this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm mike embley. our top stories: breaking with tradition...again! harry and meghan announce they'll be stepping back as senior members of the royal family. president trump says iran appears to be standing down after it fired missiles at airbases housing us forces in iraq. fresh warnings and evacuation notices in australia as hot windy weather returns, threatening towns and communities. the former boss of renault nissan, carlos ghosn, hits out at japan's judicial system in his first public comments since he jumped bail.

the duke and duchess of sussex are to step back as senior royals and work to become financially independent. the personal statement from prince harry and meghan was a surprise announcement, apparently made without consulting any members of the british royal family, which is said to have left the family feeling hurt. the couple say they will continue fully to support the queen but now plan to split their time between the uk and north america. there is flash photography in this report from our royal correspondent nicholas witchell. canada house in london yesterday. harry and meghan had just returned from their extended break in canada. laughing it's now clear that although they'd been discussing a new role for themselves with other members of the royal family, they did not tell senior members

of the family or their officials that they were about to issue a personal statement setting out their intentions. the bbc understands buckingham palace is disappointed — that's unusual. in their statement, the sussexes said: cheering quite what a progressive new role means is unclear, though the statement says they plan to balance their time between the united kingdom and north america. cheering the signs that the couple were unhappy with their royal life have been apparent for some months, notably during and since their tour of southern africa, when both of them gave interviews. harry conceded that he and his brother, william, were not as close as before.

just 20 months ago at their wedding in windsor, it had all seemed to offer such promise. a young prince and his american bride, harry and megan were a couple who, it was said, and as they demonstrated, could bring something fresh to the british royal family and reach sections of the population, which were otherwise largely indifferent to the royals. but now, some at least of those hopes have been dashed. i think this is the most extraordinary news, but it's also very sad. i mean, harry and meghan are very much loved, and if we're not going to see so much of them, i think that's a real tragedy. so, the sussexes have taken the initiative — without waiting for the approval of the queen or the prince of wales, they have made their own announcement about their new life. there isn'tjust disappointment at the palace, there is hurt

at the most senior levels of the family. nicholas witchell, bbc news. kristin cortino is the chief reporter for royal central.co.uk and shejoins me now from philadelphia. welcome, thank you for your time. looking at your website, you seem to be not so much surprised by the announcement but the timing, why? yes, this does not come as a surprise i think to anyone in the royal community, as you said, that have not seemed happy for quite a while, i think and dealing with a lot of stress. down the road, i did see something like this happening, then carving out a different role when charles became king and noi is expecting to hear this today. so, thatis expecting to hear this today. so, that is where the surprises coming from. you say they have been dealing with a lot of stress and frankly racism also, do you think that will be different in north america? time will tell and i hope not and i think

he people are especially positive about them than they are in the uk, especially the us press, even seeing my friends and people i know on the media, the us response compared to uk is different, which is interesting. what you understand by the phrase financially independent to mean? do you think they will not ta ke to mean? do you think they will not take any taxpayers money angie titles, will they change and what they have any potential if the titles do change? yes, not really clear what they mean by financially independent. to most people that means they will not be taking taxpayer money but as i said in their statement, they'll be moving and will be learning more in due course and it is interesting in terms of security, how that will work since that is taxpayer funded. real correspondence he has been told the royal family is real correspondence he has been told the royalfamily is hurt and unhappy about the news that prince charles has been talking about slimming down

the monarchy, hasn't it, and perhaps a future monarch may welcome this? that is true and i have done that in sweden with slimming down the monarchy and this could be a good thing as you said and you see princess margaret, she really struggled with finding a role for herself and harry is in that sort of situation as her. so this could be a good thing for them down the road. i think right now it is a shocker and obviously there are some hurt feelings. the suggestion is they feelings. the suggestion is they feel they can have more independence, power and control and less racism as a high level social media influencer. what do you think it says about the power of social media as opposed to mainstream media? i think especially with them not being senior royals, like princess eugenie for example, she has their own social media and will share snapshots and things like that

andi share snapshots and things like that and i think harry and meghan are likely to do that as senior royals because they do not want every picture they share running in the present things like that. i think they may be able to some more freedom now and be able to share, or may want to share more in a block away, so they may have some more freedom like that at least —— blogger. good to talk to you. in iraq, at least two rockets have been fired into in the heavily fortified green zone in the capital, baghdad. foreign government buildings, including the us embassy, are based there, but american officials say there are no coalition casualties or damage to facilities. earlier, president trump said iran appeared to be standing down, after the launch of more than 20 ballistic missiles at iraqi bases where american and iraqui troops are stationed. vice president mike pence claimed again that americans are safer for the assassination of the iranian general,

qasim souleimani, and he suggested the us had received intelligence that iran has told its allied militias not to attack american targets or civilians. our middle east editorjeremy bowen reports from baghdad. the iranians kept their promise and may have bought some time. iran had to calibrate its missile launchers. enough to satisfy angry iranians. not enough to provoke a much more destructive american response. they seem to have guessed right. iraqi soldiers shouted warnings to each other. shouting they share the huge ayn al asad base in western iraq with the americans. afterwards for the leaders came a chance to save face, claim victory and step back for the moment.

