a very warm welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name's mike embley. our top stories: unrest in zimbabwe. the opposition claims a brutal crackdown is taking place after an increase in fuel prices sparked protests. theresa may outlines her plan b for brexit but critics say it doesn't go far enough. fighting so—called fake news — latest whatsapp update to limit people sharing messages with friends. and we'll bring you the story of how peppa pig inspired chinese twins to request a visit to see queen elizabeth. hello. the opposition movement

for democratic change is questioning why soldiers are using live ammunition, beating demonstrators, and arresting many in their homes. from harare, our correspondent andrew harding. another funeral here in zimbabwe. this one for a young footballer, shot in the head by police. there's grief, for sure, but a deep sense of shock, too. beating, torturing, usingrlive but unarmed protesters. and the crackdown is not over yet. this morning, we found more woundeil these two both said they had been shot by the police. in a car outside, another new casualty. the soldiers and police,

they were beating me. this man, as you can see, does not want to be identified by anybody. he is, like so many people here in harare today, scared. it's over a week now since the protests began here, that felt like the final straw for many impoverished zimbabweans. but the government is unrepentant about its crackdown and about the need for tougher economic reforms. still, president emmerson mnangagwa has been forced to abandon a foreign fundraising tour and is now rushing home to an angry country, with petrol queues, inflation and deep disillusionment. there has to be a return to democracy. we thought that by mr mugabe exiting

the stage, we were going to have a new dispensation, but it's not a new dispensation. if anything, the mask has been removed, you know, the mask has fallen off. the truth is that we still have the old system, probably worse. zimbabwe was supposed to be on the mend by now. mugabe gone, a new, gentler government, promising to fix a broken economy. instead, as we have seen in these past few violent days here, old habits are hard to kick. and so a question looms. will fear now keep the protesters off the streets, or are zimbabwe poised for deeper turmoil? britain's prime minister has been updating parliament on her brexit of the backstop — the insurance policy to keep an open border between northern ireland and ireland. the opposition labour leader, jeremy corbyn, said she had failed to come up with anything new, and backbench mps are pressing ahead with attempts to take control

of the brexit process away from the government. this from our political editor laura kuenssberg. what is going on behind the shiny black door? the meet—and—greet of visiting foreign leaders looks like business as usual, but theresa may's most important plan was overwhelmingly chucked out by mps last week. is plan a still your plan b, prime minister? and if the method has been rejected, is it madness to try to carry on like this? there was nojunking of her big brexit proposal in the commons, “5552 55§e2f§%?3lf; f fff ff ,, , £1 2 7}; 172; i;:;;7 e if a comprehensive trade deal can't be agreed in future? i will be talking further

this week to colleagues, including the dup, to consider how we might meet obligations to the people of ireland and northern ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support in the house. she promised, too, that remainers as well as leavers in the commons and outside will have more say in the next phase of the brexit talks, if she makes it that far. the prime minister's critics will frankly believe that when they see it, but the move to allow eu citizens to stay after brexit without paying was welcomed on all sides. the government will waive the application fee, so that there is no financial barrier... cheering. ..so there is no financial barrier for any eu nationals who wish to stay. but that's miles away from getting labour on board. its leader still won't even take the prime minister up on her offer of talks, unless there is a change in the law to close down the possibility of leaving

the eu without a deal. no more phoney talks, parliament will debate and decide, and this time, this time, mr speaker, i hope and expect the government to listen. yet number ten believes its best chance is to win back tory and unionist support. there is no meaningful signal of how, but if there is movement on the backstop, could there be movement from critics? if the identified problems are changed, then it isn't so much a question of softening, as there is a new reality to deal with. one european voice today suggested the backstop could have a limit of five years. it would be one of the solutions of the ideas to be discussed, i think, within the european union. i do not know if it is feasible. it might unblock the negotiations. putting a time limit on an insurance mechanism, remember, the backstop is only one

