or prosecuted in court. in china, the city of harbin is kicking off it's annual winter festival with the world famous ice sculptures. ice and snow carvers have unveiled their masterpieces, which are made from big chunks of ice dragged out of the nearby river, carved, brushed and lit up. harbin‘s temperatures can fall to minus 25 degrees celsius but despite the cold, the winter festival is a huge tourist attraction — more than a million people visited last year. now it's the twelfth day of christmas and if you were wondering what to do with your lefover christmas tree — here's an idea. in the us state of maine, these goats are being treated to cast—off christmas trees. smiling hill farm took in 650 trees last year and is treating its hungry herd of goats to the same festive feast this year. time for a look at the weather.

we can cross the newsroom to elina jenkins. a failing grade a across much of the uk, extensive cloud cover. part of northern and eastern parts of wales, but generally it has the cloud that will wind. semantics of rain into northern ireland and western scotland. a lot of cloud over night, a few breaks could just get temperatures close to freeze and across southern parts of england. otherwise around four and five celsius. tomorrow, the cloud be thick enough for some drizzle across the north of england. some sunshine across northern scotland, tempted here around seven or eight celsius. further south, around nine or 10 celsius. but this deepening area of

low pressure celsius. but this deepening area of low pressure comes celsius. but this deepening area of low pressure comes in as we go into monday, it will be very windy, particularly across northern scotland. gusts of up to 80 mph. behind that, things started to come down, and turns colder again. police have released the name of the man who was fatally stabbed on a train in surrey yesterday. the family of 51—year—old lee pomeroy say it was a "pointless attack". a man's been arrested in connection with the murder. smokers and problem drinkers admitted to hospital in england will get help to quit or cut down to try to reduce demands on the health service. in the united states, three people have been shot dead at a bowling alley in torrance, near los angeles. witnesses say there was a fight before shots were fired. ryanair has been voted the worst short—haul airline for the sixth year in a row in a survey by the consumer group which? rya nair has described the result as "irrelevant". now on bbc news,

the team from radio 1's newsbeat travel to malawi to join bush patrols as they work to stop a practice which has long threatened many animals across africa. the poacher hunters contains some images you may find upsetting. whispers: it's 50-50 whether they'll just turn back and run away, orjust charge straight at you. so you've always got to be sort of looking around for places you can go just in case they do decide to charge. so it's pretty dangerous. whispers: it's coming. your mission, patrol the park be prepared to arrest poachers... ..and be prepared to assist with casualties. no matter where you are

and whether you think we are losing or not, losing the fight, is that the situation is not good. fuelled by greed, no matter what the cost. it's a problem with no easy fix. because most jobs out here don't pay well, whereas if they get a rhino horn, it's a pretty big payday. this is where poaching happens on the ground, but above us is a whole network of syndicates and cartels. i've never seen a rhino up close before. a kilo of rhino horn will go for £100,000. and now the british army has got involved in malawi in trying to protect some of the world's most threatened species. what's important for us is to make sure that our rangers on the ground are fully equipped and trained and, you know, in the best position to fulfil their duties to protect the area.

when we leave for patrols, we celebrate that we've come back alive. birds call we are going to attack the enemy. yeah. he needs to be stopped. two types of patrol that we're engaged in while we are here. one is strict long patrol where the cpos, the soldiers will go out with two rangers and work through mentoring them on various professional skills. the commander will decide which way he wants to move. yeah. either left or right. if he moves right... yeah? to there. the others, they'll move left. yeah? yelling he is now at the poacher. stop firing, ok. our position clear. yeah? go. we have the bit where we're trying to learn as much as we can off these guys.

as well as we are attached to the rhino trackers, sort of the park elite. they're proper bushmen, their field craft is phenomenal, they know everything there is to know about finding rhino and tracking rhino. the black rhino are not docile. they're short sighted and bad—tempered, they have very good hearing and a very good sense of smell. they're territorial, and they don't like other things being in theirarea. they also know what humans smell like and they don't like the smell of human, and they'll respond to your presence very quickly. so you need to be able to get in close enough to them, stay downwind and get close enough to take a picture to confirm it is the rhino you were after. so i want to go round now. i want you to check the ammunition states, the casualties and the equipment of your guys. 0k? yeah. that's one of the things that we're emphasising, is improving communication, particularly for clear reporting, primarily for medical or anti—poaching purposes. control, alpha nine, mike, gunshot, india, gunshot wound, over. alpha nine, roger so far. their appetite for this is immense. they're extremely enthusiastic

