i'm mariko oi in tokyo. the headlines: emperor akihito is to formally give up his throne, the first japanese emperor to step down in more than 200 years. a new era is set to begin as his heir, crown prince naruhito, prepares to ascend the chrysanthemum throne. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: us deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, who appointed robert mueller to investigate links between russia and donald trump's presidential campaign, resigns. islamic state releases a new video.

if it is authentic, it will be the first time its leader, abu bakr al—baghdadi, has been seen in years. good morning. it is midnight in london and 8:00am here in tokyo, where for the first time in more than 200 years, a japanese emperor is about to resign. on tuesday afternoon, emperor akihito will enter a ceremonial room in the imperial palace and formally give up his throne. under japan's constitution, emperor akihito is not allowed to retire, so the government had to pass a special one—off law to allow him to do so. he will be succeeded by his eldest son, crown prince naruhito, on wednesday. as part of the celebrations

for the imperial succession, japan's golden week holidays, usually a week long, have been extended to ten days. a lot of people were out and about, but not exactly today with this heavy rain. here on the streets of tokyo, there a sense of celebration, anticipation and even a tinge of sadness, as the country enters a imperial era. emperor akihito is a well respected and popularfigure, emperor akihito is a well respected and popular figure, so emperor akihito is a well respected and popularfigure, so many are sad to see him step down, but most understand and sympathise with the 85—year—old's desire to abdicate. understand and sympathise with the 85-year-old's desire to abdicate. he is our country's symbol, and i've a lwa ys is our country's symbol, and i've always had the impression that he is kind and gentle, so i feel sad. translation: i support the current emperor's decision to add abdicate, given his age. translation: on wednesday, they'll be a new emperor. how do you feel? translation: i look forward to having the new emperor.

when his son, crown prince naruhito, ta kes to when his son, crown prince naruhito, takes to the chrysanthemum throne, japan quite literally enters a new era. that is because the country uses an emperor's rain to mark time, so uses an emperor's rain to mark time, so when crown prince naruhito becomes the new emperor, the era ends, andjapan becomes the new emperor, the era ends, and japan enters the new era, translated, it means beautiful harmony. a lot of thought went into choosing that name, and it's supposed to represent the mood of the country. and since it was announced, a month ago, the name has been everywhere. even some cafe ‘s are getting in on the act. translation: when the new era's name was announced, all of japan was translation: when the new era's name was announced, all ofjapan was in the mood to celebrate, and many creators expressed that through their art. as a last day artist, i wa nted their art. as a last day artist, i wanted to celebrate very well, by making this. —— latte artist. very creative latte art there.

i spoke to shihoko goto, an analyst onjapan with the think tank the wilson centre. she told me about how emperor akihito will be remembered. he is actually a man who represents a continuum, first and foremost of all. remember that his father was emperor hirohito. he has really atoned for that by reaching out to the people, being at one, reaching out to the nation of japan at times of great suffering, including especially during natural disasters, but he's also taken a role in reaching out to countries that suffered under japanese reaching out to countries that suffered underjapanese aggression during world war ii and before that. in that respect, he also taken on a

political role. but he has been respected, and his son is expected to that tradition of bridging divides. and he will be succeeded by his eldest son, crown prince naruhito, on wednesday. he and his wife will bring a lot of firsts for the imperial family, university educated, they lived abroad for many yea rs educated, they lived abroad for many years as well. what kind of era do you expect from the new emperor? actually, for the viewers of the bbc, the fact that they both went to oxford is particularly noteworthy. and crown prince naruhito has said in public that one of the happiest times he has spent during his life was actually at oxford. they are very cosmopolitan in that respect. the princess before she married was a korean diplomat. her lineage also comes from that tradition of diplomacy. so certainly they would wa nt to diplomacy. so certainly they would want to use their linguistic abilities, their general cosmopolitan flair, to enhance

imperial diplomacy as well. the challenge, though, is the system itself. the imperial household agency has a lot of constraints that would prevent them to perhaps be as effective as they could be. we will be back with you a little later on newsday. now let's catch up on some of the day's other news: the us deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, has said he is resigning from his post. mr rosenstein appointed special counsel robert mueller in 2017 to invesigate links between the russian government and president trump's campaign. in his resignation letter, mr rosenstein said he served without fear or favour, and that truth is not determined by opinion polls. our washington correspondent dan johnson has more. everyone had been expecting rod rosenstein to go, in fact, it was something of a surprise that he didn't resign late last year when it was revealed that at one stage he

