welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: president macron promises notre—dame cathedral will be rebuilt within 5 years. donations have already reached almost $1 billion. ecuador‘s president tells the bbc the shocking details that led to him ending julian assange‘s asylum. almost 200 million indonesians are heading to the polls, in what's being called the world's most complicated election. the push for power in afghanistan — how women's roles are changing in the deeply conservative country.

in france, grief is now mixed with defiance and hope. hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring in to rebuild a spiritual and cultural landmark, within 5 years, president macron has promised. there is relief that so much of notre dame cathedral, and what was inside it, has survived. but much has been lost for good. from paris, lucy williamson reports. what burned with notre—dame, high above the paris skyline, was 800 years of history. for some, the physical anchor of paris, the cultural soul of france. it took 23 minutes to confirm the fire alert and send emergency crews to the scene. the fire was spreading quickly, oak rafters that had held the roof for centuries turning to ash in the evening sky. this was the first glimpse of what they faced,

footage of the building filmed from above, the flames mapping a cross against the night sky. inside, burning embers were still falling when the first crews made their way in. the pews where people had been waiting for mass that afternoon now covered with smouldering rubble. the empty space lit from above by a blaze of fire where the roof had been. translation: we've saved the crown of thorns and st louis‘ tunic, i think we were able to save some chalices. the fire didn't reach the treasury, and then inside they tried to save some paintings but, you know, it was impossible to save the big ones. tonight president macron addressed the nation. translation: we found that what we thought was indestructible can be damaged. everything that makes france is alive and therefore fragile. and yes, we will rebuild the notre—dame cathedral

and it will be more beautiful than before and it will be done in five years. this is where france kept not just its relics but its stories, a place to mark both heroism and loss. those two things were felt here again last night, a new chapter in the tale of notre—dame. lucy williamson, bbc news, paris. we now know there was a crucial time window of barely half an hour that made all the difference to saving so much of the cathedral and its treasures. the firefighters were working to a practised plan, but so many people have been talking of the courage it took to do what those fire crews did. earlier, i spoke with gregg favre — a firefighter of 20 years experience — who watched the blaze unfold on social media. i saw it relatively quick on twitter and even the initial images as a firefighter who works, in an urban area, as a firefighter who used to work in a district with its own cathedral, i'm not only familiar with the type of building structure,

and what i was seeing initially was so deeply concerning, the fire went about as expected. save for the fact that the paris fire brigade did an incrediblejob in the back half of the fire, of managing to wrangle some of the control back and obviously save large portions of that building. it was a monumental effort that they put forth and even among firefighting ranks it is a heroic effort by every measure of the word. from all your experience, can you talk us through that in more detail? what were they up against? you have some really interesting initial concerns. one, where the fire is located. everything indicates right now, the investigation will obviously determine this conclusively, everything indicates that the fire started up near the roof in a loft or heavy timberarea. this building is not designed for a lot of traffic

through, to actually get physical bodies into that space. it's certainly not designed to get equipment like big hoses and things like that into position to fight a fire up there. you also have the issue of smoke and heat dissipating. not being able to find the fire right away is certainly a concern at first 20, 30, even an hour as you try to search for a fire in a cavernous structure like this. the other concern, as a fire captain, as a chief of operations, that you have to be worried about is all the people that are there at the moment, you know you have cathedral staff, you have contractors who are working on the renovations and you have visitors. i read today that mass was going on at the time. as a fire commander, you only have a finite number of initial resources who are going to be on scene, and you have to decide how you are going to divvy up those resources for a fire attack, evacuation, searching for people who maybe didn't hear the fire alarm

or can't find their way out. they were up against an eight ball. the moment that fire came in, and again, i spoke with fire chiefs around the country yesterday as this was unfolding and everybody said this is tremendous. it's amazing too, they were willing to do what they did, the building is a national treasure, but it is a building and those are things they were saving. this was not human life. sure. i was really moved by the story today of the rector who donned fire gear and took firefighters into areas of the cathedral he knew had important artefacts, that's a tremendous thing to do, not only from a firefighting standpoint but from a cultural sacrifice, to be willing to go in and put your life on the line to save things that mean so much to not only the country but to the world. again, it's a heroic effort by so many.

