you're watching newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: the latest attempt to halt the us government shutdown ends without agreement, and both sides blaming each other. apple shares fall, as it warns that disappointing sales in china have made a big dent in its revenues. i'm lewis vaughanjones in london. also in the programme: one giant leap for china's space programme, as it prepares to land a probe on the far side of the moon. times 550... 429,000. and we meet the ten—year—old south african boy who's been nicknamed the "human calculator". live from our studios in singapore and london, this is bbc world news. it's newsday. good morning.

it's 9am here in singapore, 1am in london and 8pm in washington, where a white house meeting to discuss the budget row that's led to a partial shutdown of the us government has ended without agreement. president trump showed no sign of backing down from his demand for more than $5 billion to build a wall along the us—mexico border. here's the president speaking just before the meeting. as long as it takes. i mean, look, i'm prepared, i think the people of the country think i'm right, i think the people of this country think i'm right. again, i have done nothing, i could have had a lot easier presidency by doing nothing, but i'm here, i want to do it right. i spoke just now to our correspondent in washington, david willis. i put it to him that there was no

sign of an end to the disagreement despite the shutdown having lasted 12 days. absolutely, still a stalemate, rico, and president trump continuing to insist on that more than $5 billion being made available to fund what was his signature campaign issue, a wall along the us border with mexico. the democrats want nothing to do with such a plan, some even view it, the whole notion of a wall as abhorrent, and a couple of weeks ago, their view on this sort of thing would not really have mattered very much, but it matters now because tomorrow, thursday here, they take control of the house of representatives, following their gains in the mid—term elections last year. and the democrats have already made clear that they will be putting forward bills that would provide funding for most of the key government departments here that are currently part

of this partial shutdown. now, as they emerged from talks at the white house today with president trump, this is what the leaders of both sides had to say to reporters. the president and vice president stayed here over the christmas holidays and there was absolutely no negotiations on the other side, so they want to keep delaying and have a government shutdown while trump said he wants to secure the border. on our last meeting, the president said i am going to shut the government down. they are now feeling the heat. it is not helping the president, it is not helping the republicans to be the owners of this shutdown. and, david, what has been the reaction of the american public regarding this shut down? well, it's interesting, rico, we have had of course the christmas holidays, in which president trump has been tweeting from the white house about all this, but, you know what, america has been

rather caught up in the holidays, apart of course from those 800,000 or so federal employees, some of whom have been sent home, others have been told to work without pay. the simple fact of the matter is that by making this budget settlement conditional on funding for his pet project, the border wall, president trump has somewhat painted himself into a corner here, because his conservative base is not going to accept anything less than funding for that wall now. david willis reporting from washington. let's take a look at some of the day's other news. us tech giant apple has announced it was going to have to revise its sales outlook causing its shares to fall nearly 8%. in an unexpected letter to investors, chief executive tim cook said weaker sales of the iphone in china were one of the key reasons behind the fall. he said trade tensions with the united states had put extra pressure on the market.

0ur north american business correspondent dave lee has this analysis. trading on apple shares was halted pending some news, we were told, and that news came quite quickly. the letter came out tim cook went into several reasons why his company is going to come in around, at least $5 billion under estimates for revenue than they originally made, originally predicted. the reasons were, one, that sales in china pretty much dropped off a cliff here recently, and they blame increased tension between the us and china on trade potentially to some of that problem. they also talked about issues with supply chain as well. tim cook said although apple had released very popular new products, sales of those products, particularly its watches and laptops and so forth have been held back because they simply have not been able to make enough, and supply chain constraints have hit sales there. and, overall, the iphone has been a bit of a handicap for apple in this

quarter because people are not upgrading them as often as they usually do. so, while the iphone is often apple's huge profit maker, people simply aren't going out and buying them as regularly as they have in the past. that is the real driving force behind that, particularly in china, where the problem is becoming increasingly serious for apple. that was dave lee. also making news today are washington's relations with beijing. the acting us defence secretary, patrick shanahan, started his first day in charge at the pentagon by stressing to his team that while they were dealing with ongoing operations in other parts of the world, they must always remember, "china, china, china." pakistan's prime minister imran khan has led tributes to his former teacher, major geoffery langlands, who's died in lahore at the age of 101. born in northern england, he first went to south asia with the british army and settled in pakistan after partition. he taught generations of students, including many future leaders, at the prestigious aitchison college before retiring in his mid—90s. the american comedian, hassan minaj,

has responded to a decision by netflix to remove an episode of his comedy from its service in saudi arabia. the edition of his show patriot act had been highly critical of the kingdom. netflix said it backed artistic freedom but had to "comply with local law". in a tweet, mr minaj remarked that, "clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on youtube." here are some pictures of the aftermath of a dramatic robbery on a main road in southern italy. criminals used mechanical diggers like giant tin openers to force their way into an armoured van. the vehicle was carrying pensions from bari to nearby matera. the thieves made off with $2.3 million in cash.

