the government in yemen are honouring a pledge to withdraw troops from key ports in the country. it marks the first significant step in a ceasefire agreement brokered by the un last december. an attack on a luxury hotel in pakistan has ended with the deaths of all three gunmen. at least one security guard at the pearl continental hotel was killed. a militant group said it carried out the attack, saying it was targeting chinese and other foreign investors. labour has announced plans to introduce a £10 an hour minimum wage for all workers, including those under the age of 18. at the moment, 16— and 17—year—olds get less than adults. jeremy corbyn said society shouldn't be discriminating against young people. masses have been taking place in catholic churches across sri lanka in memory of the victims of the easter sunday bombings.

more than 250 people were killed in a series of attacks on christian churches and hotels. sunita jaswal reports. a moment of silence, a time to reflect, and an opportunity to pray for the victims. a country torn apart, but a country that wants to heal through religion. survivors and the families of victims gathered for a special ceremony to remember their loved ones, as churches begin reopening their doors. it is notjust a time to remember those who died, but to pray for those who also survived, still injured, still hurt, but there in church with their faith intact. it is almost three weeks to the day when an armed group launched a series of co—ordinated attacks on christian churches and hotels in the country. security was ramped up in the immediate aftermath, but fears of further attacks forced

many schools and churches to close. earlier in the week, the archbishop of colombo, malcolm ra njith, presided over the first mass at saint sebastian's church in the city of negombo, where 102 people were killed. held outside, under a temporary structure, the special service honoured the victims and was only open to survivors and their families. this small shrine room was reopened at st anthony's church, also a target on one of the most religious days of the christian calendar. here, low whispers of prayers from a handful of devotees are drowned out by the sound of drilling and banging, as workers continue to rebuild the site. translation: as a catholic, i'm very happy that we could pray and light a candle in the church again. i hope catholics and others will come and pray and light a candle, like i did, rather than stay at home in fear. and that is the message authorities

are also sending out, promises that the streets of sri lanka are safe. we don't have to worry about sri lanka's situation. it is controllable, it is contained. so that is why, as the army commander, i said, people don't have to worry about it. let the armed forces handle it. get back to work. people should have their normal lifestyle again. armed soldiers guarding religious institutions might be the norm for a while, but that added security at least gives churchgoers hope that they are safe to pray. but, despite normality starting to settle in slowly once more, sri lankans say they will make sure the victims will never be forgotten. now on bbc news, razia iqbal introduces us to five people who have witnessed history, including the de—mining expert who accompanied princess diana on her walk across an angolan minefield.

hello, and welcome to witness, with me, razia iqbal. i'm here at the british library to guide you through another five extraordinary moments from the recent past. first, after the collapse of the soviet union, rapid market reforms in russia in early 1992 led to widespread hardship. andrei nechayev was russia's economy minister. he was responsible for implementing this shock therapy. he told witness why he is proud of what he achieved. translation: after the collapse of the ussr, russia had no state apparatus, none at all. there was no army, no customs, no central bank, no national currency, et cetera, et cetera. reporter: for thousands

of bureaucrats in moscow's centralised ministries, the future looks uncertain. already they are not sure who they work for, russia or a soviet union that has been declared dead. translation: all foreign loans were frozen, and we had no hard currency reserves. reporter: the country is entering a twilight zone between the old and the new. what comes next could easily be the chaos and anarchy which mr gorbachev has repeatedly warned of. translation: on some days, the total foreign reserves of our once mighty power were $25 million. million. while our foreign debt was $118 billion. we had a real threat of hunger in large cities, where most food supplies were imported from abroad. across the road from my moscow home we had a large shop. 0n the day of my ministerial appointment, i went in after work

to buy something to eat. the shop was completely bare. no bread, no meat, no sausages, no nothing. what were our options? to wait till the economy grinds to a halt or to remove the old communist price controls? yeltsin was ready to do it, and so we did it. reporter: the long haul towards a free market economy began injanuary, with the lifting of state controls on most prices, which immediately rocketed sky—high. this in turn fuelled more inflation. over the year it amounted

