this is bbc world news today. our top stories. poland orders fire safety checks at "escape room" venues across the country, after the death of five teenage girls at a birthday celebration. meetings at the white house to try and break the deadlock, as the partial shutdown of the government goes into its third week. days of violent attacks by criminal gangs in brazil's fifth largest city — the first major test for the new right—wing president, jair bolsonaro. and manchester united ease through to the fourth round of the fa cup, with victory over championship side reading. hello and welcome to world news today. five teenagers killed in a fire at a games venue in poland might have survived, if they'd had a proper evacuation route.

that's according to a seniorfirefighter. escape rooms involve players solving puzzles in order to get out of locked rooms. the victims, all 15—year—old girls, were celebrating a birthday. poland's president described it as an appalling tragedy, and checks are to be carried out at "escape room" venues across the country, after the fire in the northern town of koszalin. the bbc‘s adam easton sent this report from the capital, warsaw. the five schoolgirls had gone for an evening of fun to celebrate a birthday. locked inside the small seven metre square room, the teenagers were trying to solve puzzles to let themselves out. leaking gas cylinders started a fire in an adjacent room. translation: there were four heaters located in the waiting room, which is where the fire started. the fire prevented the employee who was supervising the game's participants from unlocking the door to the escape room. as the fire and toxic smoke quickly spread, the girls had no way to escape.

firefighters had to use specialised equipment to break in, but it was already too late. koszalin is in shock. translation: these are people from koszalin, they are our neighbours. it's a terrible tragedy. we've come here today to symbolically unite with all those affected by this awful tragedy and show that we are there to support them. all cultural events in the town have been cancelled and the mayor has announced a day of mourning. escape rooms have become popular in poland over the last four years. it's estimated there are now around 1000 venues across the country. the authorities have ordered all those sites be checked to ensure they meet the required safety standards. adam easton, bbc news, warsaw. earlier i spoke to escape room enthusiast ken ferguson — who runs one of the industry's leading websites and online forums in the uk. i think the first thing to say as most of the times the rooms aren't locked at all.

in many rooms you are free to come and go during the game and even the ones which are locked, they are locked with a magnetic lock, so it's very much like if you were going to a normal company building where there's a code on the outside and you go inside, you have to press a button to get out, so it's very much like that. you press a button on the inside to get out, or press a button within, or if the fire alarm was to go off the door would open automatically. you are inside a room, solving puzzles, and the idea behind the puzzles is to get them. sometimes you leave the room, in other cases it is a mission you are on to retrieve a particular object in the room or find out information. in terms of being able to get out of the rooms and fire escapes, escapes, are those governed by local fire regulations? i suppose what i'm asking is might it be different in the uk to poland, to another country? absolutely, so each country will

have their own fire regulations. those in the uk are particularly strict. it is a subject often discussed among escape room owners in the uk a berber talking about the different steps and things they have to do to meet those fire regulations. pick up any issues during for example planning applications orfrom during for example planning applications or from fire inspection visits. have you ever been to one of these escape rooms and yourself felt uncomfortable when you've been in them? i've played several hundred escape rooms across the uk and into europe and i have felt unsafe in some of them. once i felt unsafe with have been eased in europe. there are plenty of safe rooms in eastern europe and some of them do fall below what i would say is a safe level, where you are locked, physically locked inside a game, feeling like there is no way you can escape unless somebody comes to help you. inside the uk there's only one i've ever felt unsafe within and

that no is open. do you think this might bea that no is open. do you think this might be a moment for looking at regulations and how they are implemented in different countries? i'm really not sure. 0bviously implemented in different countries? i'm really not sure. obviously we have general regulations on safety across all industries in the uk and their risk assessments that employees and companies have two undertake in order to open their businesses, and that's generally the framework i understand most companies work within. they follow those risk assessments to say what are the risks specific to your business and how can you mitigate those. this is far away from where you are in the uk but i imagine there must be some sadness in the gaming community. yeah, speaking personally it's a terribly tragic event with five teenagers' families out in poland and a man injured during the incident and that is echoed within all these escape room

