welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. an immediate ban on the sale of my name is mike embley. assault rifles and semi—automatics, our top stories: in response to the christchurch terror attack that killed 50 people. she said the ban would go through parliament and be in place by the 11th of april. in the past hour, she also announced interim measures a major policy change from new zealand's prime minister — to stop a rush of sales in the meantime. a dramatic response to friday's gun attack on two mosques. the british prime minister blames parliament for delaying brexit today i am announcing that new and said she is on the side of the british people who are "tired of the whole process." zealand will ban all military style she has now asked the eu to extend semi—automatic weapons. we will also the leaving date to the end ofjune. ban all sold rifles. —— assault rescue teams are still rifles. struggling to reach survivors a week theresa may blames parliament after cyclone idai hit for the brexit delay and claims south—eastern africa. aid workers say thousands she's on the side of the british are still waiting for help. hundreds are feared to have died. people she says are "tired of the whole process." rescue teams are still struggling to reach survivors, a week after cyclone idai hit south—east africa. hundreds are feared dead. disturbing images of weight loss that glamourise eating disorders now on bbc news, swapped by children on the social media platform instagram, wednesday in parliament.

hello there, and welcome to the programme. coming up, theresa may tells mps that they indulged themselves on europe too long. as prime minister, i am... i am not prepared to delay brexit any further than the 30th ofjune. but labour says the government has run out of time and run out of ideas. if the prime minister cannot get changes to her deal, will she give the people a chance to reject the idea and that change the government? mps hear that those who are hit by the cyclone idai have lost everything, and now face threats.

the risk of starvation and famine are very real, with harvest destroyed and livestock strewn. and the head of england's nhs says cancer screening needs to be made more accessible. evenings, weekends, car parks and new approaches to case findings. but first, theresa may has written to the european union to ask for a three—month delay to brexit. the uk is due legally to leave the eu next friday, on the 29th of march. but mrs may wants to postpone it untiljune the 30th. in a letter to eu council president donald tusk, she says she needed more time to get her withdrawal agreement passed by mps. well, at prime minister's questions, theresa may came under attack from all sides. the prime minister's deal lies in tatters. her cabinet is in open revolt. she presides over the biggest constitutional crisis this nation has experienced, and where leadership is required, she has once again caved in to hard

brexiteers and will now only seek a short extension to article 50, contrary to the expressed will of this house. when will she develop a backbone and stand up to those would take this nation to disaster, and as one of her ministers said this morning, referencing another feeble prime minister, "weak, weak, weak!" theresa may set out her position. on thursday, the house voted in favour of a short extension. if the house had supported a meaningful vote before this week's european council. the motion also made it clear that a longer extension would oblige the united kingdom to hold elections to the european parliament. mr speaker, i do not believe such elections would be in anyone's interest. she said she had written to president tusk, and to that asking for extension untiljune 30. the government intends to bring forward proposals for a third meaningful vote, and if it is passed, the extension will get past time to consider withdrawal agreement and belt, and if not the house will decide

how to proceed. but as prime minister, as prime minister, i am... i am not prepared to delay brexit any further than the 30th ofjune. those shouts of "resign" which you could hear coming from the labour benches. when the labour leader stood up, he accused the government of incompetence, failure and intransigence. we learned this morning, mr speaker, and that she's only going to ask for a short extension, which directly contradicts what the cabinet office minister told the house. saying in the absence of a deal seeking such a short and critically one—off extension would be downright reckless and completely at odds with the position the house adopted only last night. so, who is downright reckless here? the prime minister ploughing on with an unachievable and unsupported deal, or others in this house who want to achieve something

serious and sensible to prevent the damage to the british economy, jobs and living standards all over this country? i am opposed to a long extension. i don't want a long extension, setting aside the issue that a long extension, setting aside the... setting aside the issue that a long extension would mean we would have to stand and hold the european parliamentary elections. the outcome of the long extension, would be this house spending yet more endless hours contemplating its navel on europe and failing to address the issues that matter to our constituents, schools and hospitals and security and jobs. this house has indulged itself on europe for too long. mps clamour. order, order! that is a very noisy barking. order! the prime minister's reply will be

heard and colleagues know that i'm happy for the exchanges to take place for as long as is necessary to ensure that they are orderly. the prime minister. it's time, it's time for this house to determine that it will deliver on brexit for the british people. that is what the british people deserve, and they deserve better than this house has given them so far. mr speaker, to describe the parliamentary process as one of "indulgence" doesn't show much respect for a democratic process that sent us here in the first place. the house, mr speaker, has twice rejected the prime minister's deal. she's trying to come back for another attempt on monday. further to your ruling last monday, she's got to come up with something a bit different then she's

come up with so far. so, what significant changes will there be, either to the withdrawal agreement or the political declaration that will even allow the prime minister to table it on monday? the right honourable gentleman talks about respect for democracy. respect for democracy means that this house should deliver the brexit that the british people voted for. they've run out of time. they've run out of ideas. people, mr speakerall overthis country are anxious and frustrated with this government's utter inability to find a way to the crisis. if the prime minister cannot get changes to her deal, will she give the people a chance to reject the deal and change the government? i say to the right honourable gentleman, i think he just actually made the point that i was making in my previous answer to him. that he does not want to actually respect that vote that took place in the referendum in 2016.