to more than 2,000%. translation: of course the transition was tough. but that's normal. reporter: these boys do a brisk trade as big mac fetchers. for a small commission they will take your order and jump the queue for you at mcdonald's on pushkin square, earning themselves in one day as much as their parents earn in a month. translation: yes, indeed, people went out and started to trade. it gave many a job, it allowed them, let's be frank, to keep body and soul together. and it also allowed the market to develop. reporter: it was a messy start to private enterprise, but soon streets were full of stalls and small shops, mostly dealing in imported goods at exorbitant prices. translation: as soon as we gave people economic freedom, they began to trade

in consumer goods. they sold food, drinks, clothes. all of that on their own initiative without central planning or command economy. people talk about the horrible ‘90s, about our mistakes and abuses. but i did away with consumer shortages in this country. andrei nechayev in moscow. and next, during her lifetime, mother teresa became famous as the catholic nun who dedicated her life to caring for the destitute and dying in the slums of kolkata. she founded the missionaries of charity to look after abandoned babies and help the poorest of the poor. marimarcel thekaekara volunteered there as a young girl.

it was known as one of the poorest cities in the world. you would see people who were lying in a pool of their vomit, their excreta, in filthy clothes covered in lice. so to go and lift up those people and take them to the home and clean them, it took a lot of kindness to do the kind of work they did. reporter: mother teresa and her sisters of charity live in one of calcutta's poorest slums. in addition to the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the sisters take one of dedication to the service of the poorest of the poor. mother teresa's home was a five—minute walk from where i lived, and we saw her every morning on the way to school.

we had a mother teresa's nun who came and said, "oh, if you like you can come and help in the babies' home." it was quite overwhelming, they had rows and rows of little baby cots. so we went and spent a morning helping to give the babies a bath. it was nice to hold a bottle and feed a baby, and those children needed affection a lot, so the babies liked being cuddled. my sister went around with mother teresa's nuns and they used to regularly visit abortion clinics and pick up live babies from abortion buckets and pails.

we actually once saw a baby thrown in a garbage dump. i found the very authoritarian way in which the order was run not something that i would ever be able to agree with. i remember thinking that the nuns lived such an austere life. she said, "you should suffer for christ and offer your suffering to god". i couldn't bear that, because i thought we should try to fight poverty and that people don't have to suffer so much on earth. i saw mother teresa again many, many years later. she was that much older, a bit more wrinkled. my mother asked mother teresa to bless her grandchildren, and my mother said to her, "my daughter used to come and volunteer. "

and then she said, very, quite arrogantly i felt at the time, "oh, yes, yes, you used to do these things when you were little. now what do you do? what do you do now?" these 40 years, i have never doubted for a second that i have done the right thing, because the will of god, it was his choice. marimarcel thekaekara at her home in india. rebuilding sarajevo after the bosnian war in the 1990s was a huge task. for centuries, people of different ethnicities and religions had lived side by side but, after such a bitter civil war, what could bring them back together again? 0ne catholic franciscan monk, friar ivo markovic, had an idea — a multifaith choir to unite people through music. sarajevo was destroyed.

it was a wounded city and people was exhausted. sarajevo for me is crossroad city. and bosnia generally. a meeting point of different religions. croats are catholics, serbs are 0rthodox, the bosniaks are muslims. reporter: the past 2a hours have been the worst ever, it would seem. though considering what people have been through here, it is very difficult to make comparisons. all people experiencing terrible suffering. that is something that deep touches me. you see, i live in it. so, came easter, i needed to sing in the church, but there were no singers. so i started this idea of an interreligious choir.

singing. we started to sing an old jewish song, it was very easy. singing continues. then the orthodox song and the islamic song, it was very difficult. because there was war between these two groups. people couldn't sing the songs of the enemy, because they physically felt disgust against such music. after two, three or four months, the same people said, "this is beautiful." you see, this is power of music, it cleanses people. we had problems in the beginning, when we sang in our church, "allahu akhbar," the first time, in catholic church, there were people who couldn't accept it. deep male singing.

ilahije are muslim spirital songs. islam is very strong religion, but their ilahijes are so tender in words and music. jews are chosen people, and they feel so. and therefore their music is full of play, they dance in front of god. for 0rthodox people, god, jesus christ, is only resurrected, jesus is living high in heaven. and when we sing 0rthodox song, we are angels. and then comes catholicism. catholics feel that heaven is here on the earth, in nature, in the flowers, especially in human beings. we created a name with powerful symbolism.

