this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: journalist jamal khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing by saudi arabian officials — according to the un investigator looking into the case. instagram says it's removing all graphic images of self—harm — after an outcry over the suicide of a british teenager. i'm nuala mcgovern in london. also in the programme: the body recovered from the wreckage of the plane that went down in the sea between france and britain is identified as footballer emiliano sala. and a new island's born in the south pacific. but scientists say it could soon sink beneath the waves. live from our studios in singapore and london, this is bbc world news — it's newsday. glad you could join us.

it's nine in the morning in singapore and 1am in london. the un expert investigating the death of jamal khashoggi says the journalist was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing by saudi officials. agnes callamard has been to turkey as part of the investigation and says she was given access to information including "chilling and gruesome audio material" which was obtained by turkish intelligence officials. imogen foulkes has the latest from geneva. we should stress that this initial statement from the united nations special investigator on extra judicial killings, these are preliminary findings, nevertheless reading them are pretty damning. agnes callamard says that based on the week—long visit to visit to turkey and the evidence

she saw and heard and was given an audio recording to listen to, which apparently recorded the moments of khashoggi's death, all of this evidence points to a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and prepared, carried out by saudi arabian officials. she says that subsequent to khashoggi's death, the actions of saudi arabia did not help at all, turkey's investigation. in fact, it appeared that they were actively hindering it. she has asked to go to saudi arabia herself to investigate their and so far as we know, there has been no positive response to that request. in the meantime, she's expressed doubt that the trial currently under way and saudi arabia, of 11 individuals, will actually be fair and be a fair reflection of exactly what happened here. let's stress this investigation is not over yet and she will be going back to turkey and she wants to have a proper official look at turkey's forensic and police records. this is an investigation really that will go on for several months

but what we do expect as a final report to the united nations civil rights council in june and as i said at the beginning, the initial findings are very, very damning towards saudi arabia's alleged involvement in this crime. thanks very much to imagine folks. we had a technical issue just going to her. —— imogen foulkes. let's take a look at some of the day's other news. france is recalling its ambassador in rome because of what it calls an unprecedented series of unfounded attacks by italy. on tuesday, the italian deputy prime minister, luigi di maio, met members of france's anti—government yellow vest movement. paris has accused the italian populist coalition government of interfering in french domestic politics. lucy williamson has more from paris. well, it seems to have been sparked by a visit to france by the italian deputy prime minister, luigi di maio.

he came to speak to some members of the giletjaunes protest movement here, who are planning to run in the european parliamentary elections later this year and the french government is very unhappy with this visit, coming as, it says, after months of repeated accusations and baseless attacks, unprecedented, it says, since the end of world war ii. this argument has been going on really ever since italy got its new populist government. mr macron has been described as a hypocrite over the migration issue, and he has described the spread of populism through europe as a kind of leprosy, and there is no doubt the european elections this year have given a kind of turbo boost to that row, pitting two very different governments, two very different political visions against each other. thanks to lucy. also making news today: the president of the european council, donald tusk, has said that talks would continue

but there's no breakthrough in sight to the deadlock over britain's exit from the european union. british prime minister, theresa may, had been in brussels seeking to persuade eu leaders to make legally binding changes to the "backstop" — the plan to keep the irish border open. it's been confirmed that a body removed from the wreckage of a plane in the english channel is that of the premier league footballer emiliano sala. he was being flown from nantes to cardiff last month when the plane ditched into the sea. the body of the pilot, david ibbotson, has not been found. amazon ceo jeff bezos has accused the owners of american tabloid the national enquirer of blackmailing him with the threat of publishing "intimate photos". in an online post, mr bezos claims he was told to stop an investigation into how the magazine obtained his private messages. the publishers of the national enquirer have yet to comment. authorities in indonesia say they found 193 men from bangladesh locked in a business premises on the island of sumatra. they'd been lured there by human traffickers with the promise of getting to malaysia. the men have now been taken

to an immigration detention centre and will be sent back to bangladesh. jay z says the arrest of rapper 21 savage was "an absolute travesty" and has hired a lawyer to help him fight deportation. the atla nta—based rapper, a british citizen, is being held by us officials who say he travelled to the us as a child and has been living on an expired visa. instagram, one of the world's biggest social media platforms, has told the bbc that it will act swiftly to remove all graphic images of self—harm. the decision follows the prominent case of 14—year—old molly russell — who took her own life in 2017. her father said that images she viewed on the platform had been partly responsible for her death. our correspondent angus crawford, who first highlighted molly's case, has the story. i've seen videos.

