the bbc has been reporting the news this week — in newswatch. i will be back at eight o'clock. hello and welcome back to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. has bbc news been taking too much holiday over christmas and new year, with fewer and shorter news bulletins, shown later than normal and more repeated features? and was is it right to fly a presenter to interview the climate activist greta thunberg when she herself shuns air travel because of its impact on the environment? welcome to the first newswatch of 2020 and a happy new year. the traditional celebrations featured widely on bbc news this week, for instance, in the headlines of tuesday's early evening bbc one bulletin. and dazzling displays light up

the night skies across the globe to welcome in the new decade. but is this, in fact, a new decade, as was repeated several times across the bbc this week? a viewer called amy said not, begging... and alan mcintyre reiterated that. that same new year's eve programme contained another error, though this time it was corrected in time for the late bulletin.

new year — a new decade and new zealand kicked it off, with auckland the first major capital to welcome 2020. sue barnard pointed out... on wednesday, when the new year arrived in the uk, there were more fireworks on our screens, this time with helena wilkinson reporting on the crowds by the thames in london. tens of thousands watched from the banks of the river as the capital's skyline burst into colour. in his new year's message, the prime minister, who is on holiday in the caribbean, said, "we can start a new chapter in the history of our country, in which we come together and move forward, united, unleashing the enormous potential of the british people." the image used in that graphic caught the attention of lynda from solihull, who wrote...

after a frenetic year forjournalists, there was respite for some over the past couple of weeks, with the suspension of most domestic political business and a lighter news agenda. a move away from the westminster bubble prompted a different style of output, which pleased nigel tinkler, writing on wednesday...

there have, of course, been fewer and shorter news programmes on over christmas and new year and fewer staff on duty at bbc news, as is usual at this time of year. paul hedges objected to this custom, e—mailing... and when bbc one's late news bulletin returned to its full half hour length this week, it wasn't in its normal slot, appearing at 10:30pm on wednesday, thursday and friday, after the channel's new drama show, dracula. the reaction of alex curry...

plugging some of the gaps on the news channel over the past fortnight have been a series of one—off specials and features. some of them were shown several times, including this extended interview by media editor amol rajan, with the editor of private eye magazine, ian hislop. how do you come up with a private eye cover like those? well, this was when theresa may, who, do you remember her? she was around at the beginning of the year. she used to be prime minister. anyway, she left and we had to think, how can we pay tribute to mrs may? so, i thought perhaps a blank page would be good and so we had the theresa may memorial issue, her legacy in full. john grimes was watching the news channel on wednesday and had this response...

do let us know your thoughts on any of what we are covering on this programme or any other aspect of bbc news. details of how to contact us at the end of the programme. now, for some more of your other concerns this week and one of the biggest stories over the holiday period has been the bushfires that have been raging across australia. there's been a week long state of emergency declared in the state of new south wales, where at least seven people have been killed and 400 homes destroyed by the fires. but liz fawcett wanted to hear more about a natural disaster elsewhere in the world. she tweeted. ..

in addition to those fires in australia, the climate more widely has been featuring strongly of late on bbc news, with, for example, michelle hussein interviewing the swedish environmental activist greta thunberg on many bbc outlets on monday. i hope i don't have to be a climate activist any more. i am really looking forward to going back to school and to just be like a normal teenager. but, of course, this isn't a normal situation. and we must all do things that... ..that we may not feel comfortable doing and we need to step out of our comfort zones. that interview took place in greta thunberg's home city of stockholm and some viewers were unhappy about how michelle hussein had got there. hazlewood asked...

the interview was initiated by radio 4's today programme, of which greta thunberg was guest editor on monday, and in which, as mentioned, she spoke to sir david attenborough via skype as she avoids air travel because of environmental impact. but michelle hussein did indeed fly to sweden to meet her face—to—face and today's editor sarah sands admitted that that decision had caused some debate and discussion, saying... the decision to invite the teenage activist to guest edit the today programme produced reactions more widely, with chris clode e—mailing...

but others had a different view, such as rosemary wild. and, for geoff swindlehurst... finally, it's notjust what's on the news which elicits comments from newswatch viewers, but also the bits in between the news. like this...

that countdown sequence familiar to all viewers of the bbc news channel, is a pet hate of rosy bubb. she explains...

thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to shake your opinions on bbc news and current affairs or even appear on the programme, do e—mail... and do have a look at our website, where you can watch previous discussions and interviews we've broadcast. that's all from us, we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. good evening. today brought some of the brightest weather of the year so far for many parts of the uk. quite a lot of sunshine around once we'd cleared these areas of cloud away to the east. behind me, there is more cloud showing up. that will be rolling in to affect some of us through the weekend. for the time being, though, we are in the grip of some relatively chilly air.

it is going to be a relatively chilly night. the coldest air of all affecting the far north of scotland, where for shetlands, we are likely to see some snow, even to quite low levels for a time. still quite windy across to the far north of scotland as well. outbreaks of rain across the north and west of mainland scotland, western isles as well. generally a lot of cloud into northern ireland, west wales, the south—west of england. further east and further south, where we keep hold of clear spells, a chilly night. some spots in southern england could get all the way down to freezing to start saturday morning. so, high—pressure down to the south then. frontal systems rolling around the top of that high pressure area, bringing a lot of cloud in across the western side of the uk, so through the south—west into wales, north—west england, northern ireland, south—west scotland, a bit cloudy and a bit damp at times. some slightly more persistent rain moving across northern scotland, but through south—east scotland, central and eastern parts of england here, we should see a decent amount of sunshine, and those temperatures just showing signs of creeping upwards a little bit across western areas. io celsius in plymouth, for example. now, as we go through saturday night, we'll see more cloud rolling

in from the west again, the odd spot of rain, some more persistent rain in northern scotland. we keep this band of rain here as we go through sunday. further south and further east, more in the way of drier weather, some spells of sunshine around. it is going to be a windy day again on sunday, particularly across northern ireland and scotland, but those temperatures, 10 celsius in glasgow, ii celsius in belfast. now, as we move into monday, we are going to see this band of rain pushing in from the west, and quite heavy rain actually. still some brisk winds with that. the rain unlikely to get to east anglia or the south—east before nightfall, and to the north—west, things will dry up a little bit as that band of rain slides its way through. temperatures again nine to ii celsius. generally speaking though, next week, the weather is set to become quite turbulent. the jet stream, the winds high up in the atmosphere, becoming very strong and very powerful, bringing deep areas of low pressure in our direction. so, what that means for our weather is that it will be windy. we will see gales, maybe severe gales across northern areas at times. there will be some outbreaks of rain, but it will generally feel mild.

this is bbc news, i'm rachel schofield. the headlines at 8pm. us troops kill iran's top military commander in an air strike, general qassim suleimani was tehran‘s strategic mastermind. iran said the air strike was the us‘s biggest mistake in the region and promised to avenge the general‘s death. president trump said qassim suleimani was planning attacks to kill hundreds of americans. we don't seek war with iran, but at the same time, we are not going to stand by and watch this escalate and put american lives at risk without responding in a way that disrupts, defends, deters, and creates an opportunity to de—escalate the situation. jess phillips becomes the third labour mp to enter the race