pontanima, is not a latin word, it is a combined word, of ponus, "bridge" and anima, "soul". so bridge among souls. we must help people to get rid of this fixation for past, to look in front of them, to be again to hope. friar ivo markovic speaking to witness from the choir‘s uk tour with the woolf institute promoting interfaith dialogue. remember you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all our films along with more than 1,000 radio programmes in our online archive. just go to bbc.com.uk/witness. in 1997, the world's most famous

woman, diana the princess of wales, called for an international ban on landmines. she was visiting angola, where she got global attention by walking through a live minefield. 0ur witness, paul heslop, who then worked for a landmine charity, accompanied her on that iconic walk. good morning, ma'am. good morning. when she arrived she was very nervous. she'd landed in one of the most shot—up parts of the world, it was dangerous, and there's this fat yorkshireman basically saying, you need to listen to me, i'm going to give you a safety briefing. archive: these are the things that have been killing a lot of the children. and if you don't listen to what i say, you could get killed or seriously injured. which is probably not the best opening line to a princess. newsreader: the princess got straight down to business, publicly endorsing the red cross campaign for a world—wide ban on landmines. it is my sincere hope that by working together in the next few days, we shall focus world attention on this vital but,

until now, largely neglected issue. myjob was to be the programme manager for a british charity that specialised in clearing landmines and the other detritus of war. this was probably the most famous woman in the world, so for me it was going to be an opportunity to highlight and show off the amazing work we did. i had absolutely no idea what was coming in terms of the amount of media that came off planes. i was expecting a fewjournalists — i think there was something like 90 following her around. she threaded her way along a safe corridor, cleared by british demining teams in the former rebel stronghold of huambo. as you can see, they've been working away here and they've excavated out

and they've uncovered a mine. the actual 5—10 minutes we were in the minefield, my mind was just in overdrive, trying making sure that i wasn't going to be the most famous person in the world the next day for blowing up the princess of wales. firing. the princess says that the row over her support for the red cross campaign to ban anti—personnel mines is a distraction that was not needed. reporter: ma'am, a government minister at home has said you're a loose cannon by supporting this campaign. do you have any reaction to that? i'm only trying to highlight a problem that's going on all around the world. that is all. she was caught out quite badly by that question. she was very upset and i think she was really caught off guard by how political it became. my impression was that she was genuinely there because she was wanting to make a difference and use her celebrity to highlight a problem. the red cross is working here to help the casualties still claimed each day by the estimated 15 million unexploded landmines

that litter the country. princess diana really did engage and you could see from her facial expressions and some of the questions that she was very moved by what she was seeing, she was very engaged on the issue. within the treatment do you cope with the psychological side of it as well? she was a mother and when she saw children who had been blown to pieces and were missing limbs, it moved her and you could see it moved her. i think that diana's involvement in the support of the ottawa treaty banning landmines led to a huge increase in public awareness of the problem of mines. and then ultimately, with her death six months later, it made it hard for the british government and a number of other governments not to ratify the treaty. you know, you say a picture

paints a thousand words... for her to be wearing the body armour and walking through the minefield, that image has been an iconic image of the 20th century. paul heslop went on to work for the halo trust, in afghanistan, cambodia and kosovo and set up halo usa. and finally to the middle east, where a group of israeli jews and palestinians established a unique peace community, the first of its kind. 0ur witnesses are two of its early pioneers. this is a remarkable picture. tom and feda are 10—year—olds who share a desk at school. they are friends. what is remarkable about it is that feda is an arab, tom a jew. they're the product of a place called neve shalom — it's hebrew for "oasis of peace". the community was formed by four families — one palestinian family and three israeli jewish families.

we wanted to try to live in an alternative way. jews and palestinians together, in equality, in one piece of land. i'm dr nava sonnenscheinan, i'm an israelijew, and i came to live in wahat al—salam, neve shalom, in 1979. i'm daoud boulus. i'm a palestinian arab. i'm a resident of wahat al—salam, neve shalom. i'm daoud boulus. i'm a palestinian arab. i'm a resident of wahat al—salam, neve shalom. it was a very small, tiny community, with no trees, no running water, no connection to electricity but we had big dreams. here we found hope and we wanted to start a life with people

