as parts of australia are ablaze amid relentless wildfires, a political firestorm focused on sydney's display, but the fireworks did go off over the city's harbour bridge. bright lights amid dark days. and in scotland, an alternative take on new year's celebrations. a flaming, spinning spectacular, you shouldn't try at home. gareth barlow, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather with phil avery. a very good afternoon to you and

happy new year. i had a low—key one, like the weather. some areas, it is like the weather. some areas, it is like that but on other areas doing very nicely. nothing changes very fast at all through the day on through tonight. we will keep a few gaps in the cloud, the cloud turns away over the high ground and breaks up away over the high ground and breaks up and then the temperatures do dribble away but it is not a cold start to the new year because there isa run start to the new year because there is a run of mild south—westerly is that, and it's a significant but, not one bout of rain but to is that we head into thursday and the rain eventually through the morning having passed through scotland and northern ireland. a breezy day, wherever you are spending the day it will be a gusty day but with that wind coming from the south and

south—west you will notice that many of those temperatures are back into double figures. hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines: at least eight people have died and hundreds of homes have been destroyed in fires that ripped through australia on new year's eve. two men and a woman are killed after a lorry collides with a car in stanwell in surrey on new year's eve. the mother of the british teenager found guilty of lying about being raped in cyprus says she believes the resort of ayia napa is unsafe. in their new year messages, the prime minister says brexit will mark a "new chapter" for the uk, while the archbishop of canterbury urges people to reconnect with each other. now, what it's like being a 17—year—old

in countries around the world. from lebanon to uganda, bbc radio one's newsbeat has been meeting teenagers and hearing about their hopes and dreams. being 17 has never been easy. no longerfeeling like a child, but technically not yet an adult. in most countries, you can't drive, drink alcohol or vote. but whether it's just hanging out with friends... ..spending time with family... ..practising religion, going to school, going to work orjust having fun... three, two, one! ..17 is one of our most formative years. we're following five i7—year—olds in five different countries to see how they spend a typical saturday. the nightlife is amazing. from thailand to uganda... when you tell someone that i have school six days a week, they are like, "what?!" ..lebanon to russia.

what is it like being 17 and is it harder to be a teenager now than ever before? for lots of teenagers, saturdays are a day of rest. no school or work and a time to catch up on some much—needed sleep. but for ruth, saturday is just like any other day and work starts early. she lives in takoradi, about a 5—hour drive along the coast from the ghanaian capital accra with her 5—month—old daughter. ruth never knew her birth mother growing up, and with nowhere else to go, moved here to live

with a family friend when her father passed away three years ago. around 14 people live with ruth in this compound in the village and on cooking day, everyone mucks in to prepare, cook and bag the chips ready to be sold. around 9am, it's time for ruth to leave. she will visit three markets today, helping to sell enough bags of chips to support both her and her daughter. south—east of ghana, in the ugandan capital kampala, joy has already been

awake for hours. it's saturday. i'm going to school and i have maths, technical drawing and physics today. joy leaves for school around 6am and it can take about an hour to commute through the heavy kampala traffic. when you go through school, you are more likely to succeed in life. for example, i want to be an architect. there is no way i am going to achieve that except if i do go through school. i do maths, physics and technical drawing and next year i will be finishing high school and i hope to go to university and study architecture. it starts from this top, then merges to this outermost... technical drawing is the smallest class thatjoy has, but there are still over 50 pupils. let me give you a rough example here. most people in my family, they are doing arts—related careers

and i'm the only one doing this science—related career. so, i chose it for myself. 4,500 miles east, there's no lie—in for yean either. yean‘s the oldest of six, and starts her weekend by helping her parents to look after her younger brothers and sisters.

# and all the roads that lead you there are winding... things are off to a more lively start in lebanon. it's mid—morning and tiffany is off to the beach. lebanon is a perfect mix of europe, arab — it's literallyjust a mix of everything. among me and my friends, we always talk in english, but sometimes we mix it with french and arabic, it's really common to just mix these three languages together. lebanon is one of the most

religiously diverse countries in the middle east with large muslim and christian populations. i'm a christian, personally, and religion here is a really big part of our lives. it's not enforced and it's not as strict as other places. we're serious about it, but it's not like in other cultures where you have to give your life to your religion. i have friends in dubai that can't even go out with guys, but i can tell you that more than 50% of my friends are all guys. it's just really open—minded, i like it a lot. everyone thinks it's dangerous, but to be honest, i'd feel more comfortable, personally, walking in the streets at night here than in any other country. so, why do tiffany and her mates think lebanon gets a hard time? civil war between 1975 and 1990 defined the country for a whole generation.