of the factors raised by one of the factions. campaigners for another referendum had their talks with ministers today. do you think it has moved on? the prime minister said that essentially, in a matter of words, that having a referendum is clearly on the table. it's one of the options that parliament has open to it. you can'tjust dismiss it, because government is not in charge, parliament is. talks continue, time marches on. the next vote on the brexit deal‘s one week tomorrow but no one round here can yet see clearly to the other side. so, how is all this looking from brussels? the bbc‘s katya adler in brussels has more reaction from europe. palms are beginning to get a little bit sweaty across the eu. this is an organisation that is used to doing

deals at the 11th hour, but with only nine weeks to go now, eu leaders are getting nervous about the prospect of a costly no deal brexit. they want to be able to demonstrate to their voters back home that they have been doing their best and if we have a look at the big eu powers, france and germany, they say no to watering down the backstop. they tell theresa may to not return to brussels until she can show that she has the majority of mps behind her. let's get some of the day's other news: a tokyo court has rejected a fresh bail request from ex—nissan chief carlos ghosn, despite his pledge to stay injapan if released before his trial on financial misconduct charges. november. at least 11 people have died in a fire involving two ships in the black sea, according to russian authorities. a rescue operation is underway in the kerch strait off the coast of crimea, to find sailors who've jumped overboard. both ships are tanzanian flagged. one is a gas tanker and it's thought the blaze started when fuel was being transferred

between the two. the european union has imposed sanctions on four russians over last year's nerve agent attack on sergei and yulia skripal in salisbury. eu officials say two agents from russian military intelligence, the gru as well as its head and deputy head were responsible for possession, transport and use of the nerve agent used. russia denies any part in the attack. another prominent woman has entered next year's race for the white house. kamala harris was attorney—general for california before she became a democratic senator in 2016. the daughter of immigrants from jamaica and india, she has one of the most liberal voting records in the senate, at a time when the party is leaning to the left. she drew attention for her tough questioning of supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. she says she's ready for a fight. michael ceraso helped run bernie sanders‘ presidential campaign in 2016, and established the organisation winning margin

to help underfunded candidates in underserved communities. he joins us from los angeles. good to talk to you. so she is a candidate. what chance do you think of her winning the nomination, what chance of the presidency?” of her winning the nomination, what chance of the presidency? i think she has a great chance. i think she's an excellent candidate. if you look at the team she has put together in the structure she has put together with a digital online presence, with a team from lili adams running the communications department for her, i think she's in an excellent position to get her message out and get to the nomination. she is going up against a really great candidates who are also very good and very strong, so being a democrat is exciting because we have so many great option. but i definitely agree, kamala has a great opportunity ahead of her.|j definitely agree, kamala has a great opportunity ahead of her. i know it won't be a problem if he gets the nomination, but as a candidate in the primaries, with the party moving left, she is taken some criticism from the left, hasn't she, for the

record as a prosecutor in california? every candidate will be faced with tough questions about their previous voting record and some of the stances they have taken over the years. this will be a great opportunity for voters in new hampshire and iowa and south carolina and the super tuesday states to question and ask her what her opinions and thoughts and progress she has made may be potentially from those, you know, potentially from those, you know, potentially from those ideas and thoughts she originally had. and now, as she has moved further to the left, the question will be, like, is she genuine, is she authentic about that, and what will she do if she is president to implement the things that she is talking about during her campaign? assuming for a moment she gets the nomination, given everything thrown at hillary clinton in 2016, how would a woman nominee deal with donald trump?” in 2016, how would a woman nominee dealwith donald trump? i think hillary clinton did an excellentjob in her campaign in what she had to

