thank you for watching, see you soon. this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: iranian state television says the country's military did shoot down a ukrainian passengerjet — blaming human error. polls open in taiwan for the country's presidential election — where relations with mainland china have taken centre stage. the death has been announced of the sultan of oman — the longest serving ruler in the gulf. and plants living the high—life — why vegetation is growing at higher altitudes in the himalayas.

we start with breaking news — in the last few minutes, iran's state television has reported that the ukrainian aircraft that crashed near tehran on wednesday was brought down due to human error. this was brought down due to human error. of course c earlier this of course changes iran's story, earlier it had denied there was a possibility that it had shot down the plane. now it says that is so. i have one unofficial translation of what iran has said. the armed forces statement says the plane was" unintentionally hit due to human error", and the administration has gone on to offer an apology, we will gone on to offer an apology, we will go on to get an official translation of that, originally given statement in farsi. there were videos showing

what to the plane. 57 of the victims on the plane were canadian. our north america correspondent aleem maqbool is in toronto. so this is about two weeks ago when they got to iran... the siddiqi family travelled to iran from canada to plan a wedding. they never came back. alvar and his wife negar, his sister sohand and her five—year—old daughter sufi all died in the crash. it's left close friends utterly dazed. first, it was shock and denial because, you know, you can't fathom it, itjust doesn't make sense, you never hear of such a story but then as you keep reading and looking at the, you know, news and videos and there is this anger, like, why did it happen to these people? they were the nicest people. why them? this mobile phone footage does appear to back up the allegations

that the plane was struck by an iranian missile. a small outgoing speck of light suddenly exploding. with the impact following. but forfamilies in iran, ukraine, britain and more than 60 in canada, the focus is on grieving. there is no question, though, that the sense this tragedy could have been a consequence of those regional tensions has only added to the anger and despair. aleem maqbool, bbc news, in toronto. just to recap the breaking news that we have been getting, in the last few minutes iran's state television has reported that the ukrainian aircraft that crashed near tehran on wednesday was brought down due to human error, that is what iranian state media is reporting, we will continue to bring your development as the story progresses. voting is now under way in taiwan's general election — with control of both the presidency

and the parliament up for grabs. the main divide between the parties is over how to manage relations with china. supporters of the democratic progressive party tend to favour moves towards outright independence, whereas supporters of the kuomintang generally prefer closer relations with beijing. cindy sui is in taipei for us — i asked her how voting was going. the crowd has thinned out a little bit. people are still very eagerly coming into polling stations like this one throughout taiwan, and patiently waiting for their chance to vote. they brought their id cards and are turning in their mobile phones and going into rooms like this one, classrooms actually in this middle school, to cast their ballot. they have a very, very tough decision to make. they have to decide whether they believe in president tsai ing—wen‘s message that china is a threat and taiwan should keep a distance from mainland china, or mayor han kuo—yu's message that taiwan needs china and needs it economically, and to ensure peace between the two sides. they have to make this

very tough decision. i've covered many elections in taiwan, and no other election has made china such a central issue. part of the reason is because of the hong kong protests. the months—long hong kong protests have actually unnerved a lot of taiwanese people, especially young people. i just spoke to one voter who cast his ballot and he said he was quite worried watching scenes of police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters, and he believes that president tsai is the best person to safeguard taiwan's democratic way of life. at the same time, i also spoke to voters who support han kuo—yu, including a woman whose father fled to taiwan at the end of the chinese civil war. she said that they understand the pain and suffering of war, and she does not want to vote for tsai ing—wen because she believes that she is taking taiwan down a dangerous path.

she prefers han kuo—yu because she believes he will build better relationships with beijing, and this will ensure peace for the two sides. i'm looking behind you and there are no queue jumpers, they are incredibly disciplined. whoever wins the election, but they pick up the phone to the chinese president xi jinping in beijing and negotiate or are the two sides wanting completely different things from the relationships? president tsai has no way of negotiating with beijing because they refuse to talk to her, because she does not accept the so—called one china principle that the two sides are part of one country. if han kuo—yu is elected, definitely he will reach out to beijing and beijing will be willing to work with him because he accepts the principle that there is only one china but each side can define what that china is, and his party would define it simply as the republic of china which is taiwan's official name. that is his way of getting around this very difficult and sensitive issue of taiwan's sovereignty and working towards a better solution for both sides. oman has declared three days

of national mourning following the death of sultan qaboos bin said al said. the sultan, the longest serving ruler in the gulf, was 79 years old. he had ruled oman since 1970, when he deposed his father in a bloodless coup, with the help of the former colonial power, britain. bill hayton reports. when sultan qaboos pushed his father from the throne in 1970, oman was desperately poor. there were just two schools and two paved roads in the entire country. with british political and military support, he started a national development programme, saw off communist back rebellion and steered the country through turbulent times. the islamic revolution in iran, the iran—iraq war and two gulf wars. as the leader of a small but strategically vital country, he courted friends on all sides while trying to remain independent. compared to most of his fellow