no americans were harmed in last night's attack by the iranian regime. we suffered no casualties. all of our soldiers are safe. iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. it looks different in iran. a few in tehran even got up early to celebrate revenge. here is a university student. "i have a great feeling," she said. "i hope revenge continues and i hope to see trump fail." and later, the regime's faithful chanted "death to america" as the supreme leader, ayatollah ali khamenei, told them he hadn't finished yet. translation: the issue of revenge is something else.

what happened last night was just a slap in the face. for him, the assassination promotes unity in a divided country, and now iran has more time for its speciality — unconventional warfare using proxies and allies. here in baghdad, the morning had nothing for iraqis who want iranians and americans to leave them alone. the badr organisation, a political party based on a pro—iranian militia, gathered to mourn the assassinations and condemn the us refusal to pull their troops out of iraq. they insist on their presence in iraq. that means they forced everybody in iraq, everybody in iraq to go for military resistance against them. do you think now that the iranians have made this attack,

that it's the end of this chapter? they do more and they increase, i think. i think this is only a message, not more. a message to the americans, saying...? that we are serious. this is a long—term conflict. the biggest danger of the moment in the most unstable part of the world. without a political dialogue and some kind of deal, the slide towards war will continue. jeremy bowen, bbc news, baghdad. let's get some of the day's other news: the canadian prime minister, justin trudeau, says his government will make sure a plane crash in iran involving many people travelling to canada is thoroughly investigated. he said 138 of the 176 passengers on board the ukrainian plane were connecting to canada. the new president of the european commission, ursula von der leyen, has said that britain will find it "basically impossible" to negotiate all aspects of its future relationship with the european union

by the end of this year. she's been holding talks with britain's prime minister, borisjohnson. she said the transition time is very tight for a long—term post—brexit relationship. the world bank is forecasting a slight increase in global economic growth for the coming year following a marked slowdown in 2019. the bank predicts that growth will reach 2.5%, so long as there's a substantial improvement in some large emerging and developing economies. the former boss of nissan has appeared in public for the first time since his dramatic escape from bail injapan. carlos gown claims he's innocent of charges of financial misconduct, and blamed japanese prosecutors and nissan for his downfall. our world affairs editorjohn simpson was at the press conference, and sent this report. it was chaos. everyone wanted a first glimpse of the international motor industry tycoon turned escape artist.

i'm going to try, as much as possible, to answer as many questions as possible. this is the chartered jet that whisked carlos ghosn out of kansai airport in japan to istanbul. and these cctv pictures seemed to show him being shunted onto a smallerjet, which then took him onto beirut. but this, on the right, is apparently the box he was smuggled out in. he's 5'6". i did not escapejustice. ifled injustice and persecution. i was left with no other choice but to protect myself and my family. he endured, he said, 400 days of inhumane treatment, designed to break him. there's a 99% rate of conviction in japanese criminal trials. "it will get worse for you if you don'tjust confess,"

the prosecutor told me repeatedly. he thinks it was all a conspiracy to prevent his company, nissan, being swallowed up by foreign ownership. how high up in the japanese system does that conspiracy go? does it go up, perhaps, to the very top? i don't personally think that the top level was involved, if this is your question. if you are talking about abe—san, i don't think abe—san was involved. in other words, not the japanese prime minister, mr abe. someone asked if he shouldn't have seen the trouble coming. his answer — it was like america in 191“. you know what happened in pearl harbor? did you see pearl harbor happen? did you notice what happened in pearl harbor? injapan itself, the response to all this has been furious. carlos ghosn's one—sided criticism of the japanese justice system was completely unacceptable,

said the japanese justice minister. but the basic reason carlos ghosn escaped from japan was sitting on the front row — his wife, carol, rarely taking her eyes off him. he had only seen herfor two hours in his nine months of detention. "i had to be with her," he said. john simpson, bbc news, beirut. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: with temperatures expected to peak again in australia, authorities issue fresh warnings and advise people in so—called ‘danger zones' to evacuate. the japanese people are in mourning following the death of emperor hirohito. thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respects when it was announced he was dead. good grief! after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the rest of the gang are calling it quits.