and further violence in 2006 means that for many, it still has a reputation as a troubled nation. i always wanted my children not to go through this, but it seems we are never going to find peace in this region. but it's how close to syria and israel it is that many people find worrying now. in truth, lebanon has been largely peaceful for over a decade, and the capital, beirut, is trying to claim back its reputation as the paris of the middle east. with the warm mediterranean sea down the coast and a bustling nightlife, many visitors see it as a perfect mix of cultures. it hasn't been completely without trouble, though. the murder of british embassy worker rebecca dykes in 2017 made many foreigners in the country feel uneasy and there are some areas, particularly along the border with syria, where the british foreign office advise against all travel. one, two, three!

i think that people that have never come to visit lebanon has a really bad idea because of what they watch on the news. but when people come here, their whole idea changes. it's late morning, and the last 17—year—old to be up and about is katya in moscow. katya has organised a gig for this evening and her friends are the headline act. the band have travelled

on the overnight train from st petersburg and are keen to see some of the moscow sights. russia is the largest country on earth, home to 142 million people. and it's had a turbulent relationship with the west for a long time. for seven decades, it was a communist country,

and russians had very little contact with people outside. communism ended in 1991, but adapting to a capitalist society has not been an easy transition. still now, fewer than a third of russians have a foreign passport and you don't have to look far to find negative stories about russia in the world's media. more is now known about the substance involved in the suspected poisoning of a former russian spy and his daughter. vladimir putin has been the political face of russia either as the president or prime minister for nearly 20 years, and that means for teenagers like katya, he's the only leader they've ever known. katya's day may onlyjust be starting, but forjoy, halfway through the school day, it's break time. i have school six days a week.

i would love to do other things on saturdays of course because you'd love to have that break, but now, the only break i have is sunday, and sunday is also a busy day. sunday is a church day. if i could have a saturday to myself to hang out, yeah, that would be good. i've gotten used to it. it's not so bad. by mid—afternoon, all across the world, it's lunchtime and whether that's some fast food on the beach in lebanon, a burger king in moscow, street food in bangkok or a school lunch in kampala, everyone is tucking in to something to eat. well, almost everyone. for ruth, she is still out selling.

sadly, at the moment, the chips aren't selling very well either. her daughter stays at home with her adoptive mother whilst ruth is working. 20 cedis isjust under £3, oraround $3.80.

it means ruth is earning more than the official absolute poverty line of $1.90 a day, set by the world bank, but she is still very poor. around a quarter of the people in ghana live below the national poverty line. but ghana is considered to be one of the more stable countries in west africa and was the first black african colony to declare independence in 1957. it's also a young country. of the 25 million people living here, 57% are under 25. english is the official language, but other african languages, like twe, akan and the language that ruth and her family speak, bantu, are all common. eventually for ruth, business starts to pick up. but despite a few sales, her takings today are still low. ruth is no longer with her daughter's father. she says he has never seen his daughter and in her community it's

not uncommon for people who have a child outside of marriage to suffer stigma. 0k, three, two, one, go! as the sun sets, tiffany and her mates move to a restaurant overlooking the sea. for dinner, we have tabbouleh, hummus and fatoush, that's usually the lebanese starters. and then we've got lebanese and fish, it is a mix. the lebanese are definitely the most open—minded. i can say that definitely. 0n the news, how they show our country is not how it is. they show violence, we are not violent at all.

conversation soon moves on to how lebanon compares with other countries. the foundation of everything is family here. that's what they focus on. that's very true. here, people are still 25 and living with their mum and dad. and it's not a problem. and if they get married the wife will usually still live there until they get a house. personally, i had a talk with one of my friends recently about, for the future when we get married and have kids, would we like to live somewhere else or in the country? i pick in the country because we are used to how we were raised here and we know how things work. ijust think that it's the best here. you can do everything. you can have lunch in nature and then go and party in beirut at night. you can do everything and everything is easy and fun. we are very western, i would say. open—minded. i've met people from other countries and they would say, oh, you know drake in lebanon? you listen to music? they think we ride camels and stuff.

when i moved here, they asked if we would have internet and light or live in tents. i moved from australia and they could not believe it. as night falls, 8500 miles away in bangkok, yean is also spending saturday night with her friends.

for katya and her friends, it's nearly time for the gig. seeing her friends from st petersburg has made katya reflect on how different life is for russians living outside of moscow.

by the end of the school day, it's rush hour again in kampala. joy and his best friend mark are walking straight to band practice. their band is called ypf, which stands for youth passion fellowship and is attached to the church. at the moment in the band we are doing mostly covers, but i'm working on some original music. over the years uganda has changed. right now there's more opportunities for women in school and workplaces. writing music is fun for me, and i hate being bored so i do all these things to keep active. the church and my spiritual life are very important to me.

