welcome to bbc news. charlotte scares objected... i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: the eu warns a no deal brexit is increasingly likely, after british mps rejected the withdrawal dealfor a third time. the uk's now set to leave on april 12th, and watching the following morning, but prime minister theresa may says kim miller complained... a delay is almost inevitable. police use water cannons and tear gas, as more than1 million people descend on the streets of algiers a smaller number of viewers had in the biggest protest yet against president bouteflika. blackouts plunge venezuela ns the opposite perspective, into even more hardship. the opposition is calling for people summed up here by paul bateson... to come out in protest. that's a smaller scale march led on the first day by nigel farage, which has taken two weeks to reach its destination at westminster. it was featured on bbc news on the day it began. the audience was clearly divided over last weekend's coverage of the rally, so how does the bbc decide how much airtime the increasing number

of demonstrations should receive? from the gilets jaunes, or yellow vests movement protesting for several months in france, to the now frequent demonstrations across the uk on subjects including climate change, supporters of such events demand and expect media coverage. to what extent should the bbc comply with their wishes? well, one of those responsible is the bbc uk editor richard burgess, thank you very much for coming into the studio. what are the criteria you used to determine what demonstrations to cover and how much coverage to give them? i do not think there are exact criteria, but i think there are a number of factors that you take into consideration. scale is obviously one of them, which we saw with last weekend's march, a major march with a lot of people on it, that is something you have got to take into account. but a number of other factors around, is this a matter

of national significance, is there is a live issue at the moment, and could the march to change in the future? so you take all those into account, but obviously there is the other factor, which is what else is going on on that day, what else is happening on the news agenda? you mention scale, and this is a very contentious issue with marches in particular, isn't it? i mean, last weekend, the organisers were saying they had more than1 million people, the bbc was saying, i think, hundreds of thousands. how do you make that call? well, i don't think you can ever absolutely say how many people on a march, by their very nature they are fluid events, peoplejoin, people leave, people move around, they are over large areas. it is almost impossible, if not impossible, to give an exact number. what we do is we obviously have people on the ground he will make an assessment, which is what we did at the weekend. they were talking about how densely populated the march was, so we talked about hundreds of thousands, we talked in broad estimates. and then on the figure of a million, which the organisers were saying, we're attributed that figure to the organisers whenever we used it. difficult, though, isn't it?

and it can be very politically charged, one thinks of the trump inauguration a couple of years back, that became a really serious issue about whether the media had distorted the numbers, had downplayed the numbers. you have to be really careful. i think that's right, and i think that's why we do talk in kind of broader terms, and when there are more definitive figures, we attribute those to the organisers or to the authorities, although interestingly the metropolitan police didn't put a figure on it at the weekend, and i think that's because they recognise the difficulty of putting figures on and the political sensitivity around those figures. you were candid in saying at the start of the interview that one of the things that can affect coverage is what else is happening in the news, lots of other things, it is going to get squeezed, if there are not many other things, it may be easy to fill airtime with it. that is a difficulty, isn't it? you can spend the money, the resources, you are under an obligation, then, live trucks, camera crews, producers, to get your money's worth for the licence payer. well, not necessarily, i don't think there was a real issue

at the weekend because of the size of the march and the issue that it was addressing. what about more generally, because there are lots of other demonstrations the bbc covers, demonstrations in the future of the nhs, for example, or the tommy robinson demonstration outside the bbc‘s salford headquarters? again, i think we make decisions based on those criteria i talked about before, in terms of the scale and whether it is an issue of national significance, and what actually happens on the march as well is also a consideration. and then we will make a decision based on the news agenda that day, and sometimes we commit resources to staff and it doesn't get on, and that's the business of news. i wonder what effect the referendum has had, because it has kind of created a very powerful sense of the will of the people, it is something politicians claim, "we are speaking for the will of the people" on either side of the argument, the protesters also say the same. doesn't that perhaps require the bbc to develop a bit more

of a carefuljudgment on this, because it is used so much to be, if you like, an emblem of a wider public feeling, rather than just those people who have turned up in a particular day for a particular project? i think you are right, and we do our best to reflect the range of opinion around brexit. we know it is an extremely divisive issue, we know it is a polarising issue for many of our audience, and one that people feel hugely passionately about. our aim as an impartial broadcaster is to give edge to those opinions, not to create a false balance, but to fairly represent the views across the nation. what about other protests? i mentioned, in introducing the gilets jaunes protests, the yellow vests in paris in particular, they have been happening every weekend for months, we have covered them a lot on the news channel. some weekends, they are fairly quiet protests, other weekends, like on the champs—elysees, when it was attacked, much more newsworthy themselves. how do you make that call? i know it is not on your

brief as home editor, but for bbc news in general, it is a difficultjudgment, which we can it, and if we cover it cover it because it is violent, are we creating encouragement for demonstrations to take a particular turn? i think that is a good point, and you need to be careful notjust to cover protests when they turn violent or because they are particularly great pictures around fires in the champs—elysees and what have you. with our coverage of that, we have always tried to put it into the context of the wider political and social divide happening in france at the moment, and i think that is what our interests to our audience around that story. and will you think carefully about the next brexit protests, if there are any, how you cover them? yeah, we do always, and we are careful how we cover them, the amount of coverage we give to them, and a range of voices that we feature. bbc news uk editor richard burgess, thank you very much for coming in for newswatch.

