welcome to bbc news. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: the gunman in the thai mass shooting has been shot dead by security forces. the serviceman killed 20 people and injured dozens more in a gun rampage. in other news, the coronavirus is now more deadly than sars as the death toll in china exceeds 800. too close to call — exit polls in ireland's general election point to a three—way tie between the prime minister's fin uh gayl and two opposition parties. ahead of the oscars, and its long running diversity debate, film director spike lee tells us why hollywood still has such a long way to go.

we start with that breaking news from thailand: the authorities say the soldier who went on a rampage in a shopping mall in the city of nakhon ratchasima, killing at least 20 people, has been killed by the security forces. he opened fire in a temple and shopping centre in the area of nakhon ratchasima, killing 20.. our reporter, aaron safir is with me now. we have had the confirmation, really in the last hour or so that the gunman has been shot dead. it was shell with the world on a facebook post — it was shared with the world by a minister, who announced the gunman had been shot dead by security forces and he thanked them. this had been going on for 17 hours. that is a very long time! that is a long time foran long time! that is a long time for an active shooter situation. it started at 10am

in thailand and this started at 330 the previous day when the attacker opened fire at a military base, and killed his commanding officer and the commanding officer and the commanding officers mother—in—law and stocked up on weapons and ammunition and stole a vehicle, a jeep type vehicle and drove to the mall and that is where he turned his fire on civilians and we the greatest number of deaths and we saw the stand—off for about 15 hours between him the security forces. what do we know about him? only a few details at the moment. he is in his early 30s, we know that he was in the army, a junior officer, and he has been named locally by police as jakrapha nth thomma. so locally by police as jakraphanth thomma. so he knew about weapons, who had access and who was familiar to them, potentially? yes, when he was

in the malls we saw cctv pictures of him walking through, heavily armed, possibly wearing body armour as well. with initial suspicion be that potentially he managed to appropriate from military stores ? appropriate from military stores? that is the understanding that after the first incident at the military base he stocked up on weapons and those are the ones are used in the mall. he live streamed 01’ in the mall. he live streamed or put on facebook certain m essa 9 es or put on facebook certain messages during the, during the 17 hour incident and they were pretty quickly taken down. by facebook? by facebook themselves but they were up there for a while, saying things like "death is inevitable for everyone" and then asking whether he should give up. presumably, people will be studying those posts and wondering whether that was some sort of motive, presumably the police want to speak to his family now to find out if there was anything more, and why did he carry out the shooting? they

do not —— they want to ask questions from his friends, family, colleagues and the military why this has happened seemingly out of the blue and unusualfor seemingly out of the blue and unusual for thailand as well. these are life pictures of the shopping centre. you can see it there, terminal 21, and we have when watching these pictures for hours and it has been cordoned off and a number of emergency vehicles towards the gates, and clearly the situation is over. i would like to go, if i may, across to thailand, near the scene itself because we have someone there. we can speak to charlie crowson, an english teacher living in nakhon ratchasima, a place also known as korat. his apartment looks over the terminal 21 shopping centre where much of the shooting has taken place. thank you forjoining us. you know people caught up in the shootings? yes, sadly, it has been a mentor, 17, 18 on ours

and the whole foreign community and the whole foreign community and our community has been com pletely and our community has been completely shocked. this is not common. yeah, really had to wa ke common. yeah, really had to wake up and found out it was finished in the last hour or so. finished in the last hour or so. did you have any connections with anyone caught up connections with anyone caught up in the attack? you, one, one friend yes, had one family member in there, a young boy and we also had a colleague of mine who was in there on his first date and managed to get out about 10:30pm and the first people who managed to get out got out about 1015 and 10:30pm but sadly a student of my girlfriend was seen in one of the early bloodied photos who had been shot off a motorcycle outside her old school, between the army base and terminal 21 shopping centre. there were bodies in the street, there