golf leaders, qaboos followed a relatively liberal path, granting rights to women and creating a consultative assembly. but the sultan remained an absolute ruler. he was also the country's prime minister, finance minister and foreign minister. there were elections last year, but human rights groups complained about restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly. there were large—scale protests in 2011, and again two years ago. it is not clear who will replace the sultan. he had no children and never publicly appointed a successor. sultan qaboos brought half a century of increasing prosperity and tolerance to oman, but within limits. there are thought to be around 80 possible candidates to take over, all men. whoever he is, the successor will have to work hard to meet his people's rising aspirations in the next half century. a short time ago i spoke with giorgio cafiero,

ceo of consultancy firm gulf state analytics, iasked him how sultan qaboos was able to keep oman so stable, when other parts of the middle east faced decades of conflict and tensions. i first of all want to begin by expressing my condolences to the people of oman in paying respect to his majesty sultan qaboos. you make a good point, often oman was called the quiet monarchy or the sleepy sultanate, oman has indeed maintained a very low profile in the global press and one could argue that that has done a lot to help the country maintain the stability which has defined it for decades. having said all of that, even if oman maintains sort of a low profile and conducted activities quietly, muscat has played many important roles in the middle east,

when it comes to the war in yemen, many of the negotiations and peace talks that have been taking place since 2015 have been in muscat, oman played a pivotal role in bringing american and iranian officials together for secret talks that led to the passage of the jcpoa in october 2015, prime minister of israel benjamin netanyahu made oman an official gcc state, the list goes on. so many examples of oman being an arbiter or diplomatic bridge in the region. we heard in that report that there are around 80 candidates to succeed the sultan — how will the country decide the succession? you know, from the perspective of a westerner looking at this process, it seems very opaque.

1970 was the last time there was a transfer of power in oman, so unlike other gulf states, there has not been a transfer of power this entry, or even for the last nearly five decades. there is a lot of speculation that, people have had discussions around what happens next. officially there is a process whereby the royal family will have three days to decide who the next sultan will be, and if the royal family is not able to reach an agreement, there is a defence council that is tasked with opening these two envelopes which purportedly have the name of a successor whom sultan qaboos picked.

we will have to wait and see how this process unfolds, but this will have to be done on oman‘s terms. the omanis have a unique country, it might be difficult for some outside of it to understand. i want to bring you more on the breaking news we have brought you in the last few minutes, that iran said it did actually shoot down the airliner. there is an unofficial translation we are getting of some of iran's statements, just picking up of iran's statements, just picking up on the first bit, the general staff of iran's armed forces in the statement said the ukrainian plane was unintentionally hit by a military site, and the strike was based on human error. the statement offered an apology to the victims of families — victims and foreign nationals. another point i want to pick up on from the unofficial translation, "while the plane was turning around it went to a sensitive centre of the islamic revolutionary guard's sensitive centre of the islamic revolutionary guards and was in the shape of a hostile aircraft, during which he was inadvertently hit based on human error. in other paragraphs

is, iran's armed forces as human error happened while a sensitivity in the iranian armed forces system had increased due to the increased tension, and a number of reports at strategic centres around the country. that is, i stress, and unofficial report of what iran is saying, but that changes dramatically the story of what iran has been paying about why that plane crashed into a run, we will continue to update you on this story. in mexico, a schoolboy, thought to be 11 years old, has shot and killed a teacher and injured at least six other people at a school in the norther city of torreon, people at a school in the northern city of torreon, before killing himself. you might find some parts of this report disturbing. tragedy struck this school early in the morning. at the very start of the school day, a boy many considered to be a good student started killing his classmates, sending parents and pupils into panic.

police and soldiers quickly surrounded the school. it happened in mexico's northern state of coahuila, at the colegio cervantes private school. parents gathered outside, many not knowing if their children were affected. state officials said shortly after arriving at school, he asked permission to go to the bathroom. translation: after 15 minutes, he still had not returned so the teacher went to look for him. she found him walking out, carrying two guns, shooting. he had also changed out of his school uniform and into a t—shirt bearing the logo of a video game — the same video game referenced by one of the gunmen at columbine high school in america, where two students murdered 13 schoolmates in 1999. despite mexico's reputation

for violence, school shootings are rare. officials say this pupil gave no cause for concern. translation: he was a student who was not problematic. he had good behaviour, but today, he told some of his classmates that "today was the day". police say they are still trying to understand a motive for this unexpected act of violence. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: as cold as ice — we'll tell you about the concert that's cool, literally. day one of operation desert storm to force the iraqis out of kuwait has seen the most intense air attacks since the second world war. tobacco is america's oldest industry, and it's one