forums i'm a member of across the uk and the whole of the world. the first thing in every body's mind is the sadness in this tragedy. ben ferguson speaking to me earlier. —— ken ferguson speaking to me earlier. us congressional leaders and white house officials have been meeting in a further attempt to end the budget row, which has paralysed parts of the government. the partial shutdown is entering a third week and around 800,000 federal workers have been without pay since the 22nd december. president trump is refusing to sign any legislation that would enable government work to resume, until he gets money to build a wall along the mexican border. a few hours ago, on twitter, the president said, "i don't care that most of the workers not getting paid are democrats, i want to stop the shutdown as soon as we are in agreement on strong border security! i am in the white house ready to go, where are the dems?" so what are some of those government workers saying? many of us don't care about the

regular people, you know, they are not sympathetic to what's going on. we are really fed up right now, we are so we are really fed up right now, we are so fed up. we need to be funded, because we need our pay cheque, so we need to service the american people. the views of some government workers there. a little earlier i spoke with our washington correspondent david willis, who gave us an update on the talks. a lot of people as this goes on will be hoping they can be some sort of breakthrough. there is no word of one, however, thus far. they met, the two sides, that democratic staff members and senior administration officials including the vice president, mike pence, and the president's son—in—law, jared kushner, for a couple of hours this morning. they've now gone, we don't know if they are coming back today. but certainly no word of a breakthrough. it's very difficult, i have to say, to see any imminent

solution to this situation, given how far apart the two sides are. president trump, as you mentioned in your introduction, making any agreement to end the current shutdown, the partial shutdown of the government, conditional on funding for his pet project, a wall along the border with mexico. the democrats saying flatly that is not going to happen, they believe that such a wall would not have the effect that he says it would, and that it effect that he says it would, and thatitis effect that he says it would, and that it is basically against american values. so there we have it, two sides a long way apart, president trump though tweeting this morning to say that the only people in his view that don't want a wall along the mexican border are criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers. yeah, a very strong message from him. just how widespread is the disruption to government departments and services? well, we've seen museums here in the

capital, washington, dc, closed. the smithsonian and others, and we are seeing low staffing, modest staffing, in many other areas, particularly national parks and also rubbish piling up in those areas. indeed, there's been pictures of rubbish piling up on the national mall and outside the white house. the longer this goes on the more painful it's going to be. at the moment we haven't really had those sorrowful tales of people who can't make ends meet, but we will as more and more pay cheques are skipped. david willis in washington. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. the federal grand jury being used by special counsel robert mueller as he investigates alleged russian collusion in the us 2016 presidential election, has had its term extended by up to six months. the initial 18—month term was due to expire this weekend, amid speculation that the probe

might end soon. president donald trump has called the investigation a witch hunt. russia's deputy foreign minister has dismissed speculation over a possible prisoner swap involving the former us marine paul whelan. mr whelan, who also has british, canadian and irish nationality, was arrested in moscow on suspicion of spying. sergei ryabkov described the arrest of paul whelan as "very serious", and that talk of swapping him for any russian detainee was "inappropriate". germany's cybersecurity authorities have been criticised for not alerting police straight away about a mass data attack. it's been revealed the federal office for information security knew about the breach in december, but only notified officials on friday. journalists, celebrities and politicians are among those whose personal data was published online. a crime wave against banks and shops in the brazilian resort city

of fortaleza has continued for a third day, as hundreds of troops arrive to restore order. president jair bolsonaro deployed 300 soldiers to the area, that has been rocked by violent attacks by criminal gangs. it's being seen as the first test facing the new president, who took up office on tuesday. with me is bbc world service americas editor leonardo rocha. first of all, what's behind this surge in violence? what the authorities have been saying, it is that they introduced tougher measures on the local prisons in fortaleza and the prisons in fortaleza , fortaleza and the prisons in fortaleza, like most of brazil, are controlled by some of the big criminal gangs, so what happened is two three of the main criminal gangs that operate nationally, they decided to get together against the