we re cars bodies in the street, there were cars with bullet holes in them and very graphic images on social media that were luckily taken down. very graphic. charlie, very grateful to you for speaking to us on what is obviously a difficult time. how did you find out the attacks we re did you find out the attacks were happening? i was having a foot massage and i got a message from a friend whose girlfriend was nearby terminal 21 and he messaged saying there was a shooting and the initial shooting was outside in the car park and there had been shots fired. it is right in the centre of town. it is the focal point of korat and in between quite a lot of schools and it is the main junction that passes through the second biggest city in thailand, so it is, really, yes, massive and i might, i mentioned it to the

lady messaging my feet and she did not seem that phased. no—one seemed to be that shocked until the death count started going up, 12 people are dead, and then it really started spreading that he was on the run, he had evaded police and was driving around shooting people. fortunately, he didn't make it out. as the rumours spread, charlie, what did people do, did they go inside and checking their phones and so on? i use my phones and so on? i use my phone a lot and i've never used my phone as much as i did last night, it was glued to my face and it was the same with eve ryo ne and it was the same with everyone in korat. looking for twitter updates, probably the most reliable but ain't not of fa ke most reliable but ain't not of fake news coming through of him marauding districts. there were videos of a lot of thai people running around outside a petrol station within a kilometre radius of the mall because

people had heard he had escaped and was out on foot. so there was widespread panic. and it was widespread panic. and it was quite shocking but i think that most people did not even hear about it until around 10pm, still people out in the streets, there were festivals going on in all sorts, so it was a busy night. you have lived there for a number of years, it is normally a very peaceful area? a fantastically peaceful area. you can leave your keys in your motorbike outside the shop, you can leave your front outside the shop, you can leave yourfront door outside the shop, you can leave your front door unlocked. but this is obviously the workings ofa this is obviously the workings of a very twisted, broken man who has had problems with the army and, sadly, was trained. what is your feeling now that it is over? have you been able to co nta ct it is over? have you been able to contact everyone? i people exchanging messages? is there a sense of shock or relief that it is over? i do an english

forum and website and just everyone, thousands of foreigners that live here, the ex pats foreigners that live here, the expats that live here, have all been conversing for the last 17 hours, trying to find out what the truth is and what is happening and when it would finish. so there will be a lot of aftermath with that. the whole community is really shocked and no—one can believe it because it is quite a sleepy town, really. charlie, what kind of questions will people be asking where you are at the moment? the biggest question will be how did he manage to get onto the army barracks and ta ke get onto the army barracks and take so many guns? how did he manage to get away from so many snipers and soldiers for 17 hours ina snipers and soldiers for 17 hours in a huge mall. there is footage of him walking around inside and talking to him. they have cctv footage of him at all times while he was in terminal

21. how did it drag on so long? yeah, will ever happen again? does this make you question, charlie, safety in general in thailand. is it generally seen asa thailand. is it generally seen as a place that you still love? i have been here for 16 years andi i have been here for 16 years and i feel very safe i have been here for 16 years and ifeel very safe here. i've never had a problem. so the rantings and ravings and murderous acts of one crazy man will not affect my opinion of thailand. it is a wake—up call and it has certainly put korat on the map. charlie, thank you so much forjoining us. we really appreciate it. the latest figures we have ever 20 were killed and 42 injured and our reporter is still here with us. you can hear in that

interview, people in thailand are beginning to ask questions about the shooter about his motives and how he was able to get weapons. can you build up a timeline of perhaps it was what he was able to do? we know he started his rampage in the afternoon of saturday when he arrived at an army base, one of the biggest army bases in thailand, killed two people, his commanding officer and a woman related to his commanding officer. then he stole weapons and ammunition. then he moved, with a military type vehicle to the centre of town, and that is where he turned his fire on civilians. and as our guest was explaining there, this is a very peaceful area. just thailand, to your knowledge, have experience with dealing with maths tutors as america does? no, that is the short answer, not incidents of this gala carried out by one person. it does have one of the highest