few aspects of the bbc‘s brexit coverage are immune to controversy. one of those that caught viewers‘ attention this week was interview that sally bundock conducted with tim martin, who runs the pub chain jd wetherspoon. it was shown early on thursday morning on the news channel's business briefing. business investment has fallen dramatically... we are doing really well, sally, it is all eyewash from remainers. growth has gone down significantly, butjust to say, when you say we will leave and there will be no tariffs, actually, we will be operating within the world trade organisation rules, we will have to organise new trade relationships with different trading partners, and we don't know what the tariffs will look like in the future, if there are tariffs, and we must... you are wrong, you are just reading stuff out, let me... iam not... i thought you wanted to interview me! a number of viewers objected to the way that sally bundock conducted that interview. here is rob clarke, and first dave martin, with their responses.

i was actually shocked and surprised by the tone and lack of professionalism from sally when she started asking questions. she didn't give him a chance to answer any of the questions, and when he did get a chance, she would immediately talk over him. you don't want to hear my reply, do you? this went on for about seven minutes, total lack of professionalism, couldn't understand why he was invited into the show in the first place, seven minutes ofjust what i could see a totally biased remain view as tim martin quite rightly pointed out. you have just got it wrong, sally. if she didn't actually want to hear his lucid and quite sensible responses to what he sees as the positives of leaving the eu, then she shouldn't have asked the questions in the first place. her constant rudeness in talking over him was appalling. no wonder he retorted, saying you are a remainer, sally. is the bbc biased towards remain?

bundock certainly put it across as that way. absolutely dreadful, dreadful interview. we put those points to bbc news, which told us... finally, the death toll from the deadly cyclone in southern africa has reached at least 750 people, with victims in mozambique, zimbabwe and malawi. the end of last week, the news at six helpfully showed a map showing those three countries in sophie raworth's studio introduction. whole towns and villages have been submerged, the disasters emergency committee has launched an appeal to get aid to those most in need... i say helpfully — that may

have been the attention, but those who know the continent's geography spotted a mistake. linda was watching and e—mailed... as ever, thank you for all your comments this week, and if you want to share your opinion on bbc news and current affairs or even appear on the programme, do e—mail us, and we are on twitter. you can call us, and you take a look at our web pages too. hello. the clocks may be springing forward

this weekend but the temperatures are falling back. why? a cold front, a leading edge of cold air that will gradually work its way southward, not with much rain but certainly with a change in the feel of the weather. and that is the most noticeable thing on the way this weekend. plenty of dry weather away from the weather front which has not got anything particularly wet associated with it but a drop in temperature that we will all notice. scotla nd scotland and northern ireland has a bit of patchy rain. gradually edging southwards into the north of northern england as we go into the noon. behind it it will brighten up againafew noon. behind it it will brighten up again a few blustery winds and showers. south of the weather front for england and wales there is broken cloud, sunny spells once the fog clears and temperatures rebounding. i9 celsius probably in the warmer parts of south—east

england. isolated afternoon showers but most will avoid them and stay dry. here is the weather front. cloud four she rain through more of northern england into parts of wales, midlands and east anglia keeping temperatures up on saturday night. the further north you are, especially scotland and northern ireland there will be a foster sunday begins under clear sky stop in the early hours of sunday the clock change happens. springing forward and the start of dish summertime has nothing to do with the weather. such an irony because temperatures continue to fall back through sunday is our weather front ta kes through sunday is our weather front takes the cold air further south. patchy rain for parts of england and wales not amounting to much full where we start with sunshine expect some cloud to build and it looks like a cloudy but mainly dry sunday afternoon. across—the—board temperatures have dropped stop 13, 14 degrees temperatures have dropped stop 13, 1a degrees in south wales but most

of us will fall short of that. expect a widespread frost sunday night into sunday morning under clearing skies. monday will be dry for many but the weather front will approach from the north—west. an u nsettled approach from the north—west. an unsettled week to come. wet and windy at times, not all the time but look at these temperatures. single 00:13:18,814 --> 2147483051:43:24,954 figures for some at or below 2147483051:43:24,954 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 average.