government because of this loss of privilege. we are talking about access to mobile phones, drugs in jailand access to mobile phones, drugs in jail and all that sort of thing, so they ordered their mates outside jail to carry out attacks. 0n buses, minibuses, all set on fire, banks also shops and things like that, it's nothing new in the sense that it's nothing new in the sense that it has happened before. in other brazilian cities. what is new now is we have a law and order president that was elected on that ticket and that was elected on that ticket and that everyone is waiting to see what he will do, if he will be able to control that. we've he will do, if he will be able to controlthat. we've heard he will do, if he will be able to control that. we've heard about this tough response, the sending of troops to the area. are we getting any idea of the impact it's having? locally it has had an initial impact because the challenge the gangs wa nted because the challenge the gangs wanted was just to send out a message and of course when you have 300 troops there and they are on the

leaders of these gangs in jail, they know they will have to stop. there we re know they will have to stop. there were more attacks on saturday there, there were attacks on buses, but in a reduced number and one of the local population, one of the main achievements, the fact that public transport started to work again, but on each bus you have to have three heavily armed troops which is something that cannot be sustained in the long run. mr bolsonaro is the law and order president, so here's an opportunity for him to put his message out. that's right, because he was inaugurated on the 1st of january, he didn't have a first very good first week because he announced measures in brazil that then he had to dismiss. he announced changes to the pensions and domestic measures on the economy that then he said he wasn't very clear, so that's a big chance for him and that's what people are expecting for him to do.

it's good to get your analysis, thank you. i want to bring you some breaking news coming in to us here. that is that two british soldiers have been wounded, we believe, in syria will stop. two british special forces soldiers have been seriously injured in an isis attack in syria. they were attacked near the syrian town of derozan, that news just in at the bbc, one kurdish fighter is also thought to have been killed in the attack. we'll get more on that as we get it. stay with us on bbc world news. the japanese people are in mourning

following the death of hirohito. good grief, after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the rest of the gang are calling it quits. the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow, in spite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. teams were trying to scoop up lumps of oil as france recognises it faces an ecological crisis. three weeks ago the authorities confidently assured these areas oil from the broken tanker erika would head out to sea. it didn't. the world's gaullists skyscraper opens later today. —— tallest‘s skyscraper opens later today. poland orders fire safety

checks at "escape room" venues across the country, after the death of five teenage girls at a birthday celebration. white house officials, including the vice—president mike pence, have been holding meetings in a fresh attempt to end the budget row which has paralysed parts of the government parts of the government for two weeks. thousands of anti—government demonstrators have marched through hungary's capital budapest, to protest against the policies of the far right government of viktor 0rban. the demonstrations began in december against a law that extends overtime, but have since broadened. nick thorpe is in budapest. thousands of people marched through the centre of budapest in bitterly

cold january afternoon to gather here in front of the hungarian kuvasz and. the main achievement of these protests so far has been the unprecedented degree of unity they've achieved from the left to they've achieved from the left to the right full stop of the hungarian puli spectrum. but as the novelty of the demonstrations wes off, the problems facing organisers is how to maintain this momentum. the trade unions have been canvassing their members and there's talk today of a general strike, a one—day general strike, in two weeks' time. from the government side, these protests have been downplayed and the government media has been denigrating those taking part. there's also been a carrot from the government side, an offer of an 8% wage increase this year, offer of an 8% wage increase this yea r, followed by offer of an 8% wage increase this year, followed by another 8% next year. set against the government then, the protest organisers are hoping that this overtime law, this slave law, will act as a catalyst