of its biggest, but the industry is nervous of this report. this may tend to make people want to stop smoking cigarettes. there is not a street that is unaffected. huge parts of kobe were simply demolished as buildings crashed into one another. this woman said she'd been given no help and no advice by the authorities. she stood outside the ruins of her business. tens of thousands of black children in south africa have taken advantage of laws passed by the country's new multiracial government and enrolled at formerly white schools. tonight sees the 9,610th performance of her long—running play the mousetrap. when they heard of her death today, the management considered whether to cancel tonight's performance, but agatha christie would have been the last person to want such a thing. this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: iranian state television says the country's military did shoot

down a ukrainian passengerjet, blaming human error. sultan qaboos bin said al said of oman — the arab world's longest—serving ruler — has died, aged 79. more plant life is growing at high altitudes in the himalayan mountain range, according to new research. using satellite data covering more than 20 years, scientists have found that vegetation is expanding at heights beyond where trees are able to grow. elizabeth byers is a senior scientist and vegetation ecologist. she told me why the plants are moving further up the moutains. the planet is warming and vegetation is limited by cold in the himalayas at the upper levels, and so what were seeing, is as the temperatures warm, the zones where plants can actually live is actually getting higher and higher. it's kind of an interesting process because we have known for a long time in mountains around the world

that the treeline is moving slowly up, but this study that karen anderson and her colleagues did is the first time we have seen in the himalayas what is happening above the treeline, and so i was really excited to read this study. it confirms what myself and a lot of field scientists have been observing over the years and — in my case — many decades in the himalayas, which is that these harsh environments, way above the treeline, getting up right near the permanent snow and ice are, in fact, being colonised by plants. when did you first notice this phenomenon? well, so i first went to the himalayas in 1980. and at that point, i went to climb, but i was also studying ecology and then itjust drew me back again and again. at that point, i was walking

on clean ice glaciers in many cases. those glaciers have basically crumbled under my feet over the decades and now many of them are lakes and some of them have turned into piles of rubble as the ice melts, and these huge boulders and tiny cobbles and bits of silt that had been trapped in the ice since millennia are now being exposed to the air for the first time. the miraculous thing that i have seen is that as soon as these boulders and cobbles are exposed, life finds a way. mosses and lichens move in and pretty soon, you start to see wild flowers. and these plants, they are in an environment where there is essentially no soil, there is ice right underneath them, the substrate is shifting, so you can imagine — and honestly, looking for these

plants is terrifying because you are walking across this shifting glacier that feels at any time, an ice cave might yawn and open — and then you come upon these flowers that are just extraordinary. they are not surviving there, they are thriving — and sometimes extravagantly thriving in this harsh environment. but there aren't many of them because they have to be dealing with unbelievable stresses in terms of cold and lack of soil, lack of nutrients, so they tend to have a lot of special adaptations. i want to recap on what iran has been saying in the last few minutes. been saying in the last few minutes. it is now saying one of its missiles did indeed bring down the ukrainian airlines plane which crashed in tehran. we have an unofficial translation of a statement which has been run on the iranian news agencies. it is on—screen and i will

read you and struct of what iran now says happened. again, this is an unofficial translation. it says "in such critical conditions the flight left the international airport and was approaching a sensitive military centre of the exotic revolutionary guards at altitude in the form of a hostile flight. in these circumstances the plane was accidentally hit by human error and, u nfortu nate. accidentally hit by human error and, unfortunate. richard bolted —— which resulted in the martyrdom of their compatriots and a number of foreign nationals." and that it offers an explanation. it says "in the hours after the missile strikes, and this was the iran versus the united states conflict", and cause them terrorist forces well planes, that is the translation we have, across the country increased and some reports of extracts targeting strategic centres were reported. this caused greater sensitivity in air defence complexes, so that

essentially is iran's explanation as to why the plane went down comic because of greater sensitivity preview —— presumably confusion in its air defence complexes and finally iran has promised action, it saysin finally iran has promised action, it says in one of the further paragraphs that will make, it wants to make such errors impossible and immediately report the culprit to the armed forces judicial organisation in order to deal with any legal error so you have the narrative, we have the explanation and you have potential action. that is the statement that iran has given, we have our unofficial translation here and we will keep you up to date with this story. in australia, there's been a welcome reprieve for those fighting bushfires as the weekend began with milder conditions on the country's east coast. it comes after an arduous night for firefighters who tackled an increase in blazes thanks to sudden strong winds. authorities in new south wales now say they expect at least a week of milder weather. lucy hockings has been at the headquarters of the state's

