‘ are very sporadic, these they are very sporadic, these protests. so it is hard to see how one could control them, they are leaderless. the government will try, and the prime minister a few nights ago came out and gave this reform package, very similar, talking about shuffling the cabinet, bringing about electoral law change, they this is bbc news i'm rebecca jones. have had it before, and i think it the headlines at 4pm: is increasingly falling on deaf ears the vietnamese prime minister orders and also iraqis just don't believe government officials to help that the corrupt can fight corruption and effectively fight themselves out of office. dr mansell, really good to talk to you, thanks so much for your time. please avert a better person. the owners of the telegraph, david and frederick barclay, please avert a better personm please avert a better person. if you come into us we will do everything have put the newspaper up for sale. we can't arm around you, take you it's part of a wider review of their assets which has already seen the ritz hotel through this process and identifies in london put on the market. quickly as possibly whether we do the brothers, who are among not have one of your loved ones britain's richest men, bought the paper in 2004 for more involved in this tragic incident. than 660 million pounds. england reach the final now it's time for a look

of the rugby world cup, at the weather with stav danaos. with a stunning win against defending champions new zealand in yokohama. celebrations across the country as they beat the all blacks in the tournament much of scotland, and northern for the first time. and the dup leader ireland saw plenty of sunshine arlene foster vows to keep opposing today. some showers, in england and wales it was wet in places. thanks to this weather front, pushing southwards this evening into the first part of the night. clearing into the near continent, taking strong winds. it is dry and clear, a much colder night to come. blustery in northern scotland, with wintry and so over the hills. a chilly end to the night, temperatures close to freezing. don't forget the clocks go back on our tonight. an extra hour in bed on sunday morning. what a difference a day makes! lovely, cool and bright and sunny in england and wales. a big difference. low pressure in the north—east. blustery in scotland and showers wintry over higher ground. lower temperatures across the board, ii—isd. it's

largely dry with some sunshine but it remains on the cold side. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... police say they cannot yet confirm the identities of the 39 people found dead in a lorry in essex, but are focussing on engagement with the vietnamese community. they appealed for anyone who is concerned to get in touch. if you are coming to us, we will do all we can to put our arm around you, take you through this process and identify as quickly as possible to see whether or not we have your loved one involved in this tragic incident. england are into the final of the rugby world cup, after beating defending champions new zealand 19—7 in yokohama. and the dup leader arlene foster vows to keep opposing borisjohnson‘s brexit deal unless changes are made.

we will not give support to the government when we believe they are fundamentally wrong and acting in a way that is detrimental to northern ireland and taking us in the wrong direction. now on bbc news... in this witness history special, claire marshall introduces us to five important moments in environmental history. hello, and welcome to this special addition of witness history with me, claire marshall. we're at the horniman museum and gardens in south london to bring you five people who have experience extraordinary moments in environmental history. coming up, a survivor of the toxic waste scandal that devastated japan. the environmentalist who tried to solve mexico city's air pollution crisis, and we will remember the beginnings of organic farming in the uk.

but first in 2004, wangari maathai became the first african woman to win the nobel peace prize. she was an environmentalist and human rights activists who founded the green belt movement in the 19705. but she repeatedly clashed with the government while trying to protect kenya's forests and parks. 0urfirst witness is her daughter, wanjira maathai. my mother was often asked, "were you afraid? "you were fearless!" "how can you do all these things?" and she said, "no, i was afraid." but she said, "what needed to be done was so compelling, "that i had to do it." she grew up surrounded by nature, surrounded by the beauty of nature. i also remember her describing her mother being a farmer. her mother grew all the food that they ate. and then she goes away to school to university out in the united states and she comes back and joins the university as a very young member

of academic staff. singing. she was struck by the issues that were being presented by women who were very much like her mother. they were talking about lack of fuel, lack of water, and lack of nutritious food. and everything they described she felt was connected to a degradation of the landscape and so why not plant trees she asked them. the women here till the land. so it is important that they know how to conserve this soil. she founded the green belt movement in 1977 to help women plant trees and at the same time begin to understand how to heal the land themselves. it's 50 million trees now and counting. very quickly, the green belt movement became more than just about planting trees because we had an extremely dictatorial government and we had a one party system. public land was being parcelled out to the friends of the administration of the day.

and so protecting these spaces necessarily becomes political. whistle blows. karura forest was by far one of the scariest battles. people are showing a lot of anger because nobody knew the extent to which the forest is actually destroyed. it was vicious. she got very physically hurt, she was in hospital, but she survived and so whenever she survived, she knew it was time to go back and finish the work of saving the park. we are here in karura forest. one of the most beautiful urban forests in the world. and it is thanks to the green belt movement and the efforts of my mother at the time that saved it. but she also was a human rights activist, a women's rights activist. i have no idea where these policemen are taking me now. i have done nothing!