gregg fravre, professor gregg favre, interesting to talk to you. the president of ecuador has renewed his allegations about the behaviour of the wikileaks co—founder, julian assange, during his 7 year stay at the ecuadorean embassy in london. julian assange was arrested last week by british police and now faces possible extradition to the united states on hacking charges. the president spoke to our north america editorjon sopel. translation: several, from verbal insults against ecuador, when he referred to our country as a completely insignificant country, on one hand. and on the other — excuse me that i have to say this here — but even smearing his faeces on our embassy‘s walls. i think these are sufficient reasons to revoke and terminate his asylum. so what did jon sopel make of what president moreno told him? it was a kind of a shocking claim,

as you can imagine, coming from the country's president, which gives it all that additionalforce. i should say thatjulian assange's lawyer has denied any suggestion that he behaved in that way. the president also went on to talk about his bullying of staff, attacking staff, even spying on staff, putting cameras in the embassy. and what you kind of see there is the breakdown of a relationship, that he had been in that embassy for seven years and i felt, from president moreno, speaking to him, there was a kind of huge sense of relief thatjulian assange was now somebody else's problem and not ecuador‘s. let's get some of the day's other news. parts of central london including waterloo bridge and parliament square are blocked to traffic for a second day by climate change protestors. extinction rebellion say they want to shut down london until the end of the month.

police have arrested nearly 300 people. president trump has vetoed a bill passed by the united states congress last week that would have ended us support for the saudi—led coalition in the conflict in yemen. in a statement, mr trump described the resolution as "an unnecessary and dangerous" attempt to weaken his constitutional powers and a threat to the lives of american citizens. a reuters news agency team, including two journalists who are injail in myanmar, has won a pulitzer prize for reporting on the murder of rohingya muslims by the burmese military. the prestigious prize is the latest given to wa lone and kyaw soe 0o, who are serving 7 years in prison for their investigation into the killing in 2017 of 10 unarmed men. 193 million indonesians head to the polls today in what may be the world's most complicated election. indonesia's presidential, parliamentary and regional elections are all happening simultaneously, for the first time in its history.

karishma vaswani reports from jakarta. a rock star welcome forjoko widodo and his message of unity and economic growth. joko widodo can definitely pack in the crowds. he is selling the same vision this time round, but in a decidedly different political landscape, and some of the choices he has made have disappointed his supporters. two years ago, hardline protests broke out against his former right—hand man, chinese indonesian christian, basuki tjahaja purnama, or ahok, as he's known. he was accused of blasphemy against islam. and, as the nation watched, ahok went through a highly politicised trial and eventually went to jail. jokowi stayed silent.

today, jokowi's running mate is a hard—line muslim cleric, and one of the leaders of that witch—hunt. a visible attempt to silence those who have questioned his religious credentials. his main opponent, former military general, prabowo subianto, has also tacked into a growing desire for power amongst hardline muslim groups. both sides in the presidential campaign have used religious issues, they have used islam as a tool to get support. after the election is over, will they be able to put this genie back in the bottle and go back to business as usual? i think it will be difficult because they have certainly incited a lot of people and they've increased tensions in society and they've really put religion at the front of politics. much of this has not been felt yet in daily life, except for a growing piety in indonesian society.

translation: i only wear a headscarf to work but there is growing pressure to wear one. if my friends are wearing the hijab in a photo on social media and i'm not, ifeel bad, so the next time i will wear it. for mulyaningsih and millions of other indonesians, this election is about so much more than religion. it is about the economy, jobs and a better future, but religious issues are threatening to overshadow that narrative, putting indonesia's democracy and pluralism at risk. earlier i spoke to karishma to ask her about whether candidates were using religion to define themselves. very much so, you see that in the choice that the running major for the president, the incumbent, he's got the 76—year—old cleric as his vice president shall candidate. at

on the other side you've got prabowo subianto and businessmen running after having courted the critics saying many islamist groups, you can often see those groups represented with their flags at the rallies that they have held injakarta and other parts of the country. that's just one of the choices that these residents as people across the archipelago will have to make today stop voting kicked off about an hour oi’ stop voting kicked off about an hour or $0 stop voting kicked off about an hour or so ago. on the balance, on the choice amongst the choices indonesians are making, besides the president and vice presidential candidates, thousands of seats across the local and national legislative parliaments, it's a really complicated election and they are trying to do it all in one day. i gather they will be preliminary results within hours, although the final results not until next month.

that's right. and one of the big concerns in the leading up to the selection is the issue of voting irregularities on voting list as well as the concerns over tampered ballots, overseas voting boots, some thousands of ballots in malaysia for instance, the election commission has said they may end up asking for that vote to be redone. there are also —— they are also long queues outside other voting boots for overseas voters in places like syd ney overseas voters in places like sydney where some have complained about not being able to cast their vote at all. here injakarta we are getting reports in the capital city, those long queues and lack of efficiency at polling booths across the country. all of this will add to the country. all of this will add to the fact that voter participation may not be as high this time round as we've seen in previous elections. it's something the opposition we use to say when they contest or if they

contest the result if they don't go their way. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: what a difference a day makes! the dog found more than 100 miles off the thai coast gets a hero's welcome on dry land. pol pot, one of the century's greatest mass murderers, is reported to have died of natural causes. he and the khmer rouge movement he led were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million cambodians. there have been violent protests in indonesia, where playboy has gone on sale for the first time. traditionalist muslim leaders have expressed disgust. the magazine's offices have been attacked and its editorial staff have gone into hiding. it was clear that paula's only contest was with the clock, and as for her sporting legacy, paula radcliffe's competitors will be chasing her new world best time for years to come.

