this is bbc news. the headlines: president trump has cut aid to el salvador, guatemala and honduras over what he called this is bbc world news. their failure to stop immigrant i'm reged ahmad. caravans heading for the us. our top stories: president trump cuts aid democrats criticised the decision. to el salvador, guatemala and honduras over what he calls their failure to stop immigrant one said it was cheap caravans heading for the us. political point—scoring that would only increase immigration flows. the chief executive of facebook, mark zuckerberg, says the internet needs new rules. he's called on governments facebook chief mark zuckerberg says and regulators to take a more active it's time for new rules role in controlling to govern the internet. content and for companies to be held accountable. he's previously resisted after a day of protests by palestinians in gaza to mark a year of weekly demonstrations government intervention. on the boundary with israel, health officials in gaza say four israeli defense forces say they've struck a number of hamas military palestinians have died posts in response to during protests to mark the first anniversary of the weekly rockets fired at israel. demonstrations along the border with israel. and the rolling stones israeli defense forces postpone their north america tour say their artillery has struck as mickjagger gets a number of hamas military posts in the gaza strip in response to five rockets fired at israel. medical treatment. those are the headlines.

hello and welcome. the us's state department says it's ending foreign assistance programmes to el salvador, guatemala and honduras as directed by president trump. announcing that he was ending the payments, mr trump insisted that the three central american countries "hadn't done a thing" for america. democrats say the move could make immigration problems worse and are threatening to try to block it. earlier, i spoke to mary beth sheridan, centralamerica correspondent with the washington post. i asked her what these aid programmes had done for these countries. there is quite a lot of uncertainty about what exactly will be cut and i think this announcement of many people by surprise, even in the us government, but the concern of people who run these programmes and some us diplomats is that if they do not exist, then people will feel more compelled to actually leave these countries and go to the us so

that it could be sort of a boomerang effect. 50 could there that it could be sort of a boomerang effect. so could there be a big rush now to go to the us if things deteriorate without these aid programmes? but is a good question. iam not programmes? but is a good question. i am not entirely sure that things will deteriorate dramatically simply because of the aid programmes but there is some concern on behalf of some former diplomat who know the region who say that the smugglers will use announcements like this to say to people" better leave now because the us is cracking down on immigration" and at times, that sort of propaganda has in fact encouraged people to flee in larger numbers. ambassador roger noriega is a former assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs and spoke about president trump's reasons for the decision. it is difficult to say exactly what president trump is thinking here. he has made certain commitments to help in latin america — much more than other presidents have in the past, but something clearly got

into his head about whether or not central americans were doing enough to stop the flood of migrants to the us south—west border. as a matter of fact, this is a problem, but you do not address this problem — and someone has to convince the president of this — you cannot address this problem if you don't have partners not only in central america but in mexico, and dissing them, disrespecting them in this way and cutting off funds when they have been trying to co—operate, does not engender confidence among the partners there in central america. ken baker is the chief executive of the charity glasswing and relies on approximately 35% of his funding from the american government. they do community and education programmes to try and stop the violence in the region. one thing that gets lost is people

think that migration, they always ta ke think that migration, they always take the side of migration, what is the impact on the united states and at the border and everything but what is the impact that has on these countries? it breaks up families, there is a brain drain, so it is absolutely critical to stop migration and you have to deal with the problem at its source and what the problem at its source and what the problem at its source and what the problem actually is and once you go to the border and talk about politics that is involved, it is too late, it is too late then. i mean, you have to deal with the root causes of the migration. ken baker. let's get some of the day's other news. an egyptian security court has sentenced 18 men to life imprisonment for planning a suicide bombing on a coptic church in the city of alexandria. 12 others received between ten— and 15—year jail terms. ten defendants who are on the run were sentenced in their absence. in 2017, the islamic state group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings on churches in alexandria and tanta that killed 45 people.