to challenge the president and the party of the day, that was gutsy. newsreel: an ecologist from kenya has become the first african woman to win the nobel peace prize. wangari maathai has spent more than... she just didn't believe that it was her i think for a while there. she probably thought maybe it's a mistake, i don't know. but it was one of the most amazing moments to see her enjoy, the spotlight and the platform in a way she didn't have before. i think the whole day, she sort of spent saying, "i didn't know anyone was listening." my mother died on september 25, 2011. she's left quite a legacy i think. certainly for us as kenyans, as women, as africans to believe in the power of one. i think the fact that one woman from the highlands of kenya could be such a potent force for change remains one of the most inspiring things for me.

wangari maathai's daughter, wanjira. by the 1980s, a deadly cocktail of toxic factory fumes and car exhaust had turned mexico city into the world's most polluted city. in response, the mexican authorities came up with an ambitious solution. each of the city's two million vehicles was banned from the road for one day a week. ramon 0jeda mestre is behind the initiative. newsreel: another miserable, choking day in mexico city. without doubt the most contaminated capital on earth. the smog hangs like a shroud over the city slowly poisoning the 20 million inhabitants. just breathing is like smoking 40 cigarettes a day. in spanish: mexican traffic is the worst in the world. millions of large, thirsty american cars crisscrossing the world's second—largest city without a thought

for fuel conservation. in spanish: mexican traffic is the worst in the world. millions of large, thirsty american cars crisscrossing the world's second—largest city without a thought for fuel conservation.

and mexico city's 2! million people still battle daily with the problem of pollution. now, in the aftermath of world war ii, pesticides and chemical fertilisers started to become more widespread in the uk. worries about the effect this would have on soil quality led lady eve balfour to establish the soil association to promote natural farming techniques. our next witness, john butler, has been a farmer all his life. the great thing about organic farming is you do all you can to build up life in the soil. now, one of the chief ways of doing this is by using natural

organic manures as opposed to artificial chemical fertilisers. soil produces food. and without soil, hunger is the consequence. and we damage our soil at our peril. now, when a soil is deprived of its protective layer, then the structure begins to break down. the war brought in mechanisation. and then, development of chemicals. newsreel: in the struggle for greater food production, scientists all over the world have turned their attention to the control of weeds and pests by chemical spray. these things, most of them didn't smell very nicely, they weren't particularly nice to handle.

and many people's deeper instincts were offended by them. they were usually called artificials, a derogatory term! if you put artificial fertiliser near a worm, it will wriggle away from it. it's vile and vicious stuff. and it was only gradually that people began to see the deterioration of the soil and when it has lost its cohesiveness, then it's subject to erosion. i remember very well standing here just in that field looking out over the horizon and just being horror struck to see a great dust cloud obscuring the horizon. in dry, sunny windy conditions in the springtime particularly, the fine soil particles on the surface get whipped up into a cloud that can rise into the air three or 400 feet. there is no soil erosion with good farming. if i went out and picked up a handful of my soil here, you'd see it's so alive,

it almost walks off my hands. it's full of wiggly things. there was a classic book written by lady eve balfour who founded the soil association called the living soil that really made people sit up and think. lady eve was an independent—minded lady and she was interested in farming, one of the first women farmers. she was dear lovely. a bit frightening to begin with because she had short hair! short, grey hair and a rather husky, deep voice. she pointed out that it's obvious to anybody who looks at fertile soil that it's alive, it's a living thing really. well, it's got a mineral base of sand and grains of rock but this is all knit together with organic matter by microorganisms both plant and animal microorganisms which produce this substance called pumice which binds the soil together in crumbs. and this crumb structure is absolutely fundamental to the health of the soil.

i was brought up with the saying, "a good farmer leaves the land "better than he found it." i never actually liked to call myself an organic farmer, i don't know, i like to be considered a good farmer. i love farming. that's why i've been so richly rewarded... i've put my heart into it and i've been the richest man in the world because of it. john butler remembering the move towards organic farming in the uk. remember, you can watch witness history 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 search for bbc witness history. next, one of the worst cases of industrial pollution injapan was first discovered in 1956 after residents in minamata on the island of kyushu noticed that cats had started to behave strangely. soon, people in minamata began to suffer from splitting headaches, tunnel vision, and deformities. fujie sakamoto's family was among those affected. translation: i can't tell you just how much i hate the chemical factory. chisso corporation devastated our ocean and our people. i just hate it. people used to say that life in minamata was wonderful. chisso corporation was the only one in minamata. we are still frightened by the awfulness of the mercury which was leaked from the factory.

