyone says to you, you have cancer, you go into overdrive. and i want to let you know that really sadly we found out earlier this month, that margaret, one of the very brave women in that film has died and we are so, so sorry for her family and we send them on love and our condolences. every new development on brexit

seems to drive either side further apart and the debate becomes even more polarised. we decided to find out if there was any consensus when it came to leave or remain, so we invited two high—profile names, unknown to each other and on opposite sides of the debate, out to lunch. a brexit blind date. cards on the table. i felt very, very strongly i would have voted for brexit if i had a vote. well, i'm leaving! that's the end of this beautiful relationship. a pitcher of water in your face! what was it? i'm so curious. obviously, my cards on the table, after the research i've done, i would vote against it. ifeel that the eu has become a massive, bloated machine

that is taking big chunks of, i don't know, sovereignty and law... sounds a lot like my uncle. i have an uncle like this. yes, he's going to know who i'm talking about too. fat, bloated, taking big chunks. leave some pecan pie for me! something other than it started off being. you'd hear crazy things about decisions being made in the european courts and made by people who we haven't elected. ijust came at it from this very practical point, where i'm not saying... i agree with you. the eu is troubled and there's things that i don't like about it. but i want to make sure that people living in this country that i've fallen in love with, that their kids and their farms and their retirements are safe and itjust feels like a giant gamble.

there's this opinion that's very british, i think, which is we've made the vote, we've made our decision and now we can't turn back and there's pride attached to that. the beauty of having a democracy is you get to change your mind and guess what, it is still the people but we have better information. so that one, i would say, guys, take the pride in this case, put it aside. by the way, it might pass again. for me i feel very strongly that if they vote then to remain in a second referendum, we are then completely rubbishing the democratic vote of the first referendum. it's a really difficult one. and would we understand all the facts? whether you voted that way or not in the beginning, who cares? that's the past. let's move forward. if the people who have been marching in hyde park and making very clever signs are serious about remaining, they have a job to do and it's about organising, it's about making

a compelling case to stay, convincing people across dinner tables like this, and you do that with an open heart. this isjust going to get people more entrenched and then you've got to take that to your mp5. and it's going to be very hard. i think this... we... we? no, but... i think great britain doesn't stay in the eu without a bit of a miracle right now and i think that miracle would mean not moving to 51% in favour of staying but 70 and above. it would need to be very... sorry, guys. grandad's coming in. hello. how are you? we're just filming for brexit. oh, my god. this is the best thing that's ever happened in my entire life. it's five o'clock. why are you talking about breakfast? nice to see you. yes!

breakfast is lovely. god bless him. he reminds me of my grandad actually, my english grandad. thanks for watching and we're back live on january the 7th. in the meantime, you can watch our films on our programme page, bbc.co.uk/victoria. hello there. after a bland week of weather over the festive period, the new year brought some contrasting weather conditions. colder with some shower, cloud up into the far north—east, a window of sunshine for southwest scotland and northern england. but thicker cloud further west and that weather front is still to clear away and here we had cloud and drizzle and it stayed pretty mild. behind that weather front, that northerly flow will start to take hold and for the rest of the week, a stark contrast in the feel of the weather. that northerly flow will also bring the risk of cloud along the east coast, but we start wednesday

further west with some clear skies and a touch of frost to begin with. but it will be a sparkling start to wednesday, the further west you are, with some lovely spells of sunshine coming through. all the time because of that northerly wind on exposed east—facing coast, we could run the risk of more cloud and a few scattered showers across east anglia and that kent coast as well. but further west with the sunshine, temperatures maybe out to 3—5 degrees, maybe to the west, where there's a little more coastal cloud, temperatures of maximum seven degrees. the high pressure stays with us for much of the week but it changes its position a little, and that allows the wind direction to change very subtly. we still keep that northerly flow across those east coasts but further west, we start to drag in a return to a south—westerly, a slightly milder air source, but that will also bring with it a little more moisture as well and more cloud. so south—west england, wales, northern ireland, west—facing coasts of scotland could start off pretty cloudy and murky, maybe

with a little bit of freezing fog in places. further inland, the best chance of seeing some sunshine, but again, still not a particularly warm day on thursday. highest values of three to nine degrees perhaps in the far north—west of scotland. as we move out of thursday night, we keep the clear skies and those temperatures are likely to fall away, the exception again is the further west you are. temperatures will tumble and we could have a widespread cold and frosty night across the country, maybe the coldest night throughout the week. 0vernight lows generally down to —3, “11, maybe even lower in rural parts. but it does look as though we will continue to see some lovely spells of sunshine on friday. indications of things clouding over a little though for the start of the weekend, and as we get into sunday, the high pressure could weaken off and we could see a weather front pushing into the far north—west, which could bring more significant rain. take care. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america

and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: far—right firebrand jair bolsonaro's sworn in as brazil's president. he promises to rule with an iron fist. history caught on camera — the first image of a distant world on the edge of our solar system. thousands turn out in tokyo for emperor akihito's last new year address before his abdication. and in russia, a remarkable rescue — a baby boy is pulled from rubble 36 hours after a gas explosion.