had actually suggested wearing a wire to secretly record president trump. his constant defence of that process , trump. his constant defence of that process, that investigation, was another thing that made him unpopular with the president, even though at one stage he is alleged to have said that he would make sure the president was protected from that investigation. so rod rosenstein has been a figure who, throughout, really, his two years in office, has trodden a difficult tightrope of trying to maintain the support of the president, to retain hisjob, but also support of the president, to retain his job, but also trying to maintain the impartiality of the law and the office that he held as number two in the justice department. office that he held as number two in thejustice department. but in terms of the writer investigation, he was a more important figure because the attorney general, jeff sessions, had stood back from that investigation because of potential conflicts of interests. that is why rod rosenstein, despite only being the deputy attorney general, has been such an interesting, key figure in

the last two months, and really the only way he has climbed on so long is because i think there was an a cce pta nce is because i think there was an acceptance that the mueller report need needed to have been concluded, needed to have been finalised, before he left office. but there is an announcement he will go within two weeks. no surprise, because the new attorney general, william barr, had announced a successor, had appointed somebody to take over when he took office in february. so rod rosenstein really had been facing a ticking clock. lets stay in the us. —— let's stay in the us. presidential hopefuljoe biden has kicked off his campaign for the democratic nomination. the former vice president addressed a rally in pittsburgh, laying out his vision for the country's middle class. mr biden announced his 2020 bid last week and opinion polls suggest he is currently leading the democratic field. the head of boeing has defended the safety of the 737 max aircraft, saying he is sorry for the loss of life and insisting the company has a duty to eliminate risk. dennis muilenburg made the comments as he appeared in front of shareholders just hours

after it was revealed the us aviation regulator has received four phone calls from current and former boeing employees about the safety of the aircraft. indonesia's president has announced plans to relocate the country's capital city. jakarta is on the crowded main island of java, and is plagued by flooding and subsidence. the indonesian planning minister says the new site for the capital has yet to be chosen. the american film director john singleton has died at the age of 51. he was removed from the life support system he was on after suffering a stroke two weeks ago. in 1991, john singleton became the youngest person and the first african—american, to be nominated for an oscar for best director, for his film boyz n the hood. the united states has delivered a new warning that allowing huawei to help build the uk's new 5g

data network would pose an unacceptable risk. a senior american security official warned that the us would reconsider how it shared intelligence with any western ally which let huawei play a part in building 5g networks. a decision by the british prime minister to involve huawei was leaked last week. our security correspondent gordon corera reports. it is the promise of a new, high—tech future. 5g data networks will connect almost every device and aspect of our lives, from our cars to our homes. but should this future be made in china, and by this company, huawei? washington has been arguing that the risk of china spying on or switching off 5g through the company is too great, and today, a top us diplomat told me there would be consequences to using huawei. if countries put unsecured, untrusted vendors into their 5g networks, in any place, we're letting countries know

that we're going to have to consider the risk that that produces to our information—sharing arrangements with them. it was here last week that the uk's national security council met to decide what to do about 5g. details of those discussions promptly leaked, leading to an ongoing inquiry. but it reportedly decided that the risks of using huawei could be managed. that is a view washington won't be happy about. the chancellor has been in china in the last few days to encourage trade, and deciding whether to give huawei a role involves balancing the economic benefits with the national security risks, as well as the potential of falling out with washington or beijing. i think the british government is extremely worried. because on the one hand, they are looking forward to forging ever—closer economic ties with china in a post—brexit scenario. whereas on the other hand, under america's pressure, the uk have to work out

what are the security risks involved by using a 5g system from huawei? uk security officials believe they can keep huawei's technology out of the most sensitive core parts of the 5g network, managing the risk. but that was a view rejected today by washington. what people refer to as the non—core or the edge, over time, will be a critical part of the network. the us says using huawei would be like handing bejing a loaded gun, and the bbc has been told that the major telecom companies who plan to use huawei equipment have been asked to attend a meeting at the us embassy in london tomorrow, as washington's pressure continues. gordon corera, bbc news. you're watching newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko oi, live in tokyo. still to come on the programme: we will have more on the end of emperor aikihito's reign injapan.

also on the programme: underwater, and maybe undercover. is this beluga whale found off the coast of norway in fact a russian spy? nothing, it seems, was too big to withstand the force of the tornado. the extent of the devastation will lead to renewed calls for government help to build better housing. internationally, there have already been protests. sweden says it received no warning of the accident. indeed, the russians at first denied anything had gone wrong. only when radioactivity levels began to increase outside russia were they forced to admit the accident. for the mujahideen, the mood here is of great celebration. this is the end of a

12—year war for them. they've taken the capital, which they've been fighting for for so long. it was 7 o'clock in the morning, the day when power began to pass from the minority to the majority, when africa, after 300 years, reclaimed its last white colony. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko oi in tokyo. and i'm kasia madera in london. our top stories: emperor akihito is set to formally give up his throne, it's the first time a japanese emperor has stepped down in more than 200 years. and the us deputy attorney general rod rosenstein — who appointed robert mueller to investigate links between russia and donald trump's presidential campaign — submits his resignation. let's have a look at the front pages of the newspapers around the world.

