tonight at ten, the chinese technology firm huawei is allowed a restricted role in the uk's 56 mobile network. the firm won't be given access to sensitive areas, such as military bases and nuclear sites, and ministers reject american claims that it's a security risk to the uk. i don't think we should, you know, it gets so paranoid that somehow this is going to lead to big brother from china watching us. and from china watching us. i am in washington with ti angry and i am in washington with the angry reaction from american politicians to the uk government decision. we'll have the latest from washington on the response to the uk government's decision. also tonight... as the coronavirus infects more people in china and beyond,

british citizens are warned against all but essential travel to the whole of mainland china. at the white house, the us and israel announce what they say is a middle east peace deal, but the palestinians reject it as a "conspiracy". in western antarctica, a major scientific project confirms that a glacier the size of great britain is melting faster than previously thought. welcome tojust a minute! and tributes to nicholas parsons, chair of radio 4'sjust a minute for more than 50 years, who's died aged 96. and coming up on sportsday on bbc news, targett on target for villa to take the lead over leicester but who is heading to wembley for the league cup final? good evening.

the chinese technology firm huawei has been granted a limited role in the uk's ultra—fast 5g mobile phone network. the decision by the prime minister borisjohnson and colleagues came despite pressure from the trump administration to block huawei's involvement, alleging that it could make the uk vulnerable to surveillance or sabotage by the chinese authorities. huawei denies any involvement in espionage, but ministers say it has nonetheless been designated a "high risk" supplier, and will be excluded from sensitive facilities, such as nuclear sites and military bases. our security correspondent gordon corera has more details. 5g offers the promise of a connected future. more than just faster speeds, it will allow billions of devices to talk to each other, from self—driving cars to automated factories, to smart homes filled with sensors. unlocking economic potential, but perhaps leaving us vulnerable.

and today, we learnt that for the uk, this feature, for the uk, this future, at least in part, will be made in china. this may prove to be one of the most significant national security decisions of recent times. but the defence secretary told me tonight that the restrictions announced today will limit any risk from huawei. i don't think we should get so paranoid that somehow this is going to lead to big brother from china watching us. what it really means is that we have to make sure that first of all the commitments made by huawei are met but also that are world—leading, and it is a first, we are the first nation to try this, that this is enforced. but even amongst senior conservatives, not all are convinced the measures are enough. bear in mind, huawei has tens of thousands, i think as many as 80,000 researchers. they have got more researchers than we have got soldiers, let alone gchq analysts, so it is a huge operation

we are talking about here and it's a very complex exercise to stop them. but a huawei executive told me accusations of spying were groundless. it's definitely not the truth. huawei is a company over the past 30 years, there have not been any cybersecurity accidents. so we serve one third of the world's population. we have a very strong track record. the fear is huawei's role could allow beijing to spy on communications or even turn off the technology on which our lives will depend. but the government says the uk's network can be protected through a series of measures. to avoid dependency on one company, other suppliers will be used, and huawei capped at 35% of the total. the company's equipment will be banned from the most sensitive locations, like near nuclear or military sites... and it will not be allowed at the heart of the network, known as the core, which controls where data flows.

the challenge for government is that huawei equipment is already part of the infrastructure, including in 5g masts like this, which are already being rolled out in cities. a decision to exclude the company would mean ripping out this equipment, at enormous cost, and slowing down the drive for greater connectivity. washington has lobbied fora hard line, and one congressman, who's proposing legislation to restrict intelligence—sharing with countries who used huawei, told the bbc the uk's controls are not enough. the risk of what we are giving up by adopting huawei as a part of, any part of our telecommunications infrastructure or even worse, allowing huawei to control the 5g networks in countries like the uk or in the united states of america, is a dangerous path forward. this decision was always going to involve walking a fine line between promoting growth