brunei has defended their right to implement laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality. actor george clooney called for a boycott of hotels owned by the brunei investment agency, including the beverly hills hotel and the dorchester in london. the new law has been widely criticised by politicians around the world. brunei introduced sharia law in 2014 and plans to implement them in full from april 3. facebook chief mark zuckerberg says the internet needs new rules. in an article for the washington post, he says it's time for government and regulators to take an active role to balance freedom of expression, while protecting society from harm. it comes two weeks after a gunman used facebook to live—stream his terror attack on mosques in christchurch, new zealand. earlier, i spoke to laurence dodds, us technology reporter for the daily telegraph newspaper in the uk, and asked him if thought

mark zuckerberg had admitted defeat in his attempts to regulate the social media giant. i don't think he is exactly, but it is surprising. i mean, it is only one year ago that mark zuckerberg was briefing various outlets that he was not sure that facebook should not be deregulated. it would have to be the right regulation and, in any case, he preferred broad guidelines to strict rules. facebook also has a long history of lobbying against regulations, some of which sound very similar to what mark zuckerberg is now proposing. but i don't think it is quite an admission of defeat. i think it's true facebook now believes that further regulation is inevitable in its most lucrative markets in the first world. the first world. in the usa, if congress does not pass a new privacy law by the end of this year, facebook will, in any case, have to follow california's privacy law, which will come into force at the end of the year. it's quite similar to gdpr. in california, it's so big that facebook will just have to follow it anyway. so it knows that regulation is coming, it's priced that in, and now mark zuckerberg wants,

i think, to try and shape the process, better to be involved in that process and to be seeming to set the direction, rather than reacting to what politicians do to facebook. now he talks about a lot of points, he has a few ideas he has gone through, but do any of them threaten the facebook funding model, the way they make money with advertisers? i don't think that they do. let me see. the hate speech stuff certainly does not. facebook acknowledged long ago that its interests lay in policing its platform, in policing people's free speech, if you like, and deleting some stuff and downranking other stuff that it finds to be undesirable, rather than taking a maximalist position where everything anybody says to each other is great because it's more activity. facebook made that choice a long time ago without further regulation, and so that is not a huge change. it has already only priced in gdpr in europe, and although gdpr seemed to lead to a small decline in its european users,

which led to a stock price drop, it's been able to recover from that pretty well. so, no, i don't think there's anything there that would seriously threaten its revenue. some of the things he's talking about is a global standardisation. i mean, that just unrealistic, isn't it? —— i mean, ‘sthatjust unrealistic, isn't it? —— i mean,‘s thatjust unrealistic, isn't it? i think in some ways, it's unrealistic. it's notable in mark zuckerberg's piece, he mentions data localisation laws, which are a big problem for facebook. china has passed them, vietnam has them, russia has them, other people have them. but very often, they can be a tool of authoritarian regimes to make sure that it's easy for them to access data facebook holds. and facebook don't want to be in that position of having to take the pr here, of, like, "hey, you gave all this data to these —— the pr hit of "hey, you gave all this data to these nasty people so that they could beat your users up." it's not something facebook wants to be into. i think that part of this is trying to get the western — the first world in general to coalesce a little bit. there is a risk right now of a splinter net. broadly speaking, facebook is never

going to be able to achieve any kind of regulatory harmonisation between, say, the usa and china or russia, which are both fully trying to create their own independent internets. but as far as the first world goes — and, again, these are facebook‘s most lucrative markets — there are some potential. many, many countries have said that they want to copy gdpr, britain has said it wants to copy gdpr after brexit, and even in the usa, a lot of discussion around whatever privacy regime eventually emerges is looking at gdpr and saying, "why don't we do it like that?" now, in the end, is the way to really do this — and i'm sure facebook does not want this to happen — to just say that facebook is a media company and it needs to adhere to the rules that the traditional media countries have to adhere to when it comes to content? —— traditional media companies have to adhere to when it comes to content? yeah, i think that's another really important bit of context for what mark zuckerberg is saying here, because when he talks about hate speech and controlling harmful content, what he is proposing is a form of self—regulation in which politicians tell tech companies what they have to do, and tech companies do it. rather than, as you say, tech companies being directly