for all the grievances people across hungary feel towards the government. mountaineering experts say the risks of winter climbing should not be under—estimated, following the deaths of two young climbers on ben nevis, britain's highest peak, in recent weeks. a student from germany died on new year's day, while another young climber — 21—year—old patrick boothroyd from britain — died on the mountain in december. here's our scotland correspondent, james shaw. ben nevis, the highest mountain in the british isles and, for that reason, extremely popular with walkers and climbers. but the paths across its north face can be dangerous. this is what's known as the ledge route. on new year's day, a student from bristol university fell 500 feet down the mountain from this path and was killed. her three companions were rescued by a coastguard helicopter. the actual helicopter managed to winch them off the crag from where they were and i was below the crag, which was carn dearg buttress, where,

unfortunately, she'd fallen. it was the second death in recent weeks. patrick boothroyd, who was 21, died in december. tens of thousands of people climb ben nevis every year. most use this path to the summit, which is relatively straightforward, but some, including the two students who died recently, attempt the rock faces and gullies on the north side, which, even in the best weather, are never free of risk. many new climbers use professional guides. this group is returning from the mountain after a training day. it's horrible to hear of accidents and fatalities in the mountains, especially because it's such a life—affirming thing to do. despite all of our best efforts, we can't control everything. it is a risky environment and sometimes things go wrong fairly randomly. experienced climbers know and accept the dangers of scaling britain's highest peak. those with less experience may not be so aware that this place can be

beautiful and deadly. james shaw, bbc news, ben nevis. ukraine's new orthodox church has been granted independence, ending moscow's authority after more than three centuries. the move has provoked a furious response from russia. from kiev, jonah fisher reports. was this the moment that split the global 0rthodox was this the moment that split the global orthodox church? in st george's cathedral in istanbul, the ecumenical patriarch bartholomew signs what's known as a thomas. the document recognises ukraine's 0rthodox document recognises ukraine's orthodox church for the first time as separate and outside russian control. a relationship that has lasted centuries ended with the stroke of a pen. watching on, and

enjoying a rare moment of success, was ukraine's president, petro poroshenko. he's called this the final step in ukraine's independence from russia. glory to god, without this will this would not have been possible. i say thank you to metropolitan bartholomew, to his face. the big questions are about what happens next. the russian 0rthodox what happens next. the russian orthodox church facing the loss of millions of followers, has already condemned the decision and said that ties with the ecumenical patriarch. will other countries now refuse to recognise the new ukrainian church? there will be celebrations over the next few days here in ukraine, to mark this historic moment. what remains also result is the thousands of parishes and religious sites that are still under the control of russian orthodox church. this could

turn out to be a very messy divorce. jonah fisher, bbc news in kiev. but get of the sport, over to ben. —— lets get a round—up of the sport. in this famous old competition these two sides have history. this is a united side beginning to remember what they once were. they went ahead thanks to a very modern twist, the ball went in but a video replay here gave them a penalty instead, juan mata keeping his calm. despite their stuttering season in the

championship, reading did create enough chances to keep this a contest. 0pportunities though they couldn't take. united could. their lead was doubled before the break, romelu lu ka ku squeezing lead was doubled before the break, romelu lukaku squeezing in a second. neither side could manage more in the second half, so united's winning run and 0le gunnar solskjaer extends to five. not back to the glory days quite yet at old trafford just yet but for manchester united things continue to look brighter. adam wild, bbc news. this competition usually throws up a shock and it didn't disappoint as league one side gillingham beat premier league strugglers cardiff city. there are 45 league places between the two sides but that didn't stop gillingham, who are through to the fourth round for the first time in 15 years. defending champions chelsea safely through to the fourth round. two goals from spain's striker alvaro morata sew them ove i’co m e striker alvaro morata sew them overcome nottingham forest, who are pushing from promotion for the championship. that head of his two