i've seen pictures. nothing's blocked. no. nothing's blurred. i haven't seen anything blurred. meet grace, lucy, shani and julia. if you search for self—harm, then you are suddenly guided to how to commit suicide, how to hang yourself, how to tie a noose. horrified by molly's story and spurred into action, though their own families haven't been affected, this week, each set up a brand—new account. i suddenly started to get suggested accounts to follow. and they have a message for the head of instagram. you can still go and read how to kill yourself successfully. and you need to take a stand and you need to do something now, not look at it and leave it for months. you need to do something now, because our children are dying, and you have a moral responsibility. so that's what a proportion of british society now feels about your platform. i mean, it's powerful. it's heavy stuff. i think we have an immense amount of responsibility. i think that it's clear that we are not yet where we need to be on the issues

of self—harm and suicide. because the concern from, i think, some of those mothers and others is that, in effect, instagram, in the words of molly russell's father, has been monetising misery. we are not looking to monetise misery. we look to connect people with their friends and the interests that they love and care about. we think we create a lot of good in the world. and we were not as focused as we should have been on the risks that came along with connecting so many people. but moving forward, actually, we are going to change our policy to not allow any graphic images of self—harm, whether or not it is admission or promotion. so you're going to take all self—harm images off of instagram? graphic self—harm images, yes. so i might have an image of a scar where i say, "i'm 30 days clean", and that's an important way for me to share my story. that kind of content can still live on the site, but we are actually, the next change is that it won't show up in any recommendation services, so it will be harder to find. it won't be in search. it won't be in hashtags.

it won't be in recommendations. but graphic imagery, we are going to take off instagram entirely. that's going to take some time but we are committed to doing it. she said, "if i get over 2000 likes, i will cut myself on live feed". any success won't be measured in the boardroom or even parliament, but in homes and by families across the uk. angus crawford, bbc news. all british horserace meetings have been cancelled because an outbreak of equine flu. this is just before the cheltenham festival. cornelius lycett has the latest. this is a highly contagious illness. it is similartoa bad highly contagious illness. it is similar to a bad case of flu for you oi’ similar to a bad case of flu for you or me, forany similar to a bad case of flu for you or me, for any of us. however, you are talking about 14,000 racehorses in training in the uk. clearly not

able to communicate how they are feeling. and the fact is if you have got huge sums of horses under the weather, as it were, and a certain amount of uncertainty about whether some horses are under the weather or some horses are under the weather or somejust some horses are under the weather or some just have different symptoms, the most sensible way to proceed is to have no racing at all. the science behind this is their own more positive tests for equine influenza. however, symptoms can ta ke influenza. however, symptoms can take up to three days to actually show themselves. then a further three days is required to carry that process through a bit further. that is the science before it. no horseracing, no point—to—point racing in uk before wednesday. that is at the earliest. further decisions will be made in the upcoming days as to when a resumption can take place. that was cornelius lycett, the bbc‘s horseracing correspond. you are watching you stay on the bbc, live

from singapore and london. still to come on the programme: more damage than alcohol and drugs combined — a new initiative aims to help aboriginal australians stop smoking. also on the programme: we'll show you one of the world's newest there's mr mandela. mr nelson mandela, a free man, taking his first steps into a new south africa. iran's spiritual leader ayatollah khomeini has said he's passed a death sentence on salman rushdie, the british author of a book which many muslims say is blasphemous. the people of haiti have flocked to church to give thanks for the ousting of their former president, 'baby doc' duvalier. because of his considerable value as a stallion, shergar was kept in a special secure box in the stud farm's central block. shergar was driven away