responsible, that would entail the repeal of what are called safe harbour laws, which basically say tech companies are a bit like phone companies, they're not responsible for what you say to each other over the phone. i think there's clearly a strong case for that. but i would also say that comes with huge risks as well because what it would do is incentivise all the tech companies, google and facebook, to be even more censorious than they already are. if they're going to get sued for everything you say to them, then we would be opting into a new world where even more than is already the case. facebook is having to use ai and human moderators to constantly scan what we say to each other and take it down regardless, really, of whether there's a case to answer potentially. tech companies will be incentivised to err on the side of caution. the us technology reporter for the daily telegraph newspaper speaking to us from california. the israeli army says it's targeted a number of hamas military posts after five rockets were fired from gaza into israel. it comes after palestinian authorities said four protestors died on the border earlier on saturday. they were taking part

in demonstrations to mark one year since weekly protests began about the declared right of return of palestinian refugees to homes that are now in israel. our middle east correspondent tom bateman has been to the border. a warning, his report does contain distressing images. he throws a rock. an israeli sniperfires back — a bullet to the leg. another palestinian joins the thousands with wounds from a year of protests at gaza's boundary fence. week after week, they have come back here. baharand burhan got engaged after meeting at the protests last year. we palestinians have the right to live. we here in gaza, we are oppressed people. we want to live our life, we want to feed our children. the protest began over the palestinian right to return to ancestral homes in the land that is now israel, but they've become about much more — a venting of anger over the crippling state of life in gaza.

nearly 200 people have been shot dead since last march. last year, an israeli soldier was killed by a palestinian sniper. the protesters are currently less than 100 metres from the perimeter fence. the israelis, so far, they've mostly been firing tear gas at the protesters, and you can see people here who are throwing rocks back, some have been burning tyres. from the snipers‘s nest, they watched. israel deployed thousands of extra troops today. explosives and petrol bombs were thrown at them, they said. they feared attempts to breach the fence and hurt civilians. and this event today, we've had approximately 40,000 demonstrators and rioters but the key difference being, is hamas obviously making a choice here, deploying people on the ground and making sure that there were less rioters coming towards the fence. hamas is the militant group which controls gaza. its leaders were in the crowds today, its security men controlling

the protesters — part of an arrangement with israel to calm tensions, after fears a military flare—up earlier this week could slip out of control. the stakes are high. hamas is under pressure, israel has closely fought elections in ten days hinging on security. the tension shows few signs of abating just yet. tom bateman, bbc news, gaza. slovakia has elected a political outsider as its first female head of state after the lawyer and anti—corruption campaigner zuzana capotova defeated her challenger by a substantial margin. caputova saw off the candidate nominate by the main governing party, winning on a campaign that called for greater transparency, humanity and truth in public life. rob cameron reports from bratislava. zuzana caputova, a woman with virtually no political experience, has defied early expectations to pull off a sensational political victory.

her message to voters was simple — change is possible. translation: i am happy, not just for the result, but mainly that it is possible not to succumb to populism, to tell the truth and raise interest without aggressive vocabulary. this started in the local election, was confirmed in the presidential election, and i believe the european election will confirm it as well. caputova says one of the reasons she ran for office was the murder last year of jan kuciak — a journalist killed as he was looking into links between corrupt slovak officials and organised crime. her opponent's campaign was stymied by association with the party that nominated him — the party led by robert fico, the man forced to resign as prime minister last year in the wake of the killing. so ultimately, this political

newcomer saw off one of the country's most experienced diplomats, maros sefcovic, but liberals celebrating the result as proof that the tide of populism and virulent nationalism in this region is ebbing should beware — turnout was extremely low, meaning literally millions of slova ks were left unmoved by her message of tolerance, truth and openness. slovakia, like so many of its neighbours, is still a country riven with divisions. the new president will have her work cut out, ringing it back together. —— the new president will have her work cut out bringing it back together. rob cameron, bbc news, bratislava. stay with us on bbc world news. still to come: famous landmarks across the world descend into darkness for an hour to highlight the urgency to fight climate change. the accident that happened here was of the sort that can