deal with as the first viable woman presidential candidate. so i think kamala harris, christian gelin, elizabeth warren, they are very intelligent, strong, affable characters who can take any challenge and anything donald trump throws their way. so i'm excited to see what they do. i am excited to see what they do. i am excited to see their policy platforms and what they push out because i think, head—to—head, any candidate that i’u ns head—to—head, any candidate that runs from the democratic party is going to be for —— formidable and challenge donald trump on some of the places he has taken us as president. us state director for bernie sanders in california in 2016. the party is looking more diverse, more female, more left—wing and younger. does it still leave a place for bernie sanders, do you think? i think bernie sanders if he decides to run, he was in south carolina today, you know, making the case over there, even though i

wouldn't say he is making the case, i think he is a viable candidate. i think there are a lot of excited, enthusiastic supporters for him in iowa and california who would be gung ho to get behind another second presidential campaign. he has done an excellent job presidential campaign. he has done an excellentjob shuffling some of his inner circle and making some changes. so it will be exciting to see what team he puts together and how he responds to some of the challenges he faced in 2016 to build a stronger infrastructure moving ahead. all right, for the moment, michael ceraso, thank you very much. thank you so much. and thank you for being with us. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: hunting down hidden treasures. we talk to the indiana jones of the art world. donald trump is now the 45th president of the united states. he was sworn in before several hundred thousand people on the steps of capitol hill in washington. it's going to be only america

first — america first. demonstrators waiting for mike gatting and his rebel cricket team were attacked with tear gas and set upon by police dogs. anti—apartheid campaigners say they will carry on the protests throughout the tour. they called him 'the butcher of lyon'. klaus altmann is being held here on a fraud charge in bolivia, but the west germans want to extradite him for crimes committed in wartime france. there, he was the gestapo chief klaus barbie. millions came to bathe as close as possible to this spot, a tide of humanity that's believed by officials to have broken all records. very good to have you with us on bbc world news.

to russia, following violent protests over the doubling of fuel prices. britain's prime minister said she will hold "flexible and inclusive" talks with mps across parliament, to try to make progress over the irish backstop. whatsapp is limiting everyone using the service to forwarding any single message no more than five times. the forwarding limit was announced in indonesia ahead of elections there in april. it was trialled previously in india. the company says it's part of efforts to tackle the spread of false information, so—called fake news. i've been speaking to our business reporter, kim gittleson. it's an app that you download on your phone to message your friends or whoever you want but the key thing, its main proposition has been end—to—end encryption, which means whatsapp

doesn't want to know who you are messaging and store its messages on its servers and wants you to have privacy intact, but that's made it very difficult to track the spread of misinformation. we saw in the summer some of the very real negative consequences, which is the platform couldn't see how and when false information relating to people was being spread, which led to dozens of lynchings. it instituted this forwarding limit in india of up to five messages, other users could forward a message to 20 times. they have now said look, in order to stop the spread of false information, they will put that five message limit onto everyone and it comes into effect today. if you on an android phone, an update will be sent. apple phone, the i0s update will be sent later. how effective is it going to be and if it is effective against so—called fake news, it will be much more effective against people

organising protests. in zimbabwe, they found whatsapp very useful. it's interesting and has come under criticism because while it does limit forwarding to five people, it can also be forwarded to groups, so actually, you can forward the same message to up to a little over 1,000 people so it's not going to completely stop you from spreading any particular meme, wedding invite, or protest information. but yes, it s certainly something that could be concerning but i want to mention that the cofounders of whatsapp, brian action and jan koum, jan koum, his family was in the soviet union and one of the reasons he wanted encryption is because he didn't want governments to monitor the service, so privacy is something they are interested in. they want to find a good balance, whether this is the good way to do so remains to be seen. you made the point earlier, i didn't realise, whatsapp doesn't really have a market in the states. yeah, many americans, myself included, only download whatsapp once they leave

the country because there's added benefits to it, and it's interesting because whatsapp is owned by facebook, they paid billions for the messaging service but it hasn't really figured out a way to make money from it yet, and part of the reason we are seeing this cap on forwarding, efforts to combat fake news, is because whatsapp wants to appeal to regulators in places like india, its biggest market, so they can figure out a way to make money from the platform. kim gittelson for us there. as british politicians continue to battle it out over brexit, a noisy debate is also taking place on the streets of westminster. you might have seen them in some of our broadcats from college green, which is just across the road from the houses of parliament. it has increasingly become a media village for tv stations from around the globe. justin rowlatt got in amongst the protesters on both sides. someone's already been down here and put all these flags out, and i know who it is. i've been coming here regularly over the last few weeks so i know my way about. steve bray is one of the biggest characters among the remain protesters.