the guards in the van were unharmed. a chinese space probe has moved into position to land on the dark side of the moon for the first time, that's according to the country's media. the chang'e—li spacecraft, named after the moon godess in chinese mythology, slotted into a planned orbit on sunday to prepare for its historic landing. it's not clear when the landing would occur but experts says the craft is expected to set down on the von karman crater landing point between january first and 3rd. earlier, fred watson, who is aatronomer at large —— earlier, fred watson, who is astronomer at large of the commonwealth, told me why this was so significant. well, the first thing is, of course, it has never been done before. no spacecraft has attempted to make this hazardous lending. when you are completely out of radio contact with the earth, because the moon gets in the way, and the chinese have solved this problem very neatly by putting

in a relay transmitter, a relay spacecraft, about 20,000 kilometres beyond the moon in an orbit that allows the transmitter to see both the earth and the spacecraft at the same time. so the technical challenges are enormous, but of course the scientific possibilities for the far side of the moon are even bigger, and that is what is so exciting about this potential projects. is only being done now, why didn't the americans or russians do it in the first place? because they were preoccupied with the near side! there is so much interest in geology and size to be done on the near side of the moon, that i think it is now very well studied. the key thing, though, is that the far side of the moon is completely different in its structure from the near side. it is made of a class that is much thicker than the near side, it does not have these flows of basalt that we see

on the near side, quite different geographically. it might have been regarded perhaps in past times as the boring side the moon because it does have these wonderful seas made of basalt, but it is a place we can learn enormous amounts about the origin of the moon. lending on the dark side of the moon, mr watson, should be celebrated. why do you think china is being so secretive on when it is supposed to happen? well, i think that is just in the nature of the chinese space agency. they like to play their cards close to their chest. they keep things rather under wraps, but i can tell you that millions and millions of people in china are awaiting this news with bated breath. we know it is going to happen possibly within the next few hours, a successful landing on the far side of the moon would be a very big thing for china. it pushes it up in the space stakes to a very high level, one that has not been achieved before. yeah, very interesting thoughts from

fred watson. staying with the space theme, because nasa have released images from the new horizons probe of the most distant object in our solar system ever to be explored. they show the mysterious, icy world known as ultima thule some four billion miles away from earth. 0ur science editor david shukman explains. power. go ahead, power. power is green. mission control running through checks that confirm this incredible venture has worked. this is right where we predicted. flying right beside the most distant world ever explored. we have a healthy spacecraft. the relief of decades of planning paying off, and the scientists proud of giving us a view never possible before. ..science to help us understand the origins of our solar system. what this spacecraft and this team accomplished is unprecedented. here's where we were just a couple of days ago.

this was humanity's best image of ultima thule. well, that image is so 2018. laughter. meet ultima thule! they've discovered a strange shape which the scientists think looks like a snowman. they've even produced this image to make the point about this rock left over from the birth of the solar system. and lift—off of nasa's new horizon. back when the mission was launched, hardly anything was known about the outer reaches of the solar system. it was an extraordinary gamble just trying to get there. it's almost impossible to grasp how far the spacecraft new horizons has travelled, but 13 years ago it began a long trek across the solar system, leaving earth injanuary, 2006, to fly past the planets, including mars, jupiter, saturn. and then, in 2015, it made it all the way out to pluto, 3 billion miles away, before racing on for another billion miles to ultima thule, reaching it on new year's day,

skimming past, but still able to capture the images we're now starting to see. there's a lot that's surprising about this tiny world, made up of two pieces of rock joined together. so this may be the first glimpse of how the planets were eventually built. 0ne lump binding to another over millions of years. this shape informs our models of planetary formation. you can see that they're clearly two separate objects that have come together. so it's pretty exciting to see that. when new horizons flew past pluto, it revealed a world more active than anyone expected. now, this latest encounter has produced something even more profound, a snapshot of what it took to make planets like our own. david shukman, bbc news. you're watching newsday on the bbc.