the philippines star is covering the ongoing spat over a shipment full of canadian waste currently sitting in port in manila. the paper says president duterte has threatened to declare war on canada if they didn't take the waste back by the 15th of may. one to watch. the south china morning post is focussing on the ongoing us—china trade war. with talks set to restart, the paper predicts that although some trade deals may be made, there will be plenty more battles to come. and as we've been hearing from mariko, the international edition of the japan times is focussing on the last day of emperor akihito's reign. they've picked this image of the emperor kneeling with evacuees after a volcano eruption in 1991 as one of the defining images of the emperor's reign. the man believed to be the leader of the so—called islamic state

group, abu bakr al—baghdadi, has reappeared on camera. he was last seen in 2014 when the is militants had captured large swathes of territory in iraq and syria. in a video he vows to seek revenge following the fall of the caliphate. earlier we heard from mia bloom, a professor at georgia state university who has been researching is propaganda for a number of years. the video is clearly intended to boost the morale of the isis supporters at a time at which i'm sure having lost the territorial caliphate, they are at their lowest point and so what he has done in the video is claimed that 90 different terrorist attacks across eight countries in order to to give this feeling of steadfastness, in fact he uses the word steadfastness several times to project his power and influence. what you make of the suggestion about the motivation for the attacks in sri lanka on sri

lanka, that that was — it wasn't for what happened in christchurch, but in fact for what happened in baghouz, the fall of the caliphate? this makes more sense because the fall of baghouz is also related to the attack in austria, there was, as you remember, another christmas market. and it makes more sense in terms of the amount of time it takes to plan such a sophisticated attack. you need more than three weeks to plan multiple suicide attacks with eight operatives. so it never made sense to me to blame a march 15 event and then say that three weeks goes by and you can have an attack of this sophistication. the first information that was given by the indian security agency was able fourth, which is two and a half weeks after the attack. he also talks about the prospect of another potential attack, a warning, a thread, what do we make of this?

he's basically saying that even though the territorial caliphate no longer exist, he is still able to command and control multiple attacks and he mentioned sri lanka —— mia bloom, he is also talking about mali and other places in africa, rejecting his power despite losing his territorial base of operations. that was professor mia bloom who has been studying is propaganda for a number of years now. questions are being asked over why more than 270 people died as a result of working on indonesia's huge one—day elections. an official with the country's general elections commission has said the deaths are a result of fatigue related illnesses caused by long hours of work counting millions of ballot papers by hand. more than 1,500 workers also fell ill. our next guest is a journalist for the independent online publication new naratif, a publication focused on regional issues in asia. aisyah llewellyn has started

to investigate what's behind the deaths and joins us via webcam from her home in medan, sumatra, indonesia. the deaths could be as high as 320? hello. i think so. we're getting reports now it is probably around 270, more likely over 320. tell us a little bit about what kind of work these workers were engaged in? right. you have to understand that this was a huge election, it wasn't just a presidential election, there we re just a presidential election, there were five different colour boxes for parliamentary elections, presidential elections and regional elections —— ballot boxes. there we re over elections —— ballot boxes. there were over 290 million people registered to vote, it was one of the largest single elections we have ever seen the largest single elections we have

ever seen globally. i spoke to one of the families of one of the potential victims yesterday and they we re potential victims yesterday and they were telling me that he went out to work at seven am and didn't get back untilfour am work at seven am and didn't get back until four am the next morning. work at seven am and didn't get back untilfour am the next morning. so, they were really working around the clock to tabulate all of those ballots, and because this has never happened before, i don't think people really realised how much work it was going to be. people were exhausted physically and mentally as well. is there a way of calculating how many ballots each worker was counting? i appreciate the figures are extraordinary. it depends on which polling station they were posted to, but, if there were five ballot boxes, it takes five minutes to count each ballot, right of that is per person. even if you had a few

thousand people they are, it's still a huge undertaking. how we heard anything from the electoral commission itself? i spoke to the head of the electoral commission here in sumatra, he seemed very shaken when i spoke to him yesterday and quite absurd stop i asked him, well, he is responsible for these deaths, because there is an argument that 390 people, there were some 7 million people working on the day, so, based on that, it's relatively low based on those terms, but those we re low based on those terms, but those were all people working around the clock, when i asked him who he thought was responsible for the deaths, he thought that the electric committee was unequivocal in needing to ta ke committee was unequivocal in needing to take responsibility. to that end, the government said they are going to give compensation to the victims, so to give compensation to the victims, so for the victims who died it will be 36 million indonesian rupiah, which is about £2000 each. this was