his main rival is harry todd, who runs three the leave means leave team, and harry isn't happy. so listen, what's going on? well, steve here broke a gentleman's agreement we had. this is a shared area. we should have a right to have some space here. let's be gentleman. i am being a gentleman. you're not. i can guarantee he'll use that space as well. you could go and take it now, couldn't you, harry? it has been reported that things were getting a bit ugly down there. i do object to being called a nazi, actually. the truth is, incidents like that don't happen all that often. for the most part, this has been a good—natu red protest. stop brexit! no chance! yes, there has been a lot of shouting and banter, and a fair bit of mischievous behaviour.

the police do have to intervene, but that's mainly because of steve. he likes to jump into the press enclosure, where he's not allowed, and attempt to get his signs live on tv. live news 24! simon mccoy. right, so the police are here. i think they're coming to get steve. how often do you have to do this? 0h, several times. several times a day? yeah. absolutely. that is irritating. 99 times out of a hundred, i never say a word. well, you don't say a word, but you are visually there intruding on the shot, distracting people from the debate. this is news. is that reasonable? this is news as well. i will stand up for steve on this, he may be a pest, i don't think he is, but in the best british tradition.

trying to put across, in a polite way, his opinion. 0bviously brexit divides the country, but i found coming down here reassuring. because you know what? these people actually get on quite well. justin rowlatt there on college green. he's known as the indiana jones of the art world — uncovering a treasure trove of stolen objects, from roman mosaics and bronze sculptures to paintings by old masters. now he's struck again, tracking down priceless religious relics in an unlikely location. andy beatt reports. not your usual man with a van. the dutch art historian turned supersleuth with his latest heavyweight discoveries — two stone carving depicting christian icons and thought to be at least 1,000 years old. these are two evangelists, and these two were stolen in 2004 and i have no idea how they got them away because they weigh 150 kilos each, and then they disappeared. world heritage.

it's the end of a long search for the artworks, snatched from a church in northern spain. a tip—off in 2010 took this detective to britain, and now nearly a decade later, to the carvings themselves. bought unwittingly by an aristocratic family who were horrified to discover what they thought were garden statues were, in fact, ancient religious artefacts. the guys who stole these wanted to sell it for a couple of millions or whatever, but they have soon found out that you cannot sell these, so to make a least a little bit of money, they sold them as garden ornaments. there is so much criminality in the art world, forgeries, but also stealing from museums, churches, and my job is to trace them back. and sometimes, we get lucky. he needs all the luck he can muster. art crime is thought to be the world's third biggest black market, beaten only by the illicit trade in drugs and guns. 0ne second, my fingers are under it.

the stone reliefs have now been handed to the spanish embassy in london. they're expected to return home within weeks. andy beatt, bbc news. now, many world leaders consider tea with the queen a high point in any visit to the uk. so when an episode of the popular children's tv programme peppa pig featured just such a visit, it thrilled a set of twins in china, they then posted a video asking if they could pay a visit to the queen. john sudworth has more. she's a pig with a little snout, and huge global clout. walk around it. you can't walk around a muddy puddle! this episode, in which peppa pig meets the queen, made a splash a long way from britain. oh i say, that does look fun. after watching it, these chinese -