still to come on the programme: why did police have to use tear—gas and water cannon near a shrine in southern india? also on the programme: how's your mental maths? we meet the ten—year—old south african boy who's been nicknamed the "human calculator". 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 0xfordshire 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 newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. i'm lewis vaughanjones in london. our top stories. a meeting called by president trump to discuss the budget dispute that's led to a partial us government shutdown has broken up without agreement. the tech giant apple is warning that revenues have taken a big hit — largely because of disappointing sales in china. let's take a look at some front

pages from around the world. the south china morning post reports on china's plummeting birth rate. according to mainland media, around two million fewer babies were born in 2018 compared with the year before. the post calls it the biggest threat to china's future prosperity. the straits times reports on changes to singapore's exam—heavy school curriculum. by moving away from a focus on exams, the government hopes students will be able to ‘discover the joy of learning.‘ finally, the japan times looks ahead to a busy year injapanese politics. from the abdication of emperor akihito to hosting the 620 summit in the summer, the times predicts a ‘hectic‘ yearforjapan. police in southern india have used

tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters angry that two women have worshipped at a high—profile shrine. the women were helped by indian police to enter the temple in kerala, which is at the centre of a bitter dispute between conservatives and activists. devina gupta reports. these women are moments away from breaking a centuries—old tradition at this hindu temple. in the cover of the dark, these two women in their 40s are seen going inside the sabarimala shrine in the south indian state of kerala — an act that has broken gender barriers. this temple is home to the hindu lord ayyapa, who is believed by devotees to be a celibate.

so, women of menstruating ages, defined as between 10 and 50 by the temple, were not allowed here. although india lifted the ban on women entering sabarimala temple last year, there were protests by conservative hindu groups preventing women of menstruating age on entering the shrine. activists bindu and kanaka durga have finally entered the temple, but they were escorted by two policemen. the issue has divided women across the country. just yesterday, thousands of women gathered to make a human chain to protest against conservative groups. today, they hailed this act as a symbolic victory. translation: the entry of women in sabarimala is a historic win for us. it's a victory of the movement for equality and it's a victory of women power. but another group of women have protested against what they call is desecration of their faith.

even the temple was shut down for a purification ritual and violent clashes were reported across the state — a sign that the fight for their right to pray is far from overfor women here. devina gupta, bbc news, delhi. thailand's royal household has announced that the country's new king will be officially crowned during three days of ceremonies from 11th may. king maha vajiralongkorn has been serving as monarch since shortly after his father died in 2016 — following a 70—year reign. his official coronation has been delayed until the mourning period was complete. let's get more from our correspondent in bangkok, jonathan head. how much does this coronation mean to the monarchy? symbolically, it is very important. he is already officially king, that happened not immediately after his father died. there was a delay when he was

officially appointed king or recognised as king in december 2016 but this is a country where ritual still matters and this king, though he is of the modern age, shows you ca re he is of the modern age, shows you care is a great deal about traditional rituals. they spent a long time thinking about choosing auspicious dates on the date is choosing is very close to the date that his father was crowned back in 1950. once those rituals take place, and they involve rituals steeped in buddhist and hindu and brahminic traditions, and he is conferred with all the spiritual powers, including the royal regalia, including a seven kilograms pointed crown which he puts on his head, all of this in a country where these rituals matter, it will be seen as very important and marking the final enthronement of this king. he does remain effectively a constitutional monarch

but of course, after such a long reign under his father who more or less shaped the modern monarchy, he is likely to be a different kind of king. jonathan, do we have a sense of what kind of monarch the new king is going to be for thailand? well, obviously you have to preface everything you say about the monarchy when you are based here, as iam, by monarchy when you are based here, as i am, by accepting the limitations that you're not allowed to say anything negative about the royal family or the monarchy. it does somewhat limit us but we've seen somewhat limit us but we've seen some interesting limitations. this king is going to be more hands—on than his father who tended to stand back and rely on his moral character to influence things. is taken very firm control, much firmer control than his father of the massive royal fund, the crown property bureau, worth about $40 billion, he's made it clear he controls that money. he is taking back parcels of oil land that have been occupied by the

national museum, the zoo and the parliament, though we're not sure what he wants to with them and we have seen clear signs of a willingness to get involved, for example, in influencing military promotions. he was in the army before and ceases position as a person with great military interest, important ina person with great military interest, important in a country where the army is still so powerful but we believe he has a say over a whole range of issues including the dramatic rescue of the boys in the cave earlier this year. it's difficult to know because there is so much opacity surrounding the monarchy, exactly how involve years. but there is no doubt he is consulted and does have a final say ona consulted and does have a final say on a whole range of conditions in thailand. a 10—year—old boy in south africa is causing a stir in the world of maths. sibahle zwane has an extraordinary ability to work out huge sums in his head. now his mental arithmetic is turning him into something of a social media sensation. pumza fihlani has been to meet him. welcome to maths.