about all the medical stuff, in general in all the training we've been doing with them, across the board, but particularly the medical. ..and go, "hello, hello, can you hear me?" and if they don't respond, then we can test if they respond to your voice. here, pressing. can you hold my hand? yes, so he is able to respond, yes. there are 14 british soldiers in all. this section are in the majete reserve in the south of malawi. the situation, then, it's nearly the end of the month, we're getting close to payday, so we can expect an increased demand for bush meat. whether that translates into increased poacher activity in the south of this area, wait out. bear in mind, from the boma out this way, there were two lions released this week. i know we've already had lion encounters in the north. those two lions that have been released here are males, so the lion risk is very live during this patrol. one of the jobs, joining the experienced malawian rhino trackers. we're expecting to see,

maybe to encounter poachers which...they need rhino. so always, we'll be ready. these black rhino are just some of the 2,500 animals relocated here since 2003. we have to be armed because there are poachers in the area. but also as a last resort, as an immediate threat to life through dangerous game. they also aren't that keen on humans. indistinct whispering the point of the patrol is to check with the rhino's health and see their general behaviour. the device around their neck tells the trackers what direction they're in and how far away they are. so it's within about 400 or 500 metres, but the problem is, is we've got, we're picking up

a signal from an elephantjust to the north and the elephant is known to charge, so, as soon as it smells humans, so we need to watch out for that as well. the rhino trackers, they know the rhinos and they can telljust by looking at them if they're healthy or not. wind is a massive factor in this. you've always got to be going sort of against the wind, and the wind can change pretty quickly and very subtly as well, without you realising. so you get close to the rhino, all of a sudden the wind changes. whispers: it's coming. slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. 0k. whispers: it's 50-50 whether they'll just turn back and run away orjust charge straight at you. so you've always got to be sort of looking around for places you can go just in case they do decide to charge. so it's pretty dangerous. it is. a couple of months ago, an experienced rhino expert was killed after being charged by one in nearby rwanda. we have got a clear

vision on this animal. now he wants to get a photo. wants to get a photo with our camera. if he charge, we should get up on the trees which are around here. for example, that one there is good, a good tree to climb. this one is also good to climb. the trees which has got a lot of branches, yes. slowly, slowly. avoid to step on... it's coming. what he is saying is, we should not...

we should not shake up. just stand still. not shaking like this. don't shake. then it's time to get out of the way, quickly. i was a young boy, i've always wanted to work with animals, so veterinary kind of work. and then when i was growing up, i did a project

within umzingwane lands. after i have seen the wildlife and what it's actually like out in the bush... ..i just really, really bit into it. and as soon as this came across the table, across the army, i took it straightaway. on a patrol that lasts for days, chad trains the rangers on the skills of being a soldier. we communicate mostly with hand signals. we try to minimise the talking as much as possible. if we do end up talking, it's a very soft whisper as a close unit. in turn, the rangers show him how best to find the animals under threat, like lions, elephants and rhinos, in what is a challenging environment. you don't really have time to think. most of the time you're just concentrating on the environment itself, constantly looking, watching for dangerous game, anything that might sneak up on you.

at the moment, there's not that many incursions into the park. but, from what i understand, there's been a couple of incursions into the park, people walking in with dogs. there's been a couple of spears that they use after they've chased the animals with dogs, they come in with snares, gin traps, and they lay them along the animal trials towards watering holes. to put your foot in there, and you know, probably is not going to get it back. then there's guys that come in with muzzleloaders. it's an improvised weapon, normally made with metal plumbing parts, wire, elastic bands, pretty much anything they can get their hands on. they come into the park with those and. . .shoot the animals. and if need be, they can shoot us as well. if i was to come across

a poacher in the community and i was introduced to him, i would ask his reasons for doing it and...what...what he thinks the consequences will be if he does get caught. it's not a matter of if he gets caught, it's a matter of when he gets caught. and he will go to jail. that's the hope, at least. the illegal wildlife trade is a big business, worth up to £17 billion a year. take a rhino horn — it's more expensive than cocaine, heroin or gold, at up to £50,000 a kilo. in the last 50 years, black rhino numbers have dropped from 70,000, to 5,500. the country's elephant population has halved, from 4,000 in the 1980s, to 2,000 in 2015. not only that, malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. historically, people have poached to either make a small bit of money, or just to eat.