we have a deal, we have a deal, it keeps millions of livelihood safe and secure. it protects the union for the future, it means murderers and rapists on the run can be brought back quickly to face justice in this country. no deal won't do that, the deal is good for this country, it delivers brexit and it should be supported. her deal had the biggest defeat in parliamentary history. she brought it back and it had the fourth biggest defeat in parliamentary history. her deal has failed, this house has voted against no deal, and once again the prime minister is acting in her own self interest. not in the interest of the whole of the uk. the prime minister has failed, this place has failed, and scotland is watching. the only way forward now, mr speaker, is to put that decision back to the people. if you continue to apply

for an extension to article 50, you will be betraying the british people. if you don't, you will be honouring their instructions. prime minister, it's entirely down to you. what guarantee can you give the british people that at the end ofjune, if we still do not have a deal, we honour that referendum result and we leave? i believe it's time that we actually delivered on the vote of the british people in 2016 and that's why as i said earlier in response, as far as i'm concerned there will be no delay in delivering brexit beyond the 30th ofjune. does the prime minister not realise that in her answer, she is the roadblock to this house reaching majority, not the facilitator? it's blindingly obvious, including i believe members of the cabinet that what the house now needs to do is have a series

of indicative votes, precisely so they can express its will about what it is for and not simply what it is against. why will she notjust open up, ijust think again, just allow the indicative votes on this type of forward, because what she is doing by sticking to this failed plan, is deeply dangerous for our country and the national interest, and i beg this prime minister to think again. it is the case that there have been votes in this house on other proposals put forward, and those have equally been rejected. there is one thing that this house has agreed to, and that is that it would leave with a deal, it was in relation to the backstop, and that's the one positive vote the house is given. theresa may. a short while later, the speaker allowed an emergency debate on the government decision to seek a brexit extension. it had been called by labour, who accused is the prime minister

of being a roadblock to progress. the brexit secretary blamed mps for the delay and said they face a choice between her deal or no deal. but a number of mps threw their weight behind labour's call for votes on all options to try to find a consensus. one might have expected the prime minister to reflect on where we are at, and to recognise as my right honourable friend said earlier, perhaps she is the roadblock to progress. she could at this stage act and the national interest and frankly show leadership. and take a responsible approach, which i think would be to seek extension to prevent no deal and provided time for parliament to find a majority for a different approach, i think many members are yearning for the opportunity to move forward and to break the impasse. we recognise an extension to article 50 is now needed and it's the failure

of the prime minister's approach that calls for the requirement for an extension. of course an extension should be as short as possible, but it has to allow a solution to the mess the prime minister has got the country into and providing a route to prevent no deal, not to make it more likely. any extension is the means, not the end. but any extension of whatever length does not allow the house to escape its responsibilities to decide where it stands. its commitment to deliver on the decision it gave to the british people or whether it's going to walk away from doing so. nor does an extension mean that a guerrilla campaign can be run to overturn the result of the referendum and frustrate the will of those who voted to leave. several mps intervened. this is the greatest crisis we've faced since suez. countries are looking at us, we have a reputation is in tatters, business losing investment day by day, we are putting billions of pounds down the drain,

and they wonder why we ask questions, it's absurd. the plan is the deal, and the only plan labour has put to us is closer alignment to the customs union which is basically staying in the eu, and that's not what people voted for. the people voted to come out, and all of this obfuscation is only delaying that. some members of the house may prefer a general election which is why colleagues counting on that outcome are said to be frustrated. others who think they can be stopped through holding eu elections, enabling further extensions, may also find members of the house preferring other outcomes to that. the best way, mr speaker, of this house delivering on the will of the people in the referendum, is it to support that prime minister's deal and that is the way forward and how the government should proceed.