and protecting security. today, the government will hope it has done enough to convince sceptics at home and abroad that it's got it right, but if it hasn't, the costs may be high. gordon is with me and we will talk to him in a moment but first, to the white house and jon sopel, our north america editor. we had a flavour of some of the american reaction to this decision, there, but how would you describe the reaction at the top levels of the trump administration? well, i don't think it is unreasonable to say that this puts the uk and the us on a collision course and could jeopardise aspects of the special relationship. it is ha rd to of the special relationship. it is hard to think of an occasion where, from the president downwards, they have publicly said, "don't do this," and britain has done it anyway. a senior white house official i spoke to today said they were disappointed. the senators have been

much more forthright, listen to this from tom cotton of arkansas on the intelligence committee. "i fear london has freed itself from brussels only to cede sovereignty to beijing". three members of the committee have written to boris johnson, saying, and this is kind of full of threat, "we don't want to feed post brexit anxieties by threatening a potential us and uk free trade agreement". it also goes on to say, "nor would we have to review us and uk intelligence sharing", but there is a clear implication, "but we might". boris johnson and donald trump have spoken today and the british sided knowledge there is a lot of disappointment but the repercussions are going to assess because who knows how donald trump will react? gordon is here. when we talk about the importance of this at the level of national security, gordon, what do you mean by that? what is this guide of that importance? i think it is one of the

most significant national security decisions a government has had to ta ke decisions a government has had to take in recent years. part of that is about the long—term. it may be that in 20 years, we are living in a bright, shiny, optimistic, 5g connected future but there is also the chance of something darker, in which much of our technology and data is in the hands of china. if that happens, people will look back on this day is a crucial step in that process. that is the long term but there are also short—term risks to national security. there is the relationship with the united states, it has talked about restricting intelligence sharing. the uk officials i have spoken to in the last few days and weeks have all suggested they think the us is bluffing when it comes to that, but thatis bluffing when it comes to that, but that is a big call and we will find out in the next few days, including when secretary of state mike pompeo arrives in london tomorrow. thank you very much. the foreign office has tonight warned people against "all but essential travel" to mainland china, because of the outbreak of coronavirus.

british nationals currently in the worst—hit hubei province have just a few more hours to register their request to leave. more than 100 people have now died in china as a result of the virus, and 4,500 have been infected. as our correspondent rupert wingfield—hayes reports, hong kong is under pressure to close its border with the mainland to prevent the spread of the virus. if carrie lam was aiming to calm fears in hong kong about the coronavirus, herface mask sent a different message. mrs lam is under huge pressure now to shut the border with china, and, today, she partially capitulated. "intercity services to china will be suspended," she said. "flights will be cut by half. ferries will also be stopped." by thursday morning, the number of people crossing into hong kong from mainland china behind me here should be dramatically reduced. there will be no more ferries, no more trains and no more mainland tourists. it is a very dramatic move that is being made

by the hong kong government, but people here have very painful memories of what happened with the sars virus back in 2003, and they now fear the same, or something worse, happening again. doctors are leading the calls here for a complete border shutdown. they fear hong kong's hospitals could be quickly overwhelmed. we have to do this now and we have to do this in a very decisive manner, before we have more knowledge about the disease, more knowledge about the virus, how long is the incubation period, what can we do to treat these patients? from the epicentre of the viral outbreak, more extraordinary pictures today. wuhan is the seventh largest city in china, with a population larger than london. it is not the government that has done this — it is fear. britain today advised against all

but essential travel to mainland china, and the foreign office is now finalising plans to evacuate more than 200 britons who are trapped inside wuhan city. america has become the first country to begin evacuating its citizens. for the lucky few, it's a huge relief. very scary. i mean, we have basically been under house arrest. you can't really go anywhere. most places are just closed down. there are now signs of panic buying in other parts of china. these pictures are from beijing. with many new cases of infection being confirmed outside wuhan, anxiety about the virus is spreading, too. rupert wingfield—hayes, bbc news, in hong kong. president trump has unveiled his plans for what he claims is a credible peace deal between israel and the palestinians, including a promise to keep jerusalem as israel's undivided capital. mr trump announced the proposals at the white house, alongside