in a horse box the thieves had brought with them. there stepped down from the plane a figure in mourning. elizabeth ii, queen of this realm and of all her other realms and territories. head of the commonwealth, defender of the faith. welcome back everyone. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. i'm nuala mcgovern in london. our top stories: the journalist jamal khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing by saudi arabian officials, according to a un investigator. instagram says it's removing all graphic images of self—harm after an outcry over the suicide of a british teenager. let's take a look at some front pages from around the world. the international edition

of the japan times is leading with the sharp spike in the number of child abuse cases reported last year. preliminary government figures show over a 20% rise in the number of cases than in 2017. the paper thinks a growing awareness might be partially behind the figures. and in le figaro, they are shedding light on an uproar facing the eu away from brexit. the paper says the european commission's decision to block the merger of two industrial giants, alstom from france and siemens from germany, raises questions about future industrial strategy. and taking brexit head on, germany's frankfurter algemeine has gone for a graphic portrayal of donald tusk‘s comments on brexit campaigners without a plan. the headline, above a snippet from a painting by hieronymus bosch, the medieval dutch painterfamous

for his images of sin and suffering, says "to hell with the gamblers". and those are the papers. high rates of smoking continue to damage australia's indigenous communities. experts say smoking does more damage than alcohol and illicit drugs combined. australia has led the world in combatting smoking, but this group has been left behind. so, in sydney, a new programme is trying to help aboriginal australians turn away from tobacco. from sydney, phil mercer reports. smoke is sacred to australia's indigenous people. the ceremonial burning of leaves and bark wards off evil spirits and is a sign of respect to elders. smoking tobacco was introduced by european settlers. it's left a terrible legacy.

today, about a third of aboriginal adults smoke. tobacco use is one of the, probably the biggest health issues for our community. a lot of our mob smoke so our programme really is about trying to stop the young ones from ever picking up a cigarette, so they don't have to go through a lifelong battle of trying to quit. crash—tackling the desire to smoke is part of a course for high school students at the national centre of indigenous excellence in sydney. but many aboriginal australians still find it hard to quit. i've got asthma, so i've already had pneumonia twicem and smoking doesn't make it any easier so i do stop and think it's about time. one day i probably will get so sick where will have to give up smoking, but not just yet. i still enjoy it. i'm around people who haven't been educated and our health is poor and education is poor.

that has a lot to do with it. it's will. it's like in sport — if you've got the will to win, do you have the will to give this up? do you? i must admit i haven't got the will. in 2012 australia led the world by introducing plain packaging for cigarettes. bans on tobacco in many public places and graphic health campaigns mean that now only about 12% of australians smoke. rates in indigenous communities are falling, but they remain much higher than the national average. smoking is part of what the community actually does. everybody does it — mum, dad, the kids, little kids — so it's part of the culture of what people do, so to break that is extremely difficult. indigenous australians die on average 10 years earlier than their non—aboriginal counterparts. poverty and poor housing as well as alcohol and drug abuse all play a part, but experts say the undisputed wrecking ball to indigenous health is smoking. phil mercer, bbc news, sydney. nasa scientists have

revealed their findings about a new south pacific island that literally rose out of the sea when a submersed volcano erupted in tonga in 2014. these pictures were taken by french sailors who landed there in 2017. and last year nasa scientists made a visit as well. now, the race is on to see what we can learn from the new landmass before it vanishes. for more on this, and why it's fascinating scientists the world over, i poke to the volcanologist, jess phoenix. it's such a unique place because we don't see these things very often. most of the volcanoes that