quite quietly, but quicker and quicker, she seemed just to slide away under the surface and disappear. this is bbc news, our main headline: president macron promises notre—dame cathedral will be rebuilt within five years, donations have already reached almost a billion dollars. let's stay with that story now. constance boucha rd is distinguished professor of medieval history at the university of akron. thank you for your time. could this reconstruction be done in five

yea rs, reconstruction be done in five years, do you think? as president thomases, give us a scale of this job. they would have to start by redoing the roof. that is the big thing. it's possible they could redo the roof in five years because they got close to $1 billion. there are two exa m ples got close to $1 billion. there are two examples i can think of in relatively recent times, one is york minster, which was burned in 1984, and they managed to redo the roof in about five years. the other example is last cathedral, gothic cathedral roughly the same age as notre—dame, in that case it took them close to 20 years, but they were dealing with the great depression and a lot of other issues of france trying to recover from world war i. in a sense, this cathedral has been in a process of restoration for centuries, hasn't it? yes. that's ride. bubbly, local churches that

had various advantages over the yea rs. had various advantages over the years. does make it that's right stop probably. what was carried out in the second half of the 19th century when the cathedral had first been damaged during the french revolution and then had been sort of slowly going downhill. so, actually, a lot of what with inco about the standard of what notre—dame looks like is late 19th century. the spiral was added in the late 19th century spiral was added in the late 19th ce ntu ry sto p spiral was added in the late 19th century stop its too bad the spiral was added does max meyer, it was an enormous spire and when it collapsed it took up much of the vaulting in the central crossing where than even the central crossing where than even the transept met. if it hadn't been for the spiral following, the vaulting might have stood up as it did over the nave which helps protect interior of the church from even worse damage. we should super ha rd to

even worse damage. we should super hard to the mediaeval architect for how well all that stonework was built. how concerned are you about the stone now? the stone is going to have issues. it's parisian limestone, and the problem with limestone, and the problem with limestone is when it gets very heated, it tends to degrade. this stone has already been having plenty of adventures. that is almost 42 centuries it had been degraded by things like acid rain, pollution from burning coal dust marked almost —— almost for two centuries. they had that almost cleaned up and now they have this. limestone after all is burned in lime kilns to be one of the chief elements that goes into making cement. so it breaks down under extreme heat. that is something they are going to have to think about. the other issue they will have to think about is buttresses. the fine buttresses were

not original to notre—dame, that is the wall started going up in the 11 60s and they got them up, and they we re very 60s and they got them up, and they were very tall and very nice, and then when they got the roof on, the weight of the roof started ever so slightly bowing the walls outward, they thought oh, this could be a problem. so they retrofitted the flying buttresses. but now without a roof, one of the concerns they might have his other flying buttresses, which are pushing the walls in, going to start pushing them in a little too much and tell they can get something does make —— until they can get something on top of the roof. it is certainly something to keep an eye on. thank you so much. women from afghanistan are calling for more say in talks this weekend between the taliban and an afghan government delegation. afghanistan is still a deeply conservative society, where women have to fight for their rights.

0ur chief international correspondent lyse doucet reports from kabul. building a different afghanistan takes time, it takes effort. even body—building has been taboo — for women. hooria kurbani's family used to say this is no place for a woman. now she has her own gym but faces threats in this conservative society to shut it. translation: we have fought for our rights up to now. we will never give up. we will continue to fight. do you worry now, now that there's talks with the taliban, that you could lose some of this? translation: i have spent all my life in a society that's full of fear, we are always in danger — i'm used to it now. zan tv, women's tv, trying to change a man's world. not just a channel for women, a place to train them to do all thejobs. 0gai wardak was born in 2001, the year the taliban

were ousted from power. last year, during a rare three—day ceasefire, she came face to face with taliban fighters. the taliban that we have in this time, it's not like the past. the past taliban that i heard the stories, they are really scary. do think the taliban will let you work here at zan tv? they won't, yeah. so what will you do? so i have to fight with them, because it's my dream, and i have to work for my sisters. a deeply conservative society is changing — slowly. this is usually men's work. not the best of work, but it feeds a family. this country has undeniably changed since the years when the taliban were in charge here.

women of kabul couldn't even go out on the streets then. but the taliban also say they've changed. the question is, have they changed as much as their society has? that question is being asked by women who have broken through the thickest of glass ceilings. nargis nehan is a senior government minister. a growing number of women are now in topjobs. they're anxious to preserve this progress in any taliban talks. they're coming as a political group, there is no fear, and we are fully ready to discuss with them and all the difference is that we have negotiate with them. but if they're coming for a political capture only, that they will come and capture and arrest people and take us backward, it is of a big concern for us. women insist they must be at the table. former mp fawzia koofi is one of the only women who attended the first round of talks. how did it feel to meet the man who once stopped girls, including her, from going to school?

