welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america burden's prime minister is to and around the globe. my name is mike embley. burden‘s prime minister is to ask the opinion from another delay to brexit to give her more time to reach agreement with parliament. theresa may will also try to reach a britain's prime minister is to ask for another brexit delay and seek talks with the opposition in a fresh compromise with the leader of the bid to break the logjam. labour opposition, jeremy corbyn, a this debate, this division, move which has incensed many senior eggers within her own party. huge cannot drag on much longer. it is putting members of parliament crowds in algeria celebrating the news that is standing down. he and everyone else under immense announced the resignation with pressure. immediate effect after weeks of celebrations in algeria as president bouteflika resigns after 20 years in power, after weeks protests against his initial plans to stand for a fixed term. he has of protests and pressure. beenin to stand for a fixed term. he has been in powerfor 20 years and is fresh peace talks in afghanistan. 82. the corruption trial of the formulation prime najib razak, gets under way short. he is accused of we report from helmand province, where the taliban still casts stealing billions of dollars from a long shadow. the country's sovereign wealth fund, lmdb. it the country's sovereign wealth fund, imdb. it has the country's sovereign wealth fund, 1mdb. it has become one of the world's greatest financial scandals.

facebook check his —— chief executive mark zuckerberg has insisted that the platform is making progress when it comes to the issue of self—harm material and social media. molly russell had packed her bags, ready for school. the following morning, her family found her. 0n social media, she looked at self harming sites, graphics, shocking and easily accessed. molly's father said he was in no doubt that instagram, which is owned by facebook, helped kill his daughter. today, facebook‘s founder, mark zuckerberg, was asked whether his company is doing enough to help keep young people safe online. well, there's a lot that we can do and a lot that we do. we are building our systems to become more proactive over time. but i know that this is a huge issue. it's a huge issue everywhere in the world. the company continues to face

criticism in the wake of the mass shooting in christchurch, new zealand. the attack was live streamed on facebook and videos continue to resurface on the platform. mr zuckerberg said the company is getting better at removing harmful content. an example of where this is working well is in terrorist content, for example. our systems are able to take down, you know, 99% of the isis and al-qaeda content that we take down is flagged by our ai systems and taken down before anyone sees it on the network. so there is an opportunity to be able to do better, and this is what we're basically upgrading all of our systems to be able to do. you didn't come here for clickbait... facebook‘s growth to become one of the world's biggest companies has been staggeringly fast. lagging behind, critics say, has been its ability to protect all those who use it. sarah campbell, bbc news. time now to witness history. hello and welcome

to witness history. with me razia iqbal, here at the royal academy in london. today we present five extraordinary moments from the recent past, as told to us by the people who were there. in this programme, we'll find out about the lasting effects of agent 0range on the people of vietnam. we'll speak to the man who pioneered the sport of snowboarding. look back to the moment when leningrad became saint petersburg. and hear about the historic shift within the catholic church, known as vatican 2. but we start with a disturbing story from nicaragua. in march 1998, zoilamerica narvaez publicly accused her stepfather, daniel 0rtega, of having sexually abused her since she was a child. president 0rtega has always denied the accusations. zoilamerica spoke to witness history. translation: for12 years, i lived with physical sexual abuse.

then another eight years with sexual harassment. all i wanted was to make it stop, once and for all. the abuse began between 1977 and 78, when i wasn't even ten years old. at the time, daniel 0rtega was one of the main leaders. the guerrillas fighting the nicaraguan dictator. we just saw him as my mother's boyfriend. it began with him touching me and invading my proven sea as a little girl.