translation: i became a poacher in 1995. we used to make guns, we so would go into the game reserve with our traditionally made guns and kill the animals. there were different kinds of animals which would include the hare, the antelopes and some hyraxes. what prompted us to do that was we were facing a number of problems, we had so many challenges. we didn't have food in our homes, so the only option which we had was to go and poach into the game reserve, and after we do that, after we killed the animals, we bring it here, we sell it, we'd get a little income, and from there we could find something to eat, so that made us to go and do poaching. we faced a lot of problems when we were caught. they would beat us severely, and they didn't consider

whether you were old, small, or very old — they would beat you and then, if you survive, it's your luck. if you die, that's your fate. craig hay is in charge of the majete reserve, which is run by an organisation called african parks. it has three of them in malawi. in majete in particular, the poaching is low and on sustainable levels. in majete, we haven't lost a rhino or elephant to poaching since africans started managing majete in partnership with the malawi government. prior days, when it was still a lot of illegal activities and availability of firearms in mozambique, the threats may come from the west. and we deploy our rangers strategically around

the reserve randomly, so that there's no kind of predictable cycles. we here are really on the ground level, so, you know, this is where poaching happens, on the ground, but above us is a whole network of syndicates and cartels, and, you know, a whole trade of wildlife, and, you know, that's essentially what's driving the business. what's important for us is to make sure that our rangers on the ground are fully equipped and trained, and, you know, in the best position to fulfil their duties to protect the area. populations in africa are, you know, rapidly growing. i think malawi's population growth is about 3% per year. i think they say the population will double from 17 million, by 2030 it should double in malawi, so clear signs there's already immense pressure

on the environment, and, you know, with double those numbers, it's going to be even more the case. so, you know, even more reason to make sure that we protect these areas so that, you know, those people in 2030 have a natural heritage to enjoy and to be part of. craig talks about a new threat which has been compared to climate change, disease and weapons of mass destruction — international organised crime, powered by a wealthy black market, mostly in asian countries like china and vietnam. for thousands of years, some believed that body parts from animals like tigers and rhinoceroses help do things like cure cancer and improve your sex drive, which has never been scientifically backed up. then there's the illegal ivory trade as well. while majete looks totally wild, it's very controlled. the armed rangers and electric fence mean most people have to pay to get in. however, because of that, there have been no rhinos or elephants poached for 15 years.

but it's not always been like this. quite terrible here. i can assure you that we lost a few rangers, being shot at in cold blood in the line of duty, and i think that wasn't pleasant at all. i think our families always, when we leave for...patrols, i mean, when we come back, they'll celebrate that we've come back alive, you know? and that was the kind of situation that was in most of the parks in malawi. and you've seen communities coming here, you've seen that there is no poaching, you've see that there are roads in the park, there's some infrastructure, some business enterprises — this is where we wanted the park to be. the idea is that other than people sitting out there, expecting to harvest from the park, then they have alternatives of generating income.

conservation has to have an holistic approach dimension, and not only protecting wildlife for the sake of it, but there has to be a utility, a utility complementing it. i think some models have been tried and they haven't worked, and this one basically, to us, is a model, is a model that is working. there's no doubt poachers are being put off by these patrols, along with tougher sentences. yes, the money coming in through tourism is helping change attitudes, although in neighbouring zimbabwe and mozambique, poor communities still don't like the fact that more cash goes into protecting the reserve for wealthy white tourists instead of them. the situation is very serious. are they losing the fight or not losing the fight? i think that, you know, it's hard to say, what do we base that on? but i think one thing we do need to think about is it's not simply about how many numbers of elephants

or rhinos are being lost, or how many poachers are being caught and arrested, but the broader picture of what this poaching conflict means for conservation in these areas, both in ecological and social science. i think training and capacity building, and building the skills of rangers is a great thing. i'm quite sceptical of the use of the military in training rangers, especially the use of a foreign military that doesn't necessarily know the context in which they're operating and that is not trained in conservation. at the beginning, you don't really know what to expect, like, i've never seen a rhino up close before. it's strange to see how big they are, and how fast they can move towards you as well. it's quite, yeah...it‘s quite frightening to start off with. where we're doing the rhino tracking, it's normally pretty dense

and the grass is quite high, which is a problem. if you start breaking twigs and making noise, they'll come towards you. and obviously you only want them to come towards you on your terms. animal calls the rhino didn't charge this time, so it's safe to come down. crucially, though, they got their pic. the relationships great with the rangers. they're the experts out here in the bush, they know everything. you can spend as much time out here as you like, but they've lived there all their lives. down here. probably here. she was just there, looking at me, and matthew is in a tree behind, and then he stood there, and then he just turned around and ran off. yeah. come really close. you can get unstuck quickly out here if you don't really know what you're doing. yes, yeah, we have good pictures. this one.