at worst produce a meltdown. in this case the precautions worked, but they didn't work quite well enough to prevent some old fears about the safety features of these stations from resurfacing. the republic of ireland has become the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace. from today, anyone lighting up in offices, businesses, pubs and restaurants will face a heavy fine. the president was on his way out of the washington hilton hotel, where he had been addressing a trade union conference. the small crowd outside included his assailant. it has become a symbol of paris. 100 years ago, many parisians wished it had never been built. the eiffel tower's birthday is being marked by a re—enactment of the first ascent by gustave eiffel.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: president trump has cut aid to el salvador, guatemala and honduras over what he called their failure to stop immigrant caravans heading for the us. facebook chief mark zuckerberg has asked for government help in controlling harmful internet content. prime minister theresa may is understood to be considering asking mps to vote for a fourth time on the withdrawal agreement she negotiated to leave the european union. on friday her deal was defeated by 58 votes. on monday, the house of commons will test whether there's support for alternative brexit plans, in a second round of what are called "indicative" or advisory votes. our political correspondent alex forsyth reports. there is clear frustration in westminster, still on show

the day after mps rejected theresa may's brexit plan — again. the question now is what happens next? as yet, members of the government can't give any real clarity. i think what we have to do is to make sure that we deliver on the will of the people at the referendum. we have to keep trying. some still argue the prime minister's brexit deal is the best option. it's obviously very disappointing that the government lost yesterday. i think that's, you know, put the country in some difficulty and i think the best way forward is the prime minister's deal, but we'll see what the options are. so, will she put her deal back again? well, we'll see. obviously, the cabinet will need to consider what the next steps forward will be. the ayes to the right, 286. the noes to the left, 344. yesterday's rejection of the brexit plan was smaller than the two previous efforts, but still substantial. on monday, mps will vote on alternatives to the prime minister's plan. last time, parliament could not agree on any one option, but having another public vote or keeping close to the eu in a customs union proved most popular. the government's waiting to see

if mps can agree a way forward, but isn't clear if that will change its direction. the customs union doesn't actually reflect or respect what was in our own manifesto, but we've got to look at what parliament coalesces around next week. but i think the best way to go forward is to be looking at getting that withdrawal agreement approved. but the labour leader, campaigning in newport today, is holding firm against the prime minister's plan, calling for further compromise, or an election. the absolute priority at the moment is to end this chaos that this government has brought us to by their endlessly running down the clock and basically bullying and threatening people. the bullying hasn't worked, the threats hasn't worked. it's time now for the sensible people to take over. today, there were protests along the irish border by those concerned about brexit and what it might mean here. at the same time, elsewhere, others are pressing the government to walk away without a deal. two weeks until the uk's

new planned exit date, and finding a solution seems as hard as ever. alex forsyth, bbc news. pope francis is in morocco to promote inter—faith dialogue in a country that projects itself as a bastion of moderate islam. bbc arabic‘s mouna ba is in the capital rabat. hundreds of people have lined up here to get a glimpse of the pope, who arrived earlier at this institute. it is institute mohammed vi to teach imams from morocco, other african countries, and from europe as well, tolerant islam. an institute that is backed by king mohammed vi. earlier, the pope had praised morocco's efforts to promote peaceful islam and rejects extremism. he also talked about cooperation in building a world of greater solidarity to promote inter—religious dialogue.

translation: i am grateful that my visit offers a significant opportunity for advancing inter—religious dialogue and mutual understanding between followers of our two religions. the courage to encounter one another and extend the hand of friendship is a pathway of peace and harmony for humanity, whereas extremism and hatred cause division and destruction. also on the pope's agenda is the meeting with a group of migrants in a centre that was established by a catholic humanitarian organisation in the capital, rabat. also a mass that will be attended by about 10,000 people. mickjagger says he is "devastated" to let down fans after the rolling stones announced they were postponing a tour of the us and canada.

the band say their frontman needs medical treatment. but this isn't the first time a tour like this has been hit by illness as ramzan karmali reports. he may seem full of energy and ever youthful, but 75—year—old mick jagger had to put off his hands north american tour. in a statement on twitter, the band said: the european leg of the tour had been seen by over 1.5 million fans and made the band an eye—watering $237 million. a decision like this couldn't have been taken lightly, but it isn't the first time the rolling stonees have pulled out of a tour. in 2014, they cancelled their australian and new zealand tour following the death of jagger's then—partner, l'wren scott.