—— it began with him touching me and invading my privacy as a little girl. i remember my reaction, to protect myself, was always to stay quite still and pretend to be asleep. i quickly learned that i couldn't stop him. in 1979, the dictator was overthrown. and daniel 0rtega became head of the governing junta, with even more power. the sexual abuse was always accompanied by profound psychological abuse. when he raped me, he told me that i was by then ready for it because my body was now developed. because he always made me feel responsible for what was happening, i was scared to tell my mother.

i heard my mother berating daniel 0rtega about what was going on. it shows she knew from early on. but perhaps she never found a way of stopping him. today, i have decided to make it public that i am bringing a legal case against daniel 0rtega. my mother and daniel 0rtega immediately denied all the accusations i had made against him. translation: i faced all sorts of attacks and accusations, manipulations and conspiracies in my life. this is another conspiracy. translation: from that moment, they began attacking me, accusing me of being mad, an habitual liar, a nymphomaniac,

part of a political conspiracy, a cia agent, and they even said i was incapable of looking after my own children. daniel 0rtega appeared three years later in court, when he felt in complete control of the judiciary. the court ruled that the statute of limitations had run out, but that doesn't mean that he was innocent. for me, he will always be the abuser. and she will always be the mother, who was his accomplice. daniel 0rtega has been president of nicaragua since 2007. his wife, zoilamerica's mother, is now his vice president. during the vietnam war,

one of the battle tactics of the us military was to destroyjungles and vegetation that provided cover to north vietnamese fighters. the sprays used to kill the trees contained dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals in the world. decades later, the vietnamese are still coping with the horrific legacy of the chemical warfare. this next film contains images which may be upsetting to some viewers. decades ago, american forces sprayed huge amounts of agent prange over vietnam. —— 0range over vietnam. it was meant to strip trees bare, exposing enemy positions, but it also contained dioxin, one of the most poisonous substances ever created.

in 1965, i was a young medical student in saigon city. i liked very much to be an obstetrician and gynaecologist, so i took care of women and newborn babies. i saw in the hospital an increase of birth defects. it was horrible for me. very horrible for me. to see two, three times a week, deformed babies, or deformed children. i cried, cried with the mothers of the babies. and i cannot eat for many days. the figures are startling. in this one hospital, 158 deformed babies were born dead last year. statistically, that's three times what doctors here believe should be the average. i didn't know the cause

at that time. but later, in 1976, i read about the toxic chemicals used in vietnam during the wartime. agent orange is blamed, named for the orange bands around the drums, a defoliant containing deadly dioxin. the result then was a dead landscape. the result today, based on research at this saigon hospital and in america, is human tragedy. minute traces of toxic chemicals are being found in the uterus of pregnant women, even now, years after spraying stop. after spraying stopped. we carried out many studies. 1.8 million people in vietnam were exposed to the toxic chemicals. dioxin can get into the human body through the respiratory tract

or through the food chain. incidences of birth defects, the miscarriages, the foetal death in utero, and the cancer were more than four times higher among the exposed people, and the american veterans are also victims of the spraying. but dioxin, it can change the dna, so that it can be transmitted into many generations later. we have already the fourth generation is now affected, but we can detect very early the birth defects and cancers.

i hope that in the future, in ten more years, we can have a very small incidence of birth defects, like in the other countries. one of the terrible legacies of the vietnam war. now, onto the world of snow sport. in the late 19705, jake burton, inspired by a childhood toy, began developing the snowboard. in 1983, after much persuasion, ski resorts began allowing this new phenomenon onto their slopes. this was the first step towards snowboarding becoming a recognised sport. jake burton told us how it all came about.

snowboarders, we've always stood out. and in the beginning, we stuck out like a sore thumb. we had one board, we didn't have ski boots on, we didn't have poles, we were just, i think, antiestablishment. you'tr a rebel, what you're doing is irreverent. when you do a turn and there's so much snow that flies into your face and you can't see a damn thing, it's just... my name is jake burton carpenter. you know, iam referred to as the father of snowboarding, and i'm proud — immensely proud of that. as a kid, ijust always loved snow. it was something thatjust grabbed me, that whole winter mood and vibe was something that i loved. right as a very young child.

i was 13 or 1a when i got my first snowboard, which was simply like a skateboard for snow. and it was nothing more than a piece of wood that was curved on the end. it had a rope on the front that, that's how you would sort of maintain your balance and not lose it. i bought one and ijust fell in love with this sensation of surfing in snow. and i saw a sport there from a very young age. i mean, i always thought that they would do it and it sort of was a fad that came and went, but it never left for me. but i knew that you needed to have your feet better attached to the binding. i had to make over 100 prototypes, before i decided on a production board. i mean, i was clueless. when i started, i knew nothing about manufacturing.