the pm went through a whole litany of options that she didn't take forward because they'd been voted down by the house but none of them, none had been voted down by anything like the majority that voted against her deal. and it's a flagrant violation of tradition of this house, no more smirking at the despatch box, no more playing games, no more poker about no deal. this government is on the edge of bringing this country down. no more, the prime minister must bring indicative votes to this house as a matter of urgency and national imperative because the risk facing us right now, this withdrawal agreement will not succeed week, and we are looking at no deal. the government has to change course. it needs to come to this house with a different proposal,

and that's also necessary for the government's owned stated objective of having a delay, because we know that the european union did not wish to agree to a delay for no apparent purpose. they want to see a change of course, it is, mr speaker, that simple. there may be hiccups, the millennium bug, like preparation, we had the same before, virtually every business is prepared, that may well be the case in this occasion, but the damage from this is far less than the risk of populism, should we thwart the wishes of the 17.4 million people. we need government ministers to now wake up, smell the coffee, and actually start acting responsibly on behalf of this country. this house rejects the government's deal. we want an alternative. allow the house to have the debate

to find the alternative. you're watching wednesday in parliament, with me, alysia mccarthy. the international development minister harriet baldwin has said that the disasters emergency committee will launch a campaign to raise money for communities affected by cyclone idai. the storm has caused devastation in southern africa destroying buildings and triggering severe flooding. hundreds of people have died, more are unaccounted for and survivors have been left without food or shelter. the former international development secretary andrew mitchell secured urgent statement on the uk contribution to the relief effort. for those in that disaster including loss of everything they own, the difficulty of getting food and medicines through to those affected, the dangers of waterborne diseases,

including cholera, due to the contamination of the water supply. risk of starvation and famine are very real with harvest destroyed and livestock stranded. will the government note, mr speaker, that the search and rescue response so far has been much slower than in the crisis in 2000. one of those today who is also there in 2000 says the response and then was ten times as great for a much less disaster, thousands of families, mr speaker, remain stranded, a huge global response is now required. and the uk has a key leadership role to discharge in that. the uk donated £6 billion to the fund. he rightly alludes to the leadership in this area, we have shown that by being one of the first to announce additional funding to this disaster. he will know we have some of those

experts already deployed on the ground, and he will be aware that — i'm sure he will have heard from his contacts that the disaster emergencies committee also are shortly announcing the further appeal, and that i think the uk does in terms of not only commonwealth friends but suspended ones as well, had a crucial role to play. unless immediate action is taken, extreme weather events like this will become much more frequent. we know that it is the poorest people in the global south who will suffer the most. this must be a wake—up call to governments everywhere to urgently deliver on the paris agreement target of remaining below 1.5 degrees celsius of global warming. if we are serious about doing this, then we need to start reducing our own global carbon emissions now. it's a place i know well and visited

compared to now. although damage as seemed incomprehensible, it'sjust the beginning of the impact of increased weather we shall witness. government committed a £5.8 billion to helping developing countries deal with climate change. he will be aware that that has already helped 47 million people adapt to the impact of climate change. he will be aware that a lot of the work we are doing is around resilience, and is about ensuring people are resilient to these kinds of more extreme weather events that climate scientists are predicting will occur. now, the chief executive of england's nhs screening needs to be more accessible with sessions held on the evenings and weekends and even in car parks. a report by the spending watchdog revealed that none of the three main health screening programmes

and england met their targets in 2018. he was giving evidence to mps on the public accounts committee about the service. how content are you that they are meeting targets? i don't think we are content, i think first thing to say is numbers of eligible people, who are going through screening particularly for breast cancer and for bowel cancer are continuing to rise. so we've got more than 400,000 additional people who are getting screening through those services now than we had five years ago, but we aspire to do more. so, the service was looking at how to encourage uptake. we know, for example, there is a big difference in the uptake in bowel screening, ethnically diverse parts of the country had uptake of around 30%, compared to 50 to 58% in other parts of the country. we can see differences and so forth

so we have to make screening services more easily accessible, evenings, weekends, car parks for new approaches to case findings for that and so on, mike will set this up for us so we have a modern screening service in the rand and we implement it alongside big changes that we signalled and a long—term plan. we have a look at the benchmark internationally on this, which is quite difficult because most countries do their screenings slightly differently. but the benchmarks we do have, we actually benchmark reasonably well in terms of a tank top, we have quite a lot of that screening task but there is a lot that needs to be done. i think, a summary is a lot needs to be done here in. over in the house of lords, there is an outbreak of praise, as they pass the trade bill. the government was defeated five times during the passage of the bill in the lords,

including implementing customs union and filling out a physical biter on the island of ireland. but as it was across the warm words were coming from all sides. that may be aspects of the bill which we do not agree, but i really believe that your lordships can be justly proud and we should be justly proud of the contribution made here to this important piece of legislation. we did not always agree, but where we had differed, i think we have done so only once our possible avenues for compromise had been explored, and we proceeded on a basis of mutual respect for each other‘s point of view, and in doing that i think we upheld the best stand is at this house. at this awards ceremony, i'm delighted to be nominated for best supporting actor. the minister said this was a rewarding, constructive and challenging experience for her, i think in many regards she met the challenge and i commend herfor it