yeah, i think that's pretty successful. yeah, got everything we needed. we've seen two rhinos today. both all in good health. yeah, i think it's really successful. these areas, they're actually really important to me, and i think they should be important to everyone, all the future generations. killing animals, what's going to be left for future generations?

just a bunch of pictures in a book. these british soldiers have been welcomed here, and the rangers say they have benefited. they're only here for a few months, though, so what about when they're gone? some of the facts on rhino will shock people who aren't aware of how under threat rhino are. the first step is to make sure we don't lose more protected areas. the big worry is that organised crime could corrupt some of the key people fighting against them. people were relocated from the park, so that drew a bit of controversy, and people were sort of unhappy that they left the land of their ancestors. i have a real concern that the future of conservation in africa is going to not take a step back to that hard fortress conservation model, but it's going to bring that model

forward and intensify it. uk ministers have praised the armed forces for playing their part against what they've called a "sickening and illegal industry". at times, you just want to be with yourfamily, and... ..sometimes you just can't. but poaching is a problem far from being solved. and we can be asking, does the british military have the background and the skills in itself to train rangers beyond the hardline anti—poaching? the first weekend of 2019 is proving to bea the first weekend of 2019 is proving to be a rather grey affaires underneath extensive cloud cover. but it is quiet and calm, this was the scene a few article in leicestershire. some breaks in the cloud, though, particularly in the eastern side of scotland. in some

good spells coming through in the last hour or so. underneath this area of high pressure which is keeping things fairly quiet, but noticed the strength of ivan toney north—west. apple bring some rain into northern ireland and the western isles of scotland. tonight, stay mainly dry, best breaks in the clouds to the eastern side of cumbria, and the pennines. a few brea ks cumbria, and the pennines. a few breaks across south—east england as well. but generally, the cloud will be quite stubborn. a cool feel underneath, some temperature is not higher than five or six celsius. rain arriving into northern ireland tonight, and the western isles of scotland, then moving south and east, a few clear spells behind it from scotland. summer breaks across the south of england, and temperatures could reach closer to freezing. cloud cover could produce the odd spot of drizzle across the midlands, northern england and northern wales tomorrow morning. that will fizzle out, and for most,

a dry and cloudy day. temperatures up a dry and cloudy day. temperatures u p slowly a dry and cloudy day. temperatures up slowly to between seven and 10 celsius. and then we turn to the north—east of the uk with this deepening area of low pressure, some outbreaks of rain, but also some strong winds as well. particularly across northern scotland, so this is how monday shapes up, rain driving across scotland and northern ireland, moving southwards, fading away as it does. but we are concerned about the strength of the wind through monday afternoon, this is an idea of average gusts strength. part of northern scotland could see those reaching 70, maybe even 80 mph across the northern highlands. ten or 11 celsius on monday, but that will start to change because bands of rain moved their way south. some colder air behind it, which could bring some went the showers to the northern isles. most places having a dry day

aside from the far north of scotland. further south, winds less strong, and a bit milder, turning colder again by wednesday. this is bbc news, i'm lukwesa burak, the headlines at 2pm: police name the man who was fatally stabbed on a train in surrey as 51—year—old lee pomeroy. a man's been arrested in connection with the murder. in relation to what we know so far in relation to what happened, it was not random, in terms that there was not random, in terms that there was no contact between the two people before the incident. we know that they were talking together. that is all we know at this moment in time. smokers and problem drinkers admitted to hospital in england will get help to quit or cut down to reduce demands on the health service. (00v) five fifteen—year—old girls have been killed after a fire broke out in an escape room in northern poland.

ryanair is voted the worst short—haul airline for the sixth year in a row in a survey by the consumer group which. and coming up in half an hour — leicester's riaz khan talks