goals today. one player who looks like he'll be leaving leaving sta mford like he'll be leaving leaving stamford bridge is cesc fabregas, the spanish star who had a penalty saved in this game, was almost in tea rs saved in this game, was almost in tears and waved to the home fans as he left the pitch. he is expected to join monaco in france, where his old arsenal team—mate thierry henry is in charge. the first international football tournament of the year, the asian cup, is under way in the united armoured —— united arab emirates. the hosts salvage a controversial i—i emirates. the hosts salvage a controversial 1—1 draw against bahrain, but felt behind this goal. with just a few minutes left a penalty was awarded for a handball. the substitute knocking home the spot kick, quite some penalty that one. roger federer has a first tournament win of the year as his swiss team won the hopman cup in perth. the final saw the 20 time grand slam champion and belinda bencic against germany's sasha is a reverend angelique kerber. it was one all going into the mixed

doubles, federer and kerber having bunn vesicles ties. it went to a tie—break in the deciding set, switzerland won it as they did last year. here comes the match—winning point. federer it's a third hopman cup title. australia's top order struggled once again on the third day of the fourth test against india in sydney. australia were 236—6 when bad light and rain brought an early close to the day. that was in the reply to india's massive first—innings total of 622 — seven declared. the tourists only need a draw to claim a first series win in australia. yadav was the best of the bowlers, 3—7i. that's all the sport for now, i'll see you later. that's it, you've been watching bbc world news today. goodbye. hello, good evening. it was a cold,

grey day today. very few places saw the sunshine coming through. most of us the sunshine coming through. most of us had a really dull sort of sky, like this. but at least that blanket of cloud means temperatures shouldn't fall too low overnight. we've got the cloud trapped underneath that area of low pressure -- high underneath that area of low pressure —— high pressure. coming into winter weakening when a friend is bringing a bit of rain and drizzle from the north—west, not much for northern ireland, most of it in scotland but even that tends to become right and patchy as it heads south of the border towards the end of the night. some breaks coming in eventually to the far north of scotland but on the whole cloudy skies and temperatures typically 2—4 above freezing. cloudy picture for many others on sunday. there won't be much rain or drizzle left. most of it affecting north—western parts of england, perhaps north wales and then returning into northern ireland. the best of the sunshine for the northern half of scotland quite cloudy elsewhere, maybe some brighter skies to the east of high

ground in wales. it shouldn't be quite as cold, temperatures about 8-9 quite as cold, temperatures about 8—9 or so, maybe double figures towards the western the high—pressure still around as we head into monday, but getting pushed away by a big area of low pressure running between scotland and iceland and that really will pick the winds up and that really will pick the winds up with some severe gales developing later in the north of scotland. there will be rain fog while, most affecting scotland and northern ireland. as the rain sweeps south with it tends to fade away and stop we get some sunshine following that for northern ireland, northern england and southern scotland, but the wind is the main feature of the weather on monday. some stronger winds everywhere particularly windy for the northern half of scotland, costs of around 70 miles an hour later in the day and overnight —— gusts of around 70 miles an hour. for a while monday should be milder with temperatures 10—11, but as the low— pressure with temperatures 10—11, but as the low—pressure sweeps away towards scandinavia it will drag down some colder air on a north to north westerly wind. that will blow in some showers to the north—east of

scotla nd some showers to the north—east of scotland and down the north sea coast. for most parts of the country it will be dry with some sunshine this time on tuesday. the winds lighter towards the west, maybe touching gale force at times near those north sea coasts, but easing down a bit later in the afternoon. but it will feel colder on tuesday, probably only briefly colder mind you. the temperatures back into single figures only around 5—7 in the north. poland has ordered checks at entertainment values after a fire killed sis—year—old girl celebrating a birthday. a fire service spokesman said they might have survived if they had a proper evacuation route. more meetings have taken place at the white house as the deadlock that has caused the partial shutdown of the government goes into its third week. president trump says he's considering declaring a national emergency. attacks by criminal gangs in the brazilian city of fortaleza has continued for a third day as hundreds of troops arrive to restore order. it's being seen as the first test for the new president, jair bolsonaro. thousands of demonstrators in hungary have been marching