the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. the president said the deal "would work", but no palestinian officials were involved, and tonight they rejected the proposals. they said it was a conspiracy. at the heart of the conflict is a dispute over land, ever since the creation of the state of israel in 1948. the un backs the creation of a separate palestinian state, but israeli west bank settlements on land captured in 1967 have complicated that so—called "two—state solution". israel also captured the eastern half ofjerusalem, which the palestinians want as the capital of a future state. live to our middle east editorjeremy bowen for the latest in washington. president trump says he has a whole new way of making peace after years of failed negotiations, giving

israel the security it deserves, giving palestinians the state they crave. but critics of what he is proposing have used words like the coercion of the palestinians to describe what he is talking about, and even the word apartheid. so the sta kes a re and even the word apartheid. so the stakes are high, but the chances of things getting better are low. in the east room of the white house, it felt more like a party than a press conference. donald trump and benjamin netanyahu congratulated each other. their entourages clapped and whooped. as everyone knows, i have done a lot for israel, moving the united states embassy to jerusalem, recognising... applause recognising the golan heights... applause

and frankly, perhaps most importantly, getting out of the terrible iran nuclear deal... applause and now comes a document that attempts to seal israel's victory in a century—long conflict, which palestinians will read as surrender terms, not a peace proposal. it almost exactly replicates mr netanyahu's deepest beliefs about israel's security and its right to the land most of the rest of the world says is occupied palestinian territory. for too long, far too long, the very heart of the land of israel, where our patriarchs prayed, our prophets preached, and our kings ruled, has been outrageously branded as illegally occupied territory. well, today, mr president, you are puncturing this big lie. in gaza tonight, palestinians demonstrated. their side has been deeply divided.

opposition to the trump document could finally unite them. the palestinians were already boycotting the trump administration because of its root and branch support for israel. the palestinian president mahmoud abbas wasn't a party to the proposals and rejected them straightaway. translation: i say to trump and netanyahu, jerusalem is not for sale. all our rights are not for sale and they are not for bargaining. they‘ re arguing about land captured by israel in the 1967 middle east war. for a generation, the international consensus has been that no peace is possible without a palestinian state on the land with a capital in jerusalem. today, the land is sliced up by walls, wire and checkpoints. the trump plan wants to throw out the old consensus, to offer a sort of state to the palestinians, if they agree to restrictions approved by israel.

israel has a chance to get bigger, with what looks to be a green light to annex territory it wants, like here in the jordan valley. the timing suits the two leaders, a distraction from elections and serious charges. high crimes and misdemeanours for trump. bribery and corruption for netanyahu. this may be the deal of the century for the israeli government but it's not for the palestinians. it could create a sense of frustration, anger and hopelessness, which, in such a combustible part of the world, is dangerous. jeremy bowen, bbc news, at the white house. at least 10 palestinians have been injured in clashes with israeli forces amid protests against the plan unveiled in washington. the demonstrations in the israeli—occupied west bank came as the palestinian leader mahmud abbas said his response to trump deal was "a thousand times no. " our international correspondent orla guerin has spent

the day in the west bank gauging palestinian opinions on the plan. bethlehem before sunrise. palestinians rushing to a day's work in israel, those lucky enough to have permits. movement is tightly controlled. that's life under israeli occupation. and few here today were expecting a new dawn from the white house. do you have any hope for the peace plan from donald trump? "no, no, no," says ibrahim, a father of seven. "they don't want to give the palestinians their rights. "the plan has failed, even before it's announced". a view echoed over coffee in ramallah. that's an hour away, or triple that if there are delays at israeli checkpoints. here, we met some of the oslo

generation, palestinians who grew up with the peace accords signed in 1993. they say the trump deal ends that era and it's time for a new strategy. it finally spells the death of the peace process that many assumed would lead to a palestinian state, and instead opens the door for us as a new generation to begin building a type of resistance movement based on what nelson mandela did. so this is the end of the peace process as we know it? this is the end of what i would call the illusion of a peace process. do you think you will still be living under occupation in ten years' time, 20 years' time? everything, all israeli policies against palestinians, are happening at such high speed, that it's terrifying to think of where we are going to be five years from now. and tonight on the streets of ramallah, a vow to

return to the intifada, the palestinian uprising. the crowd here was small. sound and fury, perhaps. but also, weariness and resignation. palestinian leaders have called for more protest tomorrow at what they have dubbed the fraud of the century. they have few cards to play, because america and israel are now moving in lockstep, and the deal unveiled today has sent a stark message to the palestinians, in the words of one analyst it boils down to this, you have lost, get over it. studio: thanks for joining to this, you have lost, get over it. studio: thanks forjoining us. government advisors on immigration have recommended reducing the minimum salary required for skilled workers to be able to come to the uk. the hope is that after brexit, more teachers and nhs staff could be recruited from anywhere, including the eu, as our home editor mark easton reports.