rates of gun ownership in the world, it is to an extent a militarised society and military is a large part of life in thailand but we got a sense they from speaking to charlie that this is really unprecedented in thailand. there will be a long list of questions about how this could have happened. one of those questions will be if there was a reason for targeting someone in the military base, why was a shopping centre targeted? clearly, that was one of the central places as charlie told us, one of the central places in the city? and such an indiscriminate attack as well, he took potshots at people on his journey from the army base to the mall and then once in there, apparently, firing indiscriminately with no apparent reason so it does make you wonder what the focus of his anger may have been. as you we re his anger may have been. as you were saying before, he had posted on social media the early pa rt

posted on social media the early part of what his actions we re early part of what his actions were those are taken down quickly by facebook which of course in the past when shooters in different countries have carried on those posts, they have not been taken down quickly but they were in this case? they were cryptic, not revealing much about his motivation, one of them said" death is inevitable for everyone" and another pointy posted while the situation was ongoing, he asked "should i give up?" any posted pictures of weapons and ammunition. the thailand authorities contacted facebook while this was happening and asked them to ta ke happening and asked them to take down the posts and facebook did that. they also put out a statement saying it sympathises with the victims and families and also saying there was no place in facebook for people who commit this kind of atrocity. aaron safir, thank you so much. just recapping, the authorities in thailand so the authorities in thailand so the soldier he went on a

rampage ina the soldier he went on a rampage in a mall in the city of nakhon ratchasima, killing 20, has himself been killed by the security forces. 42 were injured and 20 killed by the shooter. we will bring you more information as we have it. please stay with us on bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: tragedy in uganda as four rare mountain gorillas are killed by lightning. their deaths have been described by conservationists as a big loss for the species. there's mr mandela. mr nelson mandela, a free man, taking his first steps into a new south africa. iran's spiritual leader ayatollah khomeini has said he's passed a death sentence on salman rushdie, the british author of a book which many muslims say is blasphemous. the people of haiti have flocked to church to give thanks for the ousting of their former president, 'ba by doc' duvalier.

because of his considerable value as a stallion, shergar was kept in a special, secure box in the stud farm's central block. shergar was driven away in a horse box the thieves had brought with them. there stepped down from the plane a figure in mourning. elizabeth ii, queen of this realm and of all her other realms and territories. head of the commonwealth, defender of the faith. this is bbc news, the latest headlines: the gunman in the thai mass shooting has been shot damp by security forces. the serviceman killed 21 people, and injured dozens more in a gun rampage. the number of people who have died from the new coronavirus has now passed 800, overtaking the total death toll from the sars outbreak in 2003. at the same time, cases

in the worst—affected region of china appear to have stabilised slightly in the past four days. mike ryan from the world health 0rganization said the virus remained concentrated in hubei province. we're in a four—day period where the disease — or the number of reported cases hasn't advanced. and that's good news, and may reflect the impact of the control measures we have put in place. we hope that the same stabilisation that appears to be occurring in wuhan also happens outside. but again, it's very, very early to make any predictions about numbers in this outbreak. this is still a very intense disease outbreak in wuhan and hubei, and there are still great risks in practically all of the other provinces. dr amesh adalja is a senior scholar at thejohns hopkins university center for health security, where one of his focuses is on emerging infectious disease.

thank on emerging infectious disease. you very much. sr read thank you very much. should we read anything into the slight dip of reported cases the who has been talking about?|j wouldn't has been talking about?” wouldn't read anything into it because we know they are only testing severe cases in hospital, not mild cases, and we know there's more out there because this disease has a spectrum of illness and many people just have cold light symptoms that aren't being tested, so this is a more widespread infection than the numbers would lead you to believe. what kind of measures would you recommend china to take? china should end their quarantine immediately. the quarantine immediately. the quarantine 50 or 60 million has made things worse and it has made things worse and it has made wuhan into a zombie—like town with a lot of social media misinformation being spread and a lot of public panic. we have shortages and hospitals inundated with people who are worried. a lot has been caused by this quarantine which really isn't going to cause any real benefit to control this virus,