back then, the band received a pay—out of $12.7 million from their insurance company. and they aren't the only musicians forced to cancel gigs. just last month, former black sabbath lead singer ozzy osbourne cancelled a number of gigs after being hospitalised with pneumonia. and younger performers are not immune either. # never mind, i'll find... adele cancelled the final two shows of her world tour after damaging her vocal cords. pop starjustin bieber cancelled the last 14 shows of his mammoth world tour in 2017, saying he wanted his mind, heart and soul to be sustainable. the stones began their no filter tour in germany in 2017 before travelling throughout europe over the last two years. the north american leg was set to start in miami next month and finish in canada injune. mick jagger expects to make a full recovery and told fans to keep hold of their tickets as he hopes he can provide them with satisfaction in the near future. touring can be a tough business.

all across the world, famous landmarks have descended into darkness — albeit only for 60 minutes — as part of a global call for action on climate change. earth hour takes place every year, and nearly 200 countries and territories take part. the bbc‘s tim allman has more. hong kong is renowned for its iconic skyline. but even here they sometimes have to turn out the lights. victoria harbour suddenly a lot less illuminated than normal. and the fight against climate change was the inspiration. we need to find a balance with this planet. it has finite resources and we believe that there are things that people can do, that cities can do, to help us achieve a sustainable future. earth hour began over ten years ago in australia. so it was no surprise to see sydney taking part. both the city's famous harbour bridge and the opera house cast into darkness. the big switch off taking place at 8:30 in the evening, local time.

dozens of countries, thousands of cities. this is mumbai's main railway terminus. or here in moscow. the kremlin, for an hour at least, becoming a place of shadows. in greece, the acropolis, which long predated electric light, an island of darkness in the centre of athens. and in paris, the eiffel tower celebrating its 130th birthday was briefly extinguished like a candle. so many places, one special hour. but as the swedish teenage activist greta thunberg tweeted, earth hour is every hour of every day. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @regedahmadbbc. stay with us on bbc news. much more

coming up. hello again. we've got quite a change in our weather compared with yesterday, when temperatures reach 20 celsius in kew in greater london. the wind of change is blowing, and that is going to be blowing some cooler air across england and wales, such that temperatures will drop by about 9 degrees in the capital, highs of 11 degrees or so. the change is brought about by this area of cloud, this cold front that continues to journey southwards, still bringing the threat of perhaps a little bit of patchy rain over the next few hours across wales, midlands, east anglia, into south—east england as well. further north, if you are heading outside, there is certainly a chill in the air with a widespread frost developing in the countryside, particularly in scotland, where we're looking at temperatures getting down to about —4 degrees celsius. if you are heading out the next hour or two, also wrap up warm, it will be cold.

plenty of sunshine across northern areas of the uk, through scotland, northern ireland and northern england. that is probably where the best of the weather will be. across wales, the midlands, east anglia and southern counties of england, more cloud than we had on saturday and a chill easterly wind as well, temperatures of 11 celsius in london compared with the 20 we had yesterday. you will notice that change for sure. looking at the weather picture through sunday evening and overnight, the skies will tend to clear and the winds will fall light. a recipe for things turning cold once again. patchy frost developing in the countryside, so a chilly start to the new working week. on monday, we have a lot of dry weather to come across england, wales and eastern areas of scotland too. there will be some change in the weather to the north—west where cloud will thicken, outbreaks of rain moving into northern ireland and western scotland and turning progressively heavier as we go through the day, it will be cold enough even for some snow over the hills in scotland. moving southwards, the wind coming up from the south, 13 or 14 degrees celsius, probably not feeling too bad. but things get much colder as we head to tuesday, a cold front swinging eastwards across the uk, taking a band of rain with it and introducing these bitterly cold

north—westerly winds. the rain clears to a mixture of sunshine and showers on tuesday, the showers could be heavy, thundery and potentially wintry. yes, we could see a litle bit of snow across some of the hills, particularly in the north and west of the uk. and it will be cold, just 6 degrees celsius northern of scotland, factoring in the wind it will feel like quite a cold april day. that's the latest weather. just a reminder — if you haven't already done so, the clocks go forward to british summer time on sunday.