a british patrol boat preparing to defend the uk border in dover today, as government advisers tell ministers they need to make some hard choices on who can come here after brexit. the migration advisory committee describes home office plans for an australian—style points system as a sound bite rather than a policy, and warn there are some unavoidable and difficult trade—offs ahead. any changes to who's allowed or not allowed to come to the uk is inevitably going to be to the advantage of some sectors and some areas, but to the disadvantage of others. there is no way to come up with a system that pleases absolutely everybody. there you go. one sector that won't be pleased is social care, with warnings in the report that

without migrants, there will be direct pressure from staff shortages. the advisers say the answer is to pay british people more, even if that puts the cost of care up. i think we have to be realistic with people working in social care, a really important job. they need to be paid more than they currently are. that has to be paid for in some way and i think there is no way to avoid that. the migration advisory committee, or mac, recommends reducing the salary threshold for most migrant workers from £30,000 now to £25,600. this would help recruit much—needed teachers and health staff. overall, immigration would be lower, but the country would be poorer, with gdp or economic growth expected to slow. the mac is advisory so we will respond back to the mac in due course. i think it is important to recognise as well that the british public voted for change when it came to immigration and with that, they have voted for an australian—style points—based system. ministers are being told they need to act quickly so businesses can adapt. and a pot of tea. here in york, for instance, eu staff are the low—paid backbone of the tourism industry, worth half a billion pounds per year.

the oldest street in town is the shambles. so how should this city respond? cutting immigration is not pain—free. mark easton, bbc news. a major scientific project has confirmed fears that a glacier in western antarctica, which is the size of great britain, is disappearing more quickly than previously thought, due to warmer ocean waters. the melting of the thwaites glacier already accounts for 4% of the rise in global sea levels, so it's crucial to understand the mechanics of its transformation. until now, no—one has attempted a large—scale scientific survey on the remote glacier itself which is more than a thousand miles from the nearest research station. our chief environment correspondentjustin rowlatt, and camera operatorjemma cox, travelled across west antarctica with a team of scientists, trying to understand how the glacier is changing. they call this the doomsday glacier.

the chaos of broken ice at the front is almost 100 miles wide. hundreds of billions of tonnes of melt water is pouring into the sea. thwaites sits at the heart of the vast basin of ice that is west antarctica. it is the size of britain. scientists need to map the ground beneath it. next interval. thwaites contains enough water to raise world sea levels by half a metre. the west antarctic ice sheet contains three metres more, enough to swamp many of the great cities of the world. this ice here is very accessible to change, so if we are thinking about what the sea levels will be like in ten years, this glacier is the place to be and this is the location to be asking these questions at. we are standing right on it. but it is one of the most remote places on earth, the stormiest part of the stormiest continent. only four people have ever been here before. hello! it takes five weeks just

to get the science teams and their equipment to the front of the glacier. this is an historic moment, the first time any one has tried to drill down through this glacier. beneath the 600 metres of ice below me is the most important point of all, the point at which the ice meets the ocean water. it is difficult work, but deploying instruments under the ice is the only way to begin to understand the processes at work here and to make accurate predictions of how sea levels will rise in the future. this is a world first, the first time anyone has seen the place where this glacier goes afloat, the point where it begins to melt. i was yelling and screaming, like, "oh, my god, we're there, we're there!" you can see the water, the water column narrowing and the ice coming down at you and the sea floor coming out at you, and there is this huge rush of energy.