th; “4:54.25; been—fi‘stefé‘fz amiéfi if: ff if! i hello, mi mi and mi ai. i'm the british ambassador, so i'm the british queen's representative in china. i'd like you to come and visit me in my house in beijing, and we can perhaps have tea and scones in a british style, and we can talk about making your dream come true. it's not quite the same as tea with the queen perhaps, but the twins were also given the promise of a trip to the uk. well, all of this is a sign that brand britain sees the little pink pig—shaped icon as a huge opportunity, and that for the british government, keen to promote industries like tourism, the hope is that peppa can bring home the bacon. peppa pig is a huge british success story in china, with 18 billion, yes, billion downloads and views. she even has her subversive side,

with peppa tattoos now used as a symbol of an underground cou ntercultu re. we've seen the success of premier league football here, we've seen paddington bear, we've seen downton abbey, we've seen sherlock, and peppa pig is another manifestation of the power of uk culture around the world, and that's great for creativity, it's great for the uk, and it's great for tourism as well. airplane! with the twins preparing to jet off to britain, diplomats must be wishing all uk—china diplomacy could end so happily. what's that, they say, about pigs and flying? john sudworth, bbc news, beijing. moron peppa pig and all the news any time on the bbc website. that is all

for now, thanks for watching. __ more on. hello there. it looks set to be quite treacherously icy out and about first thing this morning. we've had the overnight rain, sleet and snow giving way to wintry showers, which could well wash off some of the salt off the roads, so slippery certainly out there this morning. this is the huge swathe of cloud tied in with the weather front su bsta ntialsnow a nd—preblems behind it, cold air coming in, so we've got those wintry showers as well. we've seen a few centimetres of snow on the hills in the north, courtesy of this weather front, could even be some snow at lower levels for a time as it clears and these showers behind progressively turning to sleet and snow, possibly even at lower being quite treacherously icy. it brings in colder air behind it, giving quite significant snow

across parts of europe. but for ourselves, a bitter north—westerly wind. so those areas exposed to the north—west wind in particular seeing a lot of showers through the day ahead. possibly snow through the central lowlands through the morning rush, across the antrim hills, so affecting some of the highly populated parts of northern ireland as well with that wintriness, and then progressively, they'll move into north—western parts of england and wales. at the same time, we're still clearing our weather front and turning it to snow quite readily, not too far away so there's a potential there for some wet snow as it clears away from east anglia and the south—east, and hence the ice risk being fairly widespread. the showers through the day progress further east turning to snow. sunshine follows to many eastern areas. there'll be some hail, some thunder, gusty winds near them as we've seen on the weather front and with only 3—6 degrees temperature—wise, therefore the potential‘s there for snow to lower levels across the midlands perhaps through the afternoon, and those winds will make it feel even more bitter than it has recently, so through the evening, there's a potential this evening

that we could see a few centimetres of snow, even at lower levels across the south—east and east anglia, before finally the showers ease a little through the night and then a widespread frost will follow, even colder through the coming night, —10 potentially across the snowfields of scotland, but that does promise that wednesday should be drier, fewer showers, lighter winds, perhaps still that wintry shower risk for eastern and south—eastern parts of england and later in the day, it clouds over in the west, but it's still bitterly cold despite lighter winds and despite the sunshine. is there anything milder on the horizon? well, possibly on friday temporarily, but the cold air‘s never too far away. as ever, you can get all the warning information from our website. the latest headlines for you now from bbc news: the president of zimbabwe, emmerson mnangagwa, has cut short a state visit to russia and flown home to address an economic crisis which has sparked angry protests and a brutal crackdown by his security forces. 0pponents, campaigning against the doubling of fuel prices, question why soldiers are using live ammunition, beating protesters, and arresting many in their homes. britain's prime minister has told parliament she will go back to brussels to try to win

more concessions from the european union, on brexit. she hopes for movement on the contentious issue of the backstop, intended to keep an open border on the island of ireland. whatsapp is limiting its users to forwarding any single message no more than 5 times. the aim is to prevent the spread of false information, so—called fake news. whatsapp, owned by facebook, already introduced the policy in india six months ago.