i bought this fancy pin router, and twice, the thing shot the snowboard into the wall. it was like bing. like throwing a knife into the wall or something. i mean it would have gone right through me. i can remember this one moment when i was working with this company that was a manufacturer of furniture and we took some wood and we bent the tip and then ijust put bindings on and on my drive home, ijumped out of the car and went, yes, huge step. 82, we had ourfirst competition. threat we are we were not even allowed on ski resorts at the time but 1983, stratton, which was the first major resort, stratton mountain in vermont, caters to the new york crowd, they gave us an opportunity and we performed and it was a big

date and milestone for the sport. every day, we would find out about a new resort that they were allowing us to go there. and then ‘98 was when it went first to the olympics. it's very hard to get a sport off the ground, and for it to ultimately get to the olympics, and i didn't do it on my own. i mean, istarted and pioneered, for sure, but so many people got involved. it's a tribe. jake burton, known as the father of snowboarding. remember, you can watch witness history programme every month on the bbc news channel or you can catch up on all ourfilms, along with more than 1,000 radio programmes, in our online archive. just earch online for:

in 1991, shortly after the full of communism in russia, a referendum was held in leningrad, asking whether it should change its name back to st petersburg. the issue divided the city. ludmilla narosova remembers the passionate campaigning the city to restore leningrad. translation: this was the first time in the ussr that citizens got to choose the name of their city in a referendum. st petersburg was the cradle of the bolshevik revolution and it was renamed in honour of vladimir leading, founder of soviet communist ideology.

now his ideology has been rejected by the leadership here, they no longer want his name stamped on the city. translation: rejecting leading's name meant a complete turnaround, away from totalitarianism, it was a new mentality and. europe. it is the most european of all russian cities. its founder, peter the great, said it was russia's window on europe. the hardline communists are fighting to keep leningrad and on this issue, they were undignified scuffles. struggle. translation: no one, not even ourselves, believed we would succeed in changing the city's name because the opposition was very strong. this was the last stronghold of communists. lenin and his legacy. i remember 24—hour vigils outside our home, where old communists shouted, we will not allow you to dump lenin's name!

when pollsters predicted the result at 49—50, or 50—49, on the eve of the referendum, the orthodox church published its opinion. i quote, " leningrad is an ideological construct, "imposed upon the name of saint peter, "in whose honour the city was named." a russian orthodox service was held on the steps of the cathedral, of st peter and st paul, closed by the communists.

church leaders here want the city to bear the name of st peter. translation: do you know what our guiding light was? the words of peter the great himself — the impossible does happen. this was a surprising result, a slim but safe majority, voted yes to the referendum question whether leningrad should become st petersburg once more. translation: it was an indescribable feeling of great romantic illusions and hopes, that this was the first step up a great ladder. many of our hopes did not come to pass. ludmilla narusova. for ourfinalfilm, we head to the vatican city. in a surprise announcement in 1959, popejohn xxiii called all the world's bishops and cardinals to rome to discuss modernising the church.

the debates which became known as vatican ii went on throughout the 19605 and led to major changes any practice and outlook of millions of catholics. rome, where this week there opens the vatican council, the largest and the most important of any of the conferences in the whole 2,000 years of the roman catholic church. more than 2,000 cardinals and bishops... it was summoned by pope john xxiii as an attempty by rome to come to terms with the modern world. it is probable the most important religious event of the 20th—century. an ecumenical council is a rare occurrence in the church. it was absolutely revolutionary. europe was still you might say recovering from the second world war. there was a lot of uncertainty, there was the cold war, countries in africa and asia were now becoming independent as the great empires fell apart.