the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow in spite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. teams were trying to scoop up lumps of oil as france recognises it faces an ecological crisis. three weeks ago, the authorities confidently assured these areas that oil from the broken tanker erika would head out to sea. it didn't. the world's tallest skyscraper opens later today. the burj dubai has easily overtaken its nearest rivals. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: prince hary and his wife, meghan, have unexpectedly announced they're stepping back from their roles as senior members of the british royalfamily.

president trump says he believes iran is standing down in its military confrontation with america, after it fired missiles at us air bases in iraq australia's prime minister has been outlining his plans to deal with the country's bushfire emergency. he also confirmed 27 lives had been lost, and over 2000 properties destroyed by the wildfires. scott morrison also told reporters that he was grateful for the amount of international support offered. we have been blessed with the amount of support and assistance that has been provided to us from countries all around the world. and one — obviously, we have the existing standing arrangements with new zealand, canada and the united states, and i've got to say it's been of great comfort as i've walked into incident response centres, whether it's in mudgee or albury or wherever i've been around the country, and you can hear that canadian accent and the us accent and the kiwi accent that is there alongside the aussie accents, just focusing on the task.

but i tell you the one that's also been overwhelming has been the loving response from our pacific family. i mean, the vanuatu government provided au$250,000, and that may not sound like a lot in terms of the tremendous assistance provided by many other countries, but from them, that was a gift from the heart. 0ur correspondent phil mercer in sydney and was listening across that news conference. what we are seeing here is a prime minister trying to reassert his leadership, trying to reassert his authority. he was heavily criticised, scott morrison, for being on holiday in hawaii during one of the worst weeks of this bushfire crisis before christmas. mr morrison also criticised for underplaying the role of global warming in this crisis as well. so here we have a prime minister trying to get back onto the front foot, he has brought in the military, he is promising billions of dollars in recovery assistance

for bushfire hedge communities, and i think many australians simply want their leaders to lead, so that is a message i think that scott morrison is trying to tell the country, that he is back in control and he will charter a way through this crisis that he's still has a long way to go. through this crisis that he's says still has a long way to go. there has been a lot of talk about the need to change the way fires are handled, if indeed they can be handled, and where people build and how they build. what chances of that? after the black saturday bushfires of 2009, australia learned an awful lot of terrible lessons. 173 people died in that disaster just over ten years ago, and no doubt this crisis, it is not over yet, but when australia can draw breath and consider what has happened since september, this crisis has been going for weeks, it began in the state of queensland, so no doubt there will be serious

questions to be asked about australia's attitude to global warming, for example, although more local issues such as how to protect communities, taking down bushland neophyte affected towns for example, taking down bushland near fire—effected towns for example, building codes, alert systems for residents, evacuation orders, the role of the military. the list really is endless. at the end of the day australia will have to learn some very painful lessons because this fire season has begun far earlier than normal, it is far more intense than we are used to, so australia really does have to learn what to do if these sorts of conditions are likely to present themselves again and in the future. is the money enough to make a difference? a lot depends on how it is spent. absolutely. at the moment we don't know the true extent of this disaster. australia is clearly war weary each new day brings more grim figures.

as to the extent of this crisis, 27 people have died so far, more than 2000 homes have been destroyed. the impact on australia's land is immense. we are hearing that more land than an area the size of portugal has been scorched. the impact on wildlife is unknown. we may never know the true impact on australia's native animals. so this is a crisis that may take months, if not years to fully appreciate. temperatures are expected to soar again later this week as the bushfire crisis continues. the eastern and southern sides of the country have been the worst—affected and many animals have also been killed in the fires. clive myrie sent this from the town of mogo in new south wales. preparations well under way, sadly, again for more intense bushfires because temperatures are likely to rise across the south—east of australia to a0 degrees tomorrow. people in towns not far from here have been told they've got

to evacuate because of the possibility of high winds, bringing together three raging fires into one giant monster and, when i say giant, i mean a wall of flames, 20, 30 maybe a0 kilometres wide and scores of feet high. but this wooded area here, that is completely destroyed, the fire was visited on this place about new year's eve and, look at this, just over here, days later, you can still see the smoke from burning embers. smoke from burning embers. and if our cameraman, johnny, just pans down to the ground here, you can that see everything is black — the earth, the trees — everything. colour has changed and up to the sky, you'd normally see a canopy there, and — i'm going to shut up for a second... silence ..nothing. a cacophony of trees, birdsong in those trees is what you would hear. and johnny, if we just bring the camera down here, just look down here — a corridor of burnt trees,

wallabies, koalas, everything that was living in this place was incinerated. the world war i artists, wyndham lewis, paul nash, they never saw anything on this scale. but this is just a tiny fraction of the millions of acres that have been destroyed in this appalling bushfire season. in peru, heavy rains in southern and central regions have washed away bridges, with homes and medical centres engulfed by severe flooding. the country is currently in the middle of its annual rainy season, but local authorities said such rainfall had not been seen in the region since 2002. gareth barlow has more. roads transformed into rivers of mud. this, the heaviest rain in southern and central peru for almost 20 years. homes engulfed, bridges washed away.