a very unique election, one of its kind, but if this happens again, there is going to have to be some kind of rethinking. yes. it's not the electoral committee or the electrical commission that actually decided to do it that way. it is required by indonesian law, and there are laws that are truly — putting putting all the elections on one day. they did this to try to be more efficient and cheaper in terms of logistics to do it all in one day. but now, a conversation is starting to actually say it really wasn't a good idea. i don't think they realise what a massive undertaking it was going to be. so now there are calls to change the laws, we have had the presidential election, and so looking forward

there are a lot of questions asked about whether that is the right way to do it and whether they should go back to do a —— to 2014 when the elections were separate. thank you aisyah llewellyn for bringing this to our attention. the strange discovery of a whale wearing a harness off norway's far north east coast has raised suspicions of russia's military using the mammals as part of a special ops force. the beluga whale was found wearing a strap that could hold a camera or weapon near the small fishing village of inga. georgina smyth has more. an unlikely wild encounter with a dark twist. this white beluga whale seem dark twist. this white beluga whale seem to be tame, swimming up to swimming vessels and trying to pull stra ps swimming vessels and trying to pull straps off boats. fishermen noticed rope that was clipped into a harness that could hold a camera or weapon.

there were clips on the harness like these that were on the whale, we tried to reach those clips and open them, my colleague and i try to do this for some time but we couldn't do it. evermore curious, one of the fishermen got into a survival suit andjumped into fishermen got into a survival suit and jumped into the water. translation: then, after i got in, he came up along the side of me and i could reach the clip and opened it. written on the side of the harness with a word "equipment of saint petersburg stop" marine experts probably believe that the animal escape from the russian navy which has a history of using animals 01’ which has a history of using animals or spying. which has a history of using animals . _ my which has a history of using animals or spying. my goodness! which has a history of using animals orspying. my goodness! underwater and potentially undercover, a fascinating story there. you have been watching newsday. i'm kasia madera in london. mariko, an historic day ahead for you in japan.

that's right, we just that's right, wejust saw that's right, we just saw some gentleman despite this heavy rain come to outside the imperial palace to say banzai. what i can tell personally is the difference in the mood compared to when the current emperor took to the throne 30 years ago, the entire country was mourning the death of the previous emperor. this time the mood is more celebratory, people are really eager to welcome the new era. of course there are issues like the succession issue, the imperial family's practically running out of mail as, there was some troubling news about prince his ahead there were two knives left at his desk, so there are some issues —— male heirs.

knives left at his desk, so there are some issues -- male heirs. we'll be back with mariko in the next edition of newsday. thank you for watching. goodbye. hello there. we are likely to see warmer weather over the eastern parts of the uk over the next few days. it was fairly then, that rain, —— then, we have clear skies right now. further west we have this weather front sneaking in, now. further west we have this weatherfront sneaking in, it's going to bring some patchy rain and drizzle but it is moving very slowly into that area of high pressure. for many parts it is still dry by the morning. damages in the clearest guy dipping away to 3—5d. —— clear skies. we have some sunshine or northern scotland. patchy rain

coming into the father west of scotland. for england and wales, we are yet to see any rain crossing the sea, some mist and fog patches crossing eastern england, we should see decent spells of sunshine. you can see how slowly this rain pushes over the irish sea into some western coasts, into scotland, perhaps, but ahead of it, some sunshine. 18 or 19 in the midlands. as we move into the evening and overnight, again this patchy rain is pushing its way further into wales, to the south—west of england, to the north—west of england and further into scotland as well. more cloud putting into more of the country means it should be quite as jelly, temperatures 7—9d —— quite as

chilly. this zone of cloud elsewhere, though, producing showers at this stage and they could be rather hit and miss. but with more cloud in general, even for eastern areas, it won't be quite as warm as tuesday. looking at thursday, we've still got this fairly cloudy pic show. there will be some showers developing —— picture. more significant, though, that weather front could provide some patchy rain moving southwards. it's what's happening to the north that is more crucial because if you follow the wind arrows, we are getting a win from the arc, —— our wind from the arctic. otherwise the winds will not be too strong. but they will turn colder everywhere by the end of the week before temperatures recover just a little bit as we head into the weekend.

i'm kasia madera with bbc news. our top story: it's a moment of history forjapan. for the first time in more than 200 years, a japanese emperor is about to abdicate. emperor akihito is set to formally give up his throne. a new era now begins with crown prince naruhito becoming the emperor. us deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, who appointed robert mueller to investigate links between russia and donald trump's campaign, is resigning his post. mueller‘s investigation did not establish evidence that trump's campaign illegally conspired with the russian government. and this video is trending on bbc.com. a beluga whale has been found off norway's coast wearing a special russian harness. it's believed to have been trained by the russian navy. the harness had a camera holder with a label sourcing it to st petersburg.