rural fire service. —— clive myrie is in cooma. we're at the main rural fire service headquarters here in the town. lots of personnel milling around. it has been a busy night for them, along with the military — some army reserves have been here as well. but everyone feeling a little bit more confident about the next few days. the fear overnight was that very strong winds — in excess of 100 kilometres an hour — along with high temperatures were going to cause more problems, put more people's lives in danger and, indeed, a number of smaller fires did merge into what they are calling a mega fire, burning tens of thousands of acres, but those mega fires are apparently being contained. and the forecast for the next few days, well, lighter winds and lower temperatures. i should also say that there's been a lot of speculation about the role of arson during this bushfire season. here in new south wales, the authorities say that 1% was caused deliberately and in victoria, one incident out of hundreds and in south australia, none of all. the vast majority of fires were begun by lightning strikes. clive myrie. let's head to italy now,

where an unusual cultural event is taking place. an ice music festival is happening in the alps. 5a concerts will be performed in a 300—seater igloo, made especially for the occasion. even the instruments are a little sub—zero, as the bbc‘s tim allman explains. as concerts go, this is pretty cool — literally. more than 10,000 cubic metres of snow were used to build a rather chilly auditorium. violin, drums, double bass — all are made of ice. this isn'tjust about the music, it's about the location — a glacier that has lost a third of its volume in less than three decades. translation: our business is based on the snow, on the cold weather. but if the climate changes, we will not be able to live this

kind of experience. so the message we want to send out is for us all to look after our environment and climate. playing instruments made of ice is hard enough. making them is another story. it took careful precision to hit the right notes. b flat. it's difficult to build the different instruments for different reasons. each instrument has its own difficulty. maybe it's so fine and delicate and easy to break or hard to get inside the small places, or it's so big and heavy, it's hard to pick up and move around. there will be two concerts a week until the of the end of march. music that may stir the soul and chill the spine at the same time. tim allman, bbc news.

just to say we will continue to update you with word on iran's new account on the tehran plane crash. please do stay with bbc news. hello there. the wind is starting to howl again. there was a good view of the wolf moon for many parts of the country early on in the night — that was before all this cloud rolled in. a lot of it is quite high cloud. the zone of thickest cloud that's stretching across scotland and northern ireland is on that weather front there. that is continuing to bring some outbreaks of rain. ahead of it, the winds are going to be howling. we are drawing in the milder winds from a long way south, so after a cold start, temperatures are continuing to rise to these sort of numbers by the end of the night. nine, ten, maybe 11 degrees. still on the chillier side across east anglia, mind you. we've still got the rain coming into scotland and northern ireland.

heavy over the hills. a little trickle this way, very slowly southwards. some quite wet weather over the cumbrian fells and later into snowdonia. eventually, the rain turns more showery in scotland, through the afternoon. the winds will start to ease a bit, but it stays very windy across england and wales — strong to gale force winds here. but, as we've seen, it's mild air so for many parts of the country, we've got double—figure temperatures — perhaps as high as 12 or 13 degrees. the weather front bringing that band of rain will sweep its way down toward south—eastern areas overnight on saturday night and then leaving behind that, we are going to find showers coming in on a cooler air stream from off the atlantic. we've still got some rain to clear away first thing across the south—east of england. once that goes, we will see a batch of showers coming in across wales through the midlands. those could be rather heavy in the morning before easing off during the afternoon. further north, some sunshine and some showers — most of them in the north—west of scotland, where it will be wintry over the hills. we're back in to cooler air on sunday, particularly across the northern half of the uk. still double figures for a while in the south—east. it won't be as windy.

but only briefly, because look what is coming in from the atlantic — a storm is brewing. that's going to be racing our way, probably heading to the north—west of scotland. after a reasonably quiet start with some sunshine around, it probably will stay dry across eastern areas, but the winds will continue to strengthen — particularly out towards the west, where we'll see this rain moving in, and that's going to be quite heavy. the strength of the wind could cause one or two issues. 60, maybe 70 miles an hour or more across some western parts of the uk. of course, it's a mild wind direction and those temperatures are going to be up to around 8—11 degrees. that sets the scene on what is going to be a very changeable week ahead. we're going to find further areas of low pressure, rain at times, strong winds. for the most part, it will be mild.

this is bbc news. the headlines: iranian state media has reported the country's military as saying that a ukrainian airliner was unintentionally shot down because of human error. 176 people died in the crash on wednesday, including more than 50 canadian nationals. officials in the iranian capital tehran had previously denied any responsibility. the polls have opened in taiwan's presidential and parliamentary elections. incumbent president tsai ing—wen is going up against han kuo—yu who favours closer ties with beijing. the pro—democracy protests taking place in hong kong have cast a long shadow over the taiwan election campaign. the death has been announced of sultan qaboos bin said al said of oman — the longest serving ruler in the gulf. the sultan, who was 79, had ruled since 1970 when he deposed his father in a bloodless coup. three days of national mourning have been declared. now on bbc news — africa eye: my bloody country.