so i felt powerful, and ifelt visible, and ifelt also, i think they listened. yes, they did not agree to my view perhaps, we did not share many things in common, but they listened, and i think that was the moment that i realised, you know, they cannot take us back. afghanistan is called one of the hardest places to be a woman. women have lost so much in war — they are determined to win when there is peace. lyse doucet, bbc news, kabul. you may have seen the story about the dog that was rescued in the ocean more than 200 kilometres off the coast of thailand. about 135 miles. now the animal has been brought back to port to be given a health check. he was discovered swimming in the gulf of thailand on monday. tim allman has the story. back on dry land, a miracle on four legs. this little champion has been named boonrod, a thai word that roughly

translates as "the saved one." you can say that again. he looks ok now, a little dehydrated but basically alright. it was a very different story a day earlier. this was boonrod when he was pulled onboard an oil rig in the gulf of thailand. bedraggled and exhausted, the animal had been found swimming in the water. where he came from, how he got there, and how long he was in the sea — no—one knows. there's been some speculation he may have fallen off a fishing trawler. whatever the answer, this was quite a feat of doggie paddling. after his rescue, boonrod was transferred onto a ship and brought to this port in southern thailand. when he has completely recovered and given the all clear, he will then move to a new home in the north—east of the country, about as far away from the sea as you can get. tim allman, bbc news.

that's it for now. thank you so much for watching. hello there, good morning. as expected, tuesday was a cloudy day for many of us. rain and drizzle around as well. 0ver over the next delays there we more sunshine more widely and for all of us sunshine more widely and for all of us it will be turning warmer in that sunshine as well stop there is still some cloud on the scene as well at the moment, this cloud shouldn't bother us, it should bring some cooler, whether there was a weather into iberia. still a bit of dampness for western scotland, the car breaking further south and that means the mist and fog patches through wales, the midlands and southern england, that will clear in the morning. the cloud bubbles up from east anglia towards the pennines, may squeeze out a light

shower but on the whole that is a dry afternoon with some sunshine and warmer than it was on tuesday. as of 19, maybe 20 degrees. the downside with all this temperature and sunshine is the high pollen levels you will see across england and wales in particular. the evening and overnight we will have clear skies but low cloud developing over the north sea coast, that will bring its way further inland so a bit misty and murky over the hills. a bit chilly in rural areas. those of the temperatures in towns and cities. 0ver temperatures in towns and cities. over the next few days we will find warmer weather pushing across the whole of the country, really warming up whole of the country, really warming up across whole of the country, really warming up across central areas of europe and that is where our air is coming from. on thursday, we will still have that mist and low cloud to start the day, that will tend to break up. there will still be some patches of cloud here and there but most patches of cloud here and there but m ost pla ces patches of cloud here and there but most places will be enjoying the

sunshine on thursday. a bit chilly around the southern north sea coast, temperatures rising in general to 17 degrees in glasgow and around 21—22 through the south of england. 0n fide, hardly any cloud as old, we will have a gentle south to south—easterly breeze pushing the warmth northwards so possibly in the low 20s to the central belt of scotland. 23 to the south and into the north—west of england. this is a flavour of what's to come over the easter weekend. the heat is probably peaking on saturday, northern areas seeing more cloud, some patchy rain on sunday, still dry with some sunshine in the south—east.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the french president emmanuel macron has promised notre—dame cathedral, devastated by monday's fire, will be rebuilt within five years. companies and business tycoons have so far pledged almost a billion dollars towards the reconstruction. voting is under way in indonesia's elections, where almost 200 million people are eligible to vote. the incumbent president, joko widodo, is running against an ex—general prabowo subianto, seen here voting, in a race which correspondents say has seen both embrace hardline islamic allies. the president of ecuador has renewed his allegations about the co—founder of wikileaks, julian assange, during his seven year stay at the ecuadorian embassy in london. the president has told the bbc julian assange insulted his country and smeared faeces

on the embassy walls. you up—to—date on the headlines. it is up at three in the morning. now it's time for panorama. tonight on panorama — the mystery of the gatwick drone attack. 140,000 passengers delayed. we kind ofjust got stuck in a total limbo. a thousand flights cancelled or diverted. we couldn't say anything, we were just all crying. for the first time, we reveal the cat and mouse battle against the drone. they clearly had some idea of how airports work, and had some intelligence as to what we were doing. we test the military kit brought in to disable drones... so, he's completely lost control, and there's nothing that he can do. ..and look at how dangerous drones can be.