who are enlightened, who accept us as we are. when we came, of course, there were some questions about are you fooling yourself? are you going to be in some kind of utopian society where it's not really realistic? i said, maybe, but we hope it's going to teach others that it is actually possible because this is why we are here. although only 15 families live at neve shalom, 7,000 teenagers have passed through attending its peace workshops. some had never met a member of the opposite community until they came here. it is very powerful to see a moment of change. really people realise that what they saw before, it's not the reality. and we learnt a lot. this is how we started the school for peace. the different events that took place outside of the village, like the intifada, the war in gaza, initiated a lot of talk and discussions and debates. my youngest daughter, for instance, her opinion on the issue of army

service for the jewish israelis, because here it is compulsory service, you can't say "no", really, she said that i expect all the people who come to be part of this community, part of this project here, wahat al—salam, neve shalom, not to serve in the army. but i know these are easy words to say on our part and i know it is extremely difficult for the other side. yeah, my three kids went to the army but not to be combat soldiers because they did not want to fight, to be soldiers. when i see the children playing together, laughing together, crawling together, it feels good.

the majority of the kids that are studying here they are not wahat al—salam, neve shalom kids, they are from outside. their parents want them to have our kind of education, this exposure to the other side in an early age. it shows the effectiveness of this community. we have been working for almost a0 years that we are here and it can work. dr nava sonnenschein and daoud boulus in wahat al—salam, neve shalom, now home to more than 60 jewish and palestinian families. that is all from this edition of witness, here at the british library. we will be back here next month to bring you more extraordinary moments of history and the remarkable people who witnessed them. but for now, from me and the rest

of the witness team, goodbye. hello there, good morning. sunday still looks like the best day of the weekend. quite a few showers around on saturday. a good day for chasing rainbows. mind you, here in yorkshire, some of the showers earlier on were heavy and thundery. pretty much everywhere is dry now, mind you. as we head out towards the morning, we may have a frost in scotland, won't be too far away from freezing elsewhere across the uk and a colder night for east anglia and the south—east. given the earlier showers, there may be one or two mist and fog patches.

high—pressure building and right around the uk, limiting the chance of catching a shower on sunday. that weather front approaching the far north west may turn the sunshine a little bit hazy at times. western parts of northern ireland, later in the north—west of scotland. a good deal of sunshine, as you can see, limited amount of convection, patchy cloud bubbling up, may get an isolated light shower over the peaks, the pennines and maybe the downs in the south—east. but more dry weather around more widely and for most of us, temperatures will be higher than they were on saturday. mind you, as we head into the evening, it gets chilly very quickly as the sun goes down. not so much across northern ireland with a southerly breeze and it won't be as cold in scotland either, much more cloud coming in overnight. maybe escaping a frost here this time. maybe not quite so lucky across east anglia, temperatures won't be far from freezing in some rural areas. but this is the story as we head into next week. high—pressure, dry weather,

more in the way of sunshine and as a result, it will feel warmer, much better than it has been over the last week or so. we still have some patchy cloud around, i think on monday. the sunshine probably a little bit hazy in places. cloud coming down from the north west so it's not blue skies everywhere, but for many of us those temperatures are continuing to rise, helped by the southerly breeze in northern ireland. and in scotland, temperatures could be close to 20 degrees or so on monday. as we move into tuesday, we're going to find still very light winds for the most part across the uk. probably more in the way of sunshine this time. more of a breeze picking up towards the south east. warmer southerly winds for northern ireland and scotland as well. so it's mixed fortunes in terms of temperatures as we head through next week. high—pressure sitting where it is. the air towards the south—east of the uk won't be as warm with the warmest air and the highest temperatures more towards the north—west. still better than we've been. 17 or 18 degrees here in the south—east. more of an easterly breeze, whereas if you head the north—west of the uk, more of a southerly breeze so warmer in the north—west of england, northern ireland,

scotland, temperatures 23 or 2a celsius.

this is bbc news, i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: could this be a moment of hope for the people of yemen, as rebel and government forces begin to withdraw from several key ports? dozens of us states join a lawsuit against major drugs companies, accusing them of price—fixing and trying to reduce competition. migrants who survived when their boat capsized off the coast of tunisia have given their account of the disaster in which at least least 60 people drowned. an attack on a luxury hotel in south west pakistan ends with three gunmen killed. a militant group says it was targetting foreign investors. it is known as the olympics

of the art world.