there was this immense ferment both in the church and the world and i think it was the genius of popejohn xxiii to say the best way to address all of this is to bring all of the bishops of the world together to respond to these charges. i was in the middle of my theological studies in rome. the opening day, we were in st peter's square and we watched this procession of bishops and then at the end came popejohn the. this procession of bishops and then at the end came popejohn xxiii. the crowds were chanting, it was a very exciting day. 10% of all the bishops here today have come from africa. about 20% have come from south america. it was quite an experience to be exposed to all of these different nationalities, different parts of the church from around the world. you could go into a restaurant and you would see bishops from france or bishops from spain and there would be a lot of spontaneous conversations. there was a tension between those who wanted to keep things the way

they were who john xxiii called the prophets of doom, they were whojohn xxiii called the prophets of doom, who saw everything in a negative way. some of the debates could get quite sharp. there were a lot of human tensions, a lot of human dynamics. an exciting modification in the thinking and practice of the church... one of the major reforms that came out of the second council was that we moved from the one latin language to the entire church, to the mass being celebrated in the language of the particular country. when i was a child, everything was in latin, as it was around the world. so for the vast majority of people, there was no understanding whatsoever. another very important development was the relationship between the catholic church and other christian churches, but also now a new attitude towards thejewish people, a recognition then that we ultimately are descended from thejewish faith and also that the church needs to be involved in issues of the world. it was because of the council that many priests and men's and bishops were in the forefront of the battle

for civil rights, marching with martin luther king, jr, for example. there was a group called the observers and they represented the various different christian churches, as well as non—christian religions. i gather there is a lot pressure that women should be allowed in as members of the council in some way or another. there were some women who were observers but obviously, if the council were to be held today, i think that would be quite different. what would have happened without the council is i think we would have found ourselves more and more irrelevant, stagnant and out of touch. john xxiii served only a few years but what he did in terms of opening up the church to the larger world is invaluable. there is no question he is one of the great popes of all time. the revolutionary shift inside the catholic church, caused by vatican ii. that is all from us this week.

we will be back again next month with more firsthand accounts of extraordinary moments in history but for now, from me and the rest of the witness team, goodbye. hello there, good morning. at the moment, it feels like winter has made a comeback. we've had everything thrown at us in the last 2a hours. lots of weather watcher pictures of big hailstorms affecting the uk, and of course, the sunshine coming out in between has led to some lovely rainbow pictures as well. we're seeing a short, sharp burst of really cold air that's come down from the arctic. you can see how that colder air has plunged southwards, and with it all those shower clouds. the cloud that's in the north sea is coming back into scotland and northern england,

which is why we're seeing some sleet and snow, and it's quite slippery over some high—level routes. some icy patches around, with temperatures in many places close to orjust below freezing. so a cold start really, i think, to wednesday, and a pretty miserable morning across the far north of england and scotland. some rain, some sleet and snow across the hills. that wetter weather clears away from northern england, pushes its way into northern ireland, mostly rain here, and across north wales. some heavy showers in the south—east and east anglia. some hail and thunder possible here. for many central and eastern parts of the uk, shouldn't be too windy, those showers could hang around a bit, but it will be windy in the north and west of the uk — strong to gale—force winds here. so these are the temperatures, 7—9 degrees. it feels colder in the wind. especially northern and western scotland, northern ireland, maybe the far south—west of england, and the channel islands, nearer to 2—4 degrees. that's how it feels in the wind. low pressure dominating our weather at the moment, which is why we're seeing all these downpours.

it's cutting off that supply of colder air, mind you, on thursday. we've got that weather front wrapped around a low, so that's the focus for some more persistent what is probably mostly rain at this stage across northern scotland. some wetter weather curling back into south—west england, moving into wales, into the west country too. a few heavy showers elsewhere, but a fair bit of sunshine around. not a bad day for northern england, southern scotland, and those temperatures are creeping up to around 9 or 10 degrees. and, as we head towards the end of the week and into the weekend, well, it's an improving sort of story. it will feel a bit warmer. i think many places will be dry, and there'll be some sunshine around as well. we've got our low pressure from thursday into friday, still anchored to the south—west of the uk. but, instead of a northerly wind that we're getting at the moment, we're going to find more of a south or south—westerly wind, so that means the temperatures will get a boost. we've still got the threat of some downpours in the south—west of england, wales, perhaps into north—west of england. eastern scotland, eastern england

probably having a drier day on friday, with some sunshine at times. those temperatures continuing to climb up to 13 or even 1a celsius.