researchers get a chance to study and become familiar with are well—established, they're big, they're famous. we have all heard of pompeii and mount st helens but these volcanoes that rise from the ocean, it is literally new earth being created and looking at the life cycle of these brand—new volcanoes gives us a chance to understand how things in the past would have happened and potentially how things occur on other planets that have volcanoes or had them in the past. which island would you compare this to which still exists, jess? well, surtsey in iceland is one that anyone who was alive in the early '60s and tuned into the news would have heard all about because it had a very dramatic birth, rising from the ocean with a lot of explosive activity. and surtsey is eroding very rapidly, but scientists have this unique natural laboratory to really dig in and try and understand the processes that these volcanic islands go through, and now hunga tonga is another opportunity for scientists to look at things in detail. looking in detail but the question is, what would be the new lifespan

of hunga tonga? how much longer will it be there? the initial estimates were between 6 and 30 years but the scientific team that went out last fall was able to determine that the island is actually eroding at a much more rapid rate than was initially predicted, largely due to rainfall as opposed to the ocean waves battering it, which is what we would usually look at for an erosional mechanism, but, hey, we can look at the rain and realise it's a wet area, erosion is going to be sped up so we might have a couple of years tojust a decade. if we're really lucky, we would get the full 30 years but it looks like that won't happen. thank you very much tojess pheonix. amazon founderjeff bezos has accused american media incorporated, the owner of controversial celebrity magazine the national enquirer,

of extortion and blackmail. the billionaire posted a message online showing what he said were e—mailed threats from the publisher's legal team to publish intimate photographs of mr bezos, and a woman with whom he was having an affair. dave lee is our north america technology reporter and joins me from san francisco. good to have you with us, dave. so what exactly did jeff bezos publish and where? well, it was a quite extraordinary post, it appeared on the website medium which is a publishing platform that many of us will be familiar with. and in that post he goes into quite some detail. he begins it by saying, by giving a bit of background on what happened to him in the last month. and what that was is a series of stories published by the national enquirer magazine in january that it published by the national enquirer magazine injanuary that it out published by the national enquirer magazine in january that it out and said he was having with a woman named lauren sanchez, a former tv host. now when that happened mr bezos quickly announced that he was going to be splitting up with his wife. what he also did in the

background was launched an investigation into how the national enquirer had come into possession of several private messages sent between mr bezos and ms sanchez. that investigation mr bezos is alleging angered ami to such an extent that what they then went on to do he says it was threatened mr bezos with more material, specifically intimate pictures of both himself and ms sanchez and the post that mr bezos shed has what he says are e—mails from representatives from ami saying they would publish this material and it went into great detail as to what that material was. so now of course this is an e—mail that is albert. mr bezos has made this enormous accusation against an incredibly powerful media company here in the us. but as yet we are yet to hear the response from ami about that

accusation. and just for our viewers, dave, i mean both mr bezos and ami, they are both political figures in a way, particularly in the run—up perhaps of the 2016 presidential election. yes, absolutely. ami of course owning the national enquirer recently admitted it co—ordinated with president trump's campaign to do what is known asa trump's campaign to do what is known as a catch and kill, when they buy the rights to a salacious story not with the intention of publishing the story but from keeping it secret and making the person involved in the story side away the chance to be able to talk about that. forjeff bezos he has become a political figure because he owns the washington post newspaper and he said that that has added complexity to his life and that sometimes the actions of the washington post may be seen as actions of mr bezos himself. and we have seen president trump on the number of occasions refer to the washington post as the

amazon washington post. so the suggestion from mr bezos that there is political intent potentially behind some of the attacks on him. dave lee, thank you very much. i have noticed jeff bezos‘s name is trending on twitter and we will probably hear more about that story over the next couple of days. she was a pioneer in the field of science, and now the new uk—built rover that will be sent to mars next year will bear the name of rosalind franklin. over 30,000 people from across europe took part in a naming competition for the vehicle. the event was orchestrated by uk astronaut tim peake, and our science correspondent rebecca morelle was there. i am here at a mock—up mars where the prototype rover has been put through its paces. it's designed to roam across the rocky martian terrain. this mission is nearly complete. everything is almost ready but one vital element has been missing and that is the name, and today it's been unveiled as the rosalind franklin rover. to explain why, i'm joined