and she certainly constructed and how she engaged with us. the rewarding aspect will be how she can persuade her colleagues on the other end of this building to ensure that all of those very wise amendments that this house has passed are not overturned. and that, i think we will have to see how she does on that business. with that, the trade bill returns to the house of commons for mps to consider the changes that peers have made to it. finally, a new television advertising campaign to help prepare people for the uk leaving the eu without a deal has begun. radio adverts have been aired since january and the tv ads have now been introduced to sure people know how a no—deal brexit could affect them. a conservative complained that some of the advice had been exaggerated. will the minister detailed to the parliament the extensive preparations government has made for a no deal exit, especially given the proximity to the 29th of march, just a week away, the government needs to reassure people that we are prepared, the government has spent two years

preparing and billions of pounds preparing, and i look forward to hearing with the minister has to say. a brexit minister gave details of no—deal planning. there are over 550 no—deal communications sent out since august 2018, we made 300 stakeholder engagement since february, we have been signing international agreements with our trading partners and rolling over others, there are 11,000 people working on the exit policy and programmes across government, a number of it programmes ready to go should we need to activate them, we published the hmrc partnership pack containing guidance for business is process and procedures. the government has been preparing assiduously and quietly behind the scenes for no deal, because we want to get a deal over the line, and that's the most important thing for us. it simply unacceptable

that the prime minister continues to go on doggedly, pressing ahead with her hobson's choice of her deal or no deal. resilience is an admirable quality. obstinacy is not. so, does the minister recognised that by its approach, it risks being in contempt of the house yet again? this parliament voted to rule out no deal because it represents a colossal political failure. the members told us what concerns people. a decade of westminster austerity dictating schools and the nhs and other public services. another brexit minister answered a separate urgent question on the prime minister's deal. was now —— a labour mp suggested the conservative party was now being run by the euro sceptic european research group. it puts me in mind of a limerick which was much repeated

in the 19305. "there was a young lady of riger who went on a tiger. they came back from the ride with the lady inside and a smile on the face of the tiger." basically, that prime minister has tried to ride the tiger for all these years and frankly she has now been invited, isn't she? i can assure the right honourable gentleman that i am not consumed by a tiger and i'm still smiling. and that's it from me for now. join me at the same time tomorrow for another round—up of the day here at westminster, including questions to the transport secretary. goodbye. hello. it was the spring equinox yesterday and it felt like spring, particularly if you were in the sunshine.

we had an abundance of sunshine across parts of east wales, the midlands and northern england, so sheffield, harden two of the areas to reach 19 degrees. the highest it's been since that warmth we had in february. these are the sort of weather watcher pictures we had sent in. of course, we had the cloudier skies as well, such as here, and i think today on balance we will have rather more cloud than yesterday. but it still should be, for many of us, dry. however, there's always an exception to the rule. for scotland, we have got this weather front bringing this persistent vein to the highlands and islands. quite a wet spell here for the next couple of days. that south—westerly wind maintains the mild weather through the night, just the holes in the cloud fill in with mist and fog. it could be quite murky first thing. that fog should lift except on the hills and the coasts around the south and west of england and wales, scotland too where it remains quite dreary and quite damp as well. even though the rain

makes its way further northwards, you can see it has drifted into central parts of scotland, so a different complexion to the weather here. if we do see some brightness, potentially up in the north—east england, we'll see temperatures again 16, 17 degrees. but for most of us, less sunshine, just a lot of cloud, but still largely dry weather. through the evening, that rain gets pushed away on a strengthening wind and we watch the next weather front hot on its heels coming back in through northern and western areas so through the night into friday, it turns very wet once again so parts of north—west scotland could have a considerable amount of rain in the next day or two. it does freshen up and dry up behind and sunshine returns, but ahead of it on friday, for many, still be largely dry but rather cloudy and mild. it's a difference, really. we're changing our mild atlantic south—westerly winds for our slightly cooler, almost polar north—westerlies. yes, it's still relatively mild, but temperatures will dip back to where they should be for the time of year and we'll see the sunshine returning. although it could be disappointingly cloudy across southern areas on saturday.

a third or fourth day of disappointing cloudy weather here. eventually, that brighter weather will win through and temperatures as you can see are down, significantly so, because we're back into that chilly air and we have some wintry showers. thursday night, friday looks like the chillier spell in the north, we will keep the brisk wind coming in through the weekend. that will accentuate the chill. as for next week, we keep the high—pressure close to the south. temperatures recovering a little with some spring sunshine. bye— bye.