# me love the way you handle me # me love the way you fight for me. # me love the way you do all the things for me. # i love the way you handle the situation # i love the way you fight for me # i love the way you handle my situation... the vast majority, around 85%, of ugandans are christian and spending a lot of time at church is by no means unusual for a lot of teenagers here. since its independence from britain in 1962, uganda has endured a military coup, a brutal military dictatorship and a five—year war that saw the current president, yoweri museveni, take power in 1986.

it means, for many ugandans including joy, he's the only leader they have ever known. often called the pearl of africa, around 1.3 million tourists visit uganda each year. many come to see the wildlife and go on safari. in recent years the country has been praised for its campaign against hiv and aids but also received a lot of negative international press for taking a hardening stance against the lgbt community. nearly 4000 miles away, music is very important to katya as well. slightly different genre, though. rock music plays.

as katya's gig carries on into the night, all over the world saturday night is well under way. even though she's already allowed to ride a motorbike, yean is hoping her dad will allow her to get a car license when she turns 18. an ambition joy shares. once i'm 18 i will be

able to drive legally. in ghana, ruth is hoping she can soon carry on with her education. as the night sets in, for most, saturday is almost over, but in lebanon the night is still young. usually here in lebanon the night life is amazing, so we won't even get back home before two or three in the morning. this is how we wrap our day. we alljust come here and take some drinks and chill, relax by the beach. it's amazing. the vibe, the people, the music, it's all really good. five teenagers, all on the brink of becoming adults. all from different places, all leading very different lives. but, when it comes to priorities, teenagers around the world

maybe aren't as different as it first appears. i would like to go and study abroad. i will visit other countries. but then eventually i would come back here, come back and stay in uganda. my plan, and i'm pretty sure that most of my friends' plans, is going to college. here in lebanon, it's not common for us not to go to college.

very good afternoon. in places, the weather is as good as that which is only rubbing it in a bit if you are spending any time in the south of wales perhaps or even the south—west of england. this didn't deter the new year dippers here, hundreds of people at the beach and you would think it would be a fairly similar affair seeing as there aren't many fronts neighbours but that cloud is thicker and likely to remain so across the south—west, it is also pretty thick in the north—west of scotla nd pretty thick in the north—west of scotland where it is a little bit gusty. elsewhere, what you have had thus far today you are really likely to keep because there is nothing to move it along. they winds a bit stronger in the far north—west but

there is a much breeze elsewhere. temperatures, well, —ish for the time of year five to about 10 degrees so it is relatively mild for where we could be at this time of year. there will be some gaps overnight again to the near high grounds in the north corner of scotla nd grounds in the north corner of scotland and the temperatures will dribble away, it would be a particularly cold start to thursday because we are still in the most pa rt because we are still in the most part in these relatively mild heirs but you get the sense that there is a bit ofa but you get the sense that there is a bit of a breeze and cooler air to the far north and west. contrast between those two air masses means that weather fronts, not one but two for summer during the course thursday. a lot of crowded through england and wales and it thickens up as the first weather front comes down from scotland and northern ireland to produce rain. wherever you are spending the day, the thing you are spending the day, the thing you will notice is that there is more rain across the british isles but at least it is coming in from

the south so for all of us bar perhaps the finals will be double figures. it would be a new ice age confided but what it will be, notably so is much, much sunnier. once that weather fronts away from the south—east, that is a pretty sunny day across all parts and it is more of a westerly rather than northerly so temperatures are back into single figures but it is not, one, two, three. it is mainly dry at the weekend, a bit breezy at times. enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 2pm... at least eight people are killed by bushfires in australia, in the deadliest day since the wildfire crisis began. hundreds of homes are destroyed and some communities cut off. ..with a couple of isolated communities, where we got reports of injuries and burn injuries to members of the public. we haven't been able to get access via roads or via aircraft. it's tough, it was scary. you don't really know what to do, even if you've thought about it, it's hard to know what you will actually do or feel at that moment, for sure. two men and a woman are killed after a lorry collides with a car in stanwell in surrey on new year's eve. the mother of the british teenager found guilty of lying about being raped in cyprus says she believes the resort