by a british astronaut tim peake. tim, why is this rosalind the rover, why the name? rosalind franklin, a great british scientist who did so much to unlock the secrets of human life, the dna and double helix, so it's only fitting that the mars rover is named after her because it will be searching for signs of past life on mars. you got the public involved with this naming process. absolutely. the competition was opened up to the public, 36,000 entries so a huge response and it shows that there is so much appetite — so much public appetite for these exploration missions. this really is a big mission for the european space agency. why is it so vital to get out there to mars? it's a really exciting mission. this rover is going to drill 2m under the surface of mars which is where we stand the best chance of understanding organic molecules which could have resided on mars, so it's going to a very special ancient landing site where there was once a liquid ocean — and we know that 3.7 billion years ago, earth and mars were very

similar, so life could have evolved on mars as well. thank you very much, tim peake. this is obviously a robotic mission heading to mars and the real thing is actually being assembled together at the moment, scientists are working round the clock. and it really will be a fitting honour for the woman who truly was an unsung hero of science to have this legacy that will now live on mars. how wonderful to have that. you have been watching newsday. i'm nuala mcgovern in london. and i'm rico hizon in singapore. stay with us. thank you for watching. you can follow u p thank you for watching. you can follow up on any of these stories on the news app and on the website. hello there. the weather has taken a bit of a turn to something a lot more

unsettled to end the week. something we haven't seen in quite awhile, pretty deep areas of low pressure bringing gales and spells of heavy rain. and friday is looking very unsettled with a deep area of low pressure to bring widespread gales and quite heavy rain. now, this is actually a deep low that's been named storm erik by met eireann because it will likely bring disruptive winds to the northern half of the country including parts of scotland and northern england as we head from friday night into saturday. but early this morning, the winds will be picking up from the south—west as this storm gets closer. it'll be pushing in some pretty heavy rains in northern and western areas, maybe some snow over the scottish hills. it's going to be a very mild start to friday, particularly across the south—west. temperatures there in plymouth around 10 degrees. so it's going to be a very blustery morning. outbreaks of showery rain ahead of the main band of rain which will spread its way eastwards, bringing some pretty torrential in fact across some central and eastern areas into the afternoon. the rain remains heavy across much of scotland and northern ireland,

those winds a real feature, as—ssmph across many areas. 60—70 across some northern and western coasts to go over hills as well. 0n the plus side, it'll be pretty mild because of those south—westerlies but 10—12 degrees might not feel so mild because of the wind and rain. now, storm erik is very slow—moving towards the north of the uk through friday and saturday, and on its southern flank we could see a swathe with strong winds across parts of northern ireland into central and southern scotland and northern england. so a very blustery start to the day, perhaps even disruptive to start on saturday morning. a very windy day for all but further south, we should see some sunshine around, although much of the northern scotland will remain very wet with further snow on the hills. rainfall totals really mounting here with a chance of localised flooding in places. again, another mild day in the south. there will be some more rain arriving in the south—west later on. so through friday and into saturday,

we will likely to see some disruption from these very strong winds, so keep tuned to your weather forecast and to your bbc local radio. now, this feature may bring a spell of wet, maybe windy weather across the very far south of england, saturday night into sunday, but it should slowly clear away into the near continent as sunday wears on, so an improving picture here, with winds turning to a north—westerly direction. so that will be a cooler direction, but at least brightening up. and we will see a band of showery rain moving south across northern areas with some cool air there, so some snow on the hills. so it will be turning cooler from sunday onwards. i'm nuala mcgovern with bbc world news. our top story: a un investigator says journalist, jamal khashoggi, was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing by saudi arabian officials. agnes callamard said she was given access to "chilling" audio material during a visit to turkey. the head of instagram has vowed to remove all images of self—harm from the image—sharing app after an outcry over the suicide of british teenager molly russell. and this story is trending on bbc.com:

nasa scientists have revealed their findings about a new south pacific island that literally rose out of the sea, when a submerged volcano erupted in tonga, in 2014. that's all. stay with bbc world news. and the top story in the uk: the bank of england expects economic growth this year to be the slowest since 2009.