class is in session. at this farm school, the pupils are hard at work perfecting their maths skills. but there's one who stands out. meet sibahle zwan. called the human calculator, he's just ten years old. anyone who knows the answer? sibahle? 540. translation: i'm the best at maths in the whole school. when people see me, they ask me to do sums for them to test how good i am. and they are surprised when i give the answers right. some people even give me money for doing difficult numbers. i give that money to my mother, and that makes me happy. he was discovered when a local policeman filmed him. 250 times 11? 2,750. at home, his mother may not be able to help him with his homework, but she is his biggest fan. we always dream big, most of the time.

with me, i wish everything that could go well for him. i want him to explore. he loves challenges. 78... and so we put him to the test. times... 550. 42,900,000. what? how did you do that? after a professional assessment, he is deemed a gifted child, but that brings other challenges. he becomes bored easily and needs unconventional teaching methods in order to thrive. professor belinda huntley runs the wits siyanqoba maths olympiad programme, and wants sibahle tojoin her class and compete with some of the best minds in the world.

if he isn't enriched now, he's just going to dissolve into the rest of the masses. he's just going to be expected just to keep up with the curriculum. and now admitted to the geniuses programme, young sibahle finally has a chance at a bright future. not going to try any mathematics. i will just say that you have been watching newsday. belinda boyd. stay with us, we will be looking again at the future of one of the world's biggest text companies, apple. that's all for now. stay with bbc world news. good morning.

well, we've certainly been chasing cloud amounts around the country at the moment, but my new year's resolution was to stay on the optimistic side with a glass half full. so, for the next few days, yes, it will stay chilly, but i'm optimistic that we'll see a little more in the way of sunshine coming through. but frost and freezing fog patches could be an issue first thing in the morning. now, the uk is sandwiched right in the middle between this mild air sitting out in the atlantique and colder air across eastern europe at the moment. there is an area of high pressure across the uk and circulating around the high, the wind direction always driving in a little more cloud close to the coasts. so, just come further inland, that's that we'll see the clearest of the skies. that's where we're likely to be the best of the sunshine as well. now, if you're up and off early on this morning, it's going to be a chilly start, as you can see right through the spine of the country, really. the blue tones denoting those temperatures below freezing. well below freezing in some places.

it may be as low as —5 and —6 degrees in more rural spots. so, it's going to be a cold and a frosty start to thursday morning. that's where the best slice of the sunshine is likely to be, though, along those east coasts. we'll have more cloud just driving in. and with a south—westerly flow out to the west as well, a little more cloud and a little more moisture, and there, we could see the problem with some fog forming a little later on. top temperatures, though, for thursday afternoon — 3 to 7 degrees the high. now, as we go into the evening hours, that's when we could potentially see some freezing fog forming. if that happens, it may well be slow to clear away. but the real cold air and the stormy weather at the moment is across eastern europe. we've seen some heavy rain and even snow at lower levels across greece and turkey at the moment, and that bitterly cold air is sitting not only across the south—east mediterranean, but it's moving all the way up generally through eastern europe over the next few days. the yellow tones — i'm not going to say mild, but something a little less cold across portugal, spain, france and the uk. but if we get some freezing fog first thing on friday morning, it may be slow to clear away,

and that could have quite an impact on the temperatures. so, again, there will be some sunshine around after a cold and frosty start on friday. if the freezing fog lingers, and favoured spots for that a little milder the further west we go. this quiet theme of weather looks likely to continue into the weekend. on the whole, it will be largely dry, but, again, we're going to be chasing cloud amounts around. i'm lewis vaughan jones with bbc news. our top story: a meeting called by president trump to discuss the budget dispute that's led to a partial us government shutdown has broken up without agreement. as they left the white house, republican and democrat congressional leaders accused one another of intra nsigence over the cause of the dispute — mr trump's demand for $5 billion for a border wall with mexico.

apple has warned investors that its latest revenue figures will be sharply lower than previously expected. the company said it hadn't foreseen the scale of the economic slowdown in some emerging markets, particularly china. and this video is delighting people all over the world: two giant panda cubs born last october in east china have been practising their feeding skills. sway—bao and sin0jin are learning to drink from a bowl and eat bamboo shoots, just like their parents. that's all. stay with bbc world news. and the top story in the uk: the home secretary, sajid javid, has cast doubt on whether migrants trying to cross the english channel in small boats are genuine asylum