the bed of a glacier is a place we have never been, particularly here, where it starts to go afloat. and thwaites really matters, because it's so vulnerable. strip away the ice and most of this part of the continent would be under water. this year's work has already confirmed the scientists' worst fears. the the deep, warm ocean water circling antarctica is flowing to the coast here. because the sea bed slopes downwards, as the ice melts, it will expose more and more ice to that water. that means the glacier could begin to retreat increasingly rapidly, but how quickly? antarctica is the big unknown and we have so little understanding about the future contribution the ice sheet will make to the sea level that it's sometimes actually left out of estimates going into the future. it takes huge resources to do science at the end of the earth, but we need to understand what is happening here

if we are to protect ourselves as the world's oceans rise in the decades to come. justin rowlatt, bbc news, west antarctica. the uk will formally leave the european union at 11pm on friday night. there is then a transitional period until december 31st, during which negotiations will take place on the future trading relationship between the uk and the eu. the eu has made it clear that any deal would need to include an agreement on eu fishing access to british waters, and that this should be reached by the beginning ofjuly. as our business editor simonjack reports from brixham in devon, british fishermen fear that their interests will be sacrificed to get a deal with the eu. brixham is england's most important fishing port. as the fish are boxed up, electronic auction bids come in from all over the uk and the eu where 70% of the fish here will end up.

they're bottom feeders, look at the colours in there. barry young runs the market here. this could end up anywhere. it could end up in london, over in europe, france, spain, italy, depending on who buys it. it could end up anywhere. my hands are getting cold! you can put it back in there. the uk has some of the richest fishing grounds in the world. currently, smaller eu boats can come as close as six miles from the uk coast. at the end of this year the uk government can decide who can and can't fish in this huge area. you have to be optimistic to be a fisherman. you would never leave the harbour if you weren't optimistic. boat skipper andy mcleod hopes post brexit negotiations will mean fewer eu boats, higher catch allowances or quotas, and an exclusive 12 mile limit. he hopes that would revive the uk industry, but he also has his fears. the opportunity is to get a fairer share of the quota, more fish,

which would most likely lead to more investment in the fishing industry. obviously, the fear is nothing will change, and fishing will be used as a pawn in a game of chess. those fears could be well founded. politicians from the eu have explicitly linked continued access to uk waters to continued access to eu financial markets. fishing is a tiny part of the uk economy. a tenth of 1%. finance is a hundred times more important economically. but fishing, symbolically and politically, punches way above its economic weight. it speaks to our identity as an island nation and is the lifeblood of coastal communities like this one which is why the fight over fish is so important. there's black gold in these boxes, a0 tonnes of cuttlefish uk households don't care for. merchants like ian perkes fears the eu will retaliate if the eu restricts access to its waters. the french will make it difficult if we take their fishing. they will create mayhem, they will blockade the port.

they will put on the tariffs etc. you know, 95% of what we buy is exported, mainly to the eu, so it is our market. without it, we would have no business. it's notjust a trade—off between industries but also within them. if the fishermen win, the merchants may lose. the eu and uk aim to have a fishing deal done byjuly. the battle at sea for who gets what has already started. simonjack, bbc news, brixham. one of britain's best—known entertainers and broadcasters, nicholas parsons, has died at the age of 96. in a long career on radio and television, he hosted the bbc radio 4 comedy panel show just a minute for more than half a century. our correspondent david sillito looks back at his long life and career. welcome tojust a minute! he was the chairman ofjust a minute on radio 4 for more than 50 years... and now, from norwich...

..and he was the quizmaster on sale of the century for 12 years. hello, and welcome to the sale of the century. it's the quiz of the week. i'm proud of the fact that i helped create a huge success. you don't buck success. i'm proud of that fact, but i don't want to just be remembered for sale of the century. i want to see your passport, please. indeed, there was a lot more to nicholas parsons. what is the purpose of your visit to england? he'd appeared in more than 20 films... i've come to find a husband. ..and in the ‘60s, he'd become a household name as the straight man to the comedian arthur haynes. i'm sorry, vicar. i thought it was those carol singers. merry christmas. he could bring out the funniness in anybody, but unselfishly, always feeding them. he knew he could get something out of them, and he could do that immaculately.

he'd turned to acting after training as an engineer