"the floods took my house," this man said. "my fish farm, my animals. the entire farm is gone." peru is in the midst of its rainy season, which usually continues until april. the country was engulfed by deadly floods in 2017. more than 100 people died. with more rain forecast, the clean—up is already under way, but the rainy season is far from over. gareth barlow, bbc news. the canadian singer, justin bieber, has confirmed that he's been diagnosed with lyme disease. there had been speculation on social media that he had a drug problem, after he was photographed looking unwell with blotches on his skin. lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by ticks. in a post on instagram, bieber said it had been a rough couple of years, but he hoped the right treatment would help him recover from the disease.

and have a look at these pictures... around a0 tourists have been rescued from langjokull glacier, iceland late tuesday. they were on an organized tour when they got caught in a severe blizzard. the tourists were unharmed but some of them got very cold during up to nine hours on the glacier before rescue teams arrived. the search and rescue squad in the nearby village of hella, said visibility in the blizzard was very limited that it was hard to even see the skis on the team's snowmobile. a on the team's snowmobile. reminder of the main r britain's a reminder of the main news: britain's royal family is understood to be disappointed and heard by the decision of the duke and duchess of sussex to become financially independent and step away from senior royal roles. they made the statement without warning or consulting apparently the queen or

prince charles. thank you very much for watching. hello. weatherwise, it's pretty much a case of you name it and we've got it coming our way in the next few days. we've got a chilly start to thursday to the far north of the uk with a patchy frost and some fog. further south, it's unseasonably mild. this area of low pressure will bring wet and windy weather to a central swathe of the uk early on in the day. later on, the south—west gets targeted by another low, heavy rain, thundery and a risk of gales. here is the rush hour across northern england and southern scotland, snow for the higher routes of the pennines, some heavy rain and some squally winds. all of that pulling out into the north sea as the morning wears on. quite a cutting north—easterly wind, though, following on behind, so chilly for those north sea coasts. by the afternoon, our next low coming in to the south—west,

that's set to produce some heavy rain. strong winds, particularly, for the isles of scilly and for the channel islands, 12 degrees in plymouth, and contrast that to just 3 in aberdeen. through thursday evening and overnight into friday, some very heavy rain tracks across southern england as this low heads off into the continent, and then, by friday morning, the pressure is building. the winds fall light, the skies clear and it will start to turn pretty chilly. perhaps an exception being the far south—east where the cloud will only clear towards the end of the night, so not so much cooling here, but quite widely a frost first thing on friday. a lot of dry weather to get the day under way. light winds and sunshine but cloud gathering towards the north—west through the afternoon, the wind picking up and the rain starting to approach. but friday's temperatures, notice just 6 or 7 degrees, a much cooler story overall. but overnight friday into saturday, we start to pick up a strong south—westerly air stream, strengthening south—westerly winds and very mild air floods into the uk for saturday.

that's important because warmer air holds more moisture and that's going to make this front all the more potent to the north of the uk, bringing heavy rain before it clears through during the second half of the weekend. so, here is saturday, a very wet day for parts of scotland, northern ireland and northern england. 100mm of rain possible in some spots with i think localised flooding before that system clears away. warnings have been issued for the rain, also for the wind, quite widespread gales at least until the middle part of saturday. by sunday, the front away into the continent, the skies are looking clearer, the wind is lighter, but we've moved back into cooler air, so we're down into single figures with some wintry flurries in the north—west.

this is bbc news, the headlines: the duke and duchess of sussex have announced they will step back as senior royals and work to become financially independent. prince harry and meghan plan to split their time between the uk and north america. the royal family is believed to be disappointed by the announcment, made, apparently, without consulting any of them. president trump has said iran appears to be standing down after tehran launched more than a dozen missiles at air bases housing us troops in iraq. mr trump said no americans were injured in the attacks. but he also said he would impose further sanctions on tehran. more hot and windy weather is expected in australia as the bushfire crisis goes on. 27 people have been killed since the fires started in september and at least 2,000 homes destroyed. millions of animals have been killed. the prime minister has announced more money to help communities rebuild.