it poisons the fish, then people who ate the seafood got minamata disease. newsreel: there had been no poisoning before a chemical factory was built in the bay. but the company, the chisso corporation, denied all responsibility and continued to pump its waste into the sea. translation: cats got the disease before people. they went blind and danced around like crazy. soon it was clear that people were suffering as well. miyumi was my first daughter. she couldn't eat fish well because she was only three years old, but she could eat prawns by herself so i let her

eat a lot of prawns. we thought that something might be wrong with miyumi. we thought she might have the strange disease. when her hands started shaking, i realised she had the disease. she became unable to walk properly unable to speak. doctors from the local university filmed the shaking fits. they suspected metal poisoning. translation: when i visited her in hospital, she had lost her sight, but she could still hear. i said to her, "miyumi, your mum is here. "you don't have to cry any more." she gave me a sweet smile. it was her last smile.

on january third ofi958, miyumi died. by 1958, we knew it was caused by chisso. although chisso knew it was caused by waste water pumped in the bay by the factory, they tried to hide it. my second child is shinobu. she contracted minamata disease in the womb. i did not think it was possible. but three months after she was born, i noticed that something was wrong with her. shinobu is now 59 years old. in 1959, chisso corporation offered us some consolation money.

human life cannot be replaced by money. fujie sakamoto remembering the mercury poisoning in minamata injapan. and finally, it's more than 50 years since the first battle to save the great barrier reef from destruction. despite the coral reefs fame for its biodiversity and beauty, in the late 1960s, the queensland government in australia was assessing applications to mine the reef and to drill for oil there. 0urfinal witness, eddie hegerl, remembers his campaign against the plans. the barrier reef has a wonderful array of fish. but really the things to me that are the more spectacular are the ones i know least about, and that is the variety of marine invertebrates.

it's an enormous number of species. it is pretty hard to not have a day where you see something you have never seen before. in mid—1967, there was an application to mine on ellison reef. the men who wanted to mine it for limestone actually called it a dead reef. i and a group of colleagues who had been studying reefs and fish were actually asked to go carry out a scientific survey of the reef to determine if what he said was true. we spent five days diving and found it to be a perfectly normal reef, which certainly should not be allowed to be mined. the queensland government of the day's attitude was that the reef was a nice pile of limestone that could be carted away to southeast asia

and made into cement. the queensland premier thought that mining reefs would create lots of employment. he completely misjudged the queensland public. i had to start working full time just as a barrier reef campaigner. the volume of mail requests for information and media interviews was just endless. the final decision over the mine application came about seven months later. it was only saying there would be no mining on ellison reef. the really big shock came on the 24th of december, 1968. the thought of having an oil industry throughout the reef region potentially was appalling.

i thought this was going to be a lot harder fight because this was the world's oil industry wanting to get a toehold and that was a very frightening prospect. we needed people all over the world to say to the australian government "please don't do that". "we want to come and visit australia and visit the barrier reef. "please don't drill the reef. people responded. they really did. the politicians got a huge amount of international attention on the issue. and i think they started to realise this really was going to impact australian tourism. having that national legislation passed was really the decisive moment in 1975.

the entire barrier reef region was proclaimed a marine park. no oil drilling, no mining, and that was the day we thought, we actually succeeded! how about that? the reef isn't completely safe. particularly, we have to deal with climate change. fortunately, kids from high school, students and even others are getting to make a difference if theyjust keep on. keep it up. that is all we need. don't shut up. keep it up. eddie hegerl continues to campaign to save the barrier reef from climate change. that is all from this special addition of witness history here at the horniman museum and gardens. we will be back next month with more first—hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history. but for now, for me and the rest of

the witness history team, goodbye. we have had quite a contrast in weather conditions on saturday across the uk. many northern parts of the uk, much of scotland has seen sunshine and showers, this glorious picture shows the rainbow across the skies in argyll and bute. other parts of scotland and northern ireland saw clear skies with plenty of sunshine through the afternoon. as this picture shows. it has been wet across england and wales. several flood warnings remain wet across england and wales. severalflood warnings remain in force, up to five inches of rain in places. this weather front slipping south and east, becoming confined to the south—east corner of the country

through the evening. low pressure to the north of the country. bringing blustery conditions, and further showers, into the north and west of scotland. it will be windy across the far south—east but as the rain continues to move three, the winds eased down. eventually the rain and cloud clears to the near continent into the first part of the night. then, clearer skies. a dry nightfall. blustery showers across the north and west of scotland, close to that area of low pressure. blue colours invading as we start first thing on sunday. it will be chilly. a touch of frost out of town. figures down to three to 5 degrees in towns and cities. don't forget, the clocks go back one hour tonight. the good news is, you get a next row in bed on sunday morning. it will be a chilly start that

plenty of sunshine across england and wales, a big difference here. staying dry and sunny into the afternoon. low pressure to the north of the country bringing in strong winds and showers in the northern half of scotland. wintry over higher ground. nine to 12 or 13 degrees in the south—east, and it will feel notably cooler. next week, high pressure continues to dominate. largely dry with sunshine, but it will feel colder with overnight frosts. temperatures by dayjust about making double figures. towards the end of the week, signs of low pressure pushing in. things could 00:28:39,921 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 turn a bit more unsettled.