because it was spreading for weeks before the quarantine was even announced, weeks before the quarantine was even announced , so weeks before the quarantine was even announced, so this has just been a draconian measure that has really had a paradoxical effect and made things worse and panicked the population even more. it appears to things are spreading, the virus and misinformation. are those things equally damaging? no, the misinformation is worth because the virus, as we are learning, as a lot of cases that are mild and the who recently said 82% of cases are mild. the case fatality rate will drop as we get an understanding of how widespread this infection is, but the damage being done by countries including my own, the us, with travel bans is going to magnify what the virus does. what's going on in wuhan with the four quarantine and going door—to—door and taking people who are sick out of their houses, all of that is very... will have negative current, consequences and panic the population much more than it will need to over this virus. should we talk about managing

the virus or eradicating the virus? managing the virus, this isa virus? managing the virus, this is a respiratory virus that's been spreading since at least november. we know respiratory viruses that can efficiently transmit between humans can't be contained. this won't be eradicated, this could be a coronavirus we deal with every winter season. it could be the beginnings of a mild pandemic. we can manage this but we need to get our hospitals and healthcare systems ready around the world with increased diagnostic testing and vaccine development and antiviral trials, many actions need to be taken and we don't need to squander efforts on quarantines and travel bans. nakhon -- amesh adalja, thank you very much. four rare mountain gorillas, including a pregnant female, have died in uganda after being hit by lightning. a local conservation group says the three adult females and a male infant were found in uganda's m guh hinga national park. the area was hit by a huge storm on monday. one of those caught

in the storm in the south—west of the country was journalist jack losh. he's been telling us more about what happened. the storm was intense. i had been trekking to see the famous iconic mountain gorillas of uganda the previous day. we returned and a huge electrical storm struck the place where we were staying and the thunder was dramatic, the downpour of rain was like nothing i had seen before and, tragically, it seems that this gorilla family were caught up in it as well. the bigger picture here is that if we return to the 1980s there were only 250 of these iconic big apes left in the world, centred around central africa and uganda, rwanda and the democratic republic of the congo. through a really phenomenal conservation effort over the last few decades that has brought together local communities, national government and international conservation organisations, this number of 250 gorillas has

now been raised to around 2,000 today. so even though this is a success story for gorillas, their population is still fragile and we are warned not to stay lax. so the death of four gorillas in a single night is deeply concerning. this was is a single family who had recently moved over from rwanda into uganda, into a national park which only had one permanent gorilla family there. what is concerning is that out of these four fatalities, three of them were females. 0bviously childbearing gorillas, and one was already pregnant with a gorilla. the fourth gorilla was a young infant male. the good news is, is the conservationists

are saying, while the four gorillas were lost, the rest of the family seems perfectly intact and healthy and are continuing to feed on this tropical highland vegetation as normal. so even though it's a blow for conservation efforts, actually it does seem that it's not going to greatly impact us in the long—term. polls have closed in the irish general election. the prime minister leo varadkar has been trying to win a third term for his party in government. an exit poll, commissioned by rte and the irish times, indicates that mr varadkar‘s fine gael party secured 22.4% of first preference votes, closely followed by sinn fein on 22.3% and fianna fail, on 22.2%. it's the biggest night in hollywood on sunday where the stars will be gearing up for the oscars. the list of nominees has once again come under criticism from some for being too white and, for some categories, too male. the film director spike lee will present one of the awards. he sat down with our arts editor will gompertz to talk about hollywood,

diversity and female directors. the 0scars. what do you make of the line—up this year? well, it wasn't like last year! and i said this last year, don't expect six african—americans to win 0scars next year. so it's feast to famine. and it's going to be a struggle and the struggle continues. why does it continue to be a struggle? because power does not give up power easily. it goes to the studios. the gatekeepers and we have seen more diversity amongst the gatekeepers then have a great effect amongst the oscars.

a great effect, i think. is it happening at the moment? the gatekeepers? right. no, no. this is a business. hollywood is a business. art does not always come ahead of business. spike, post—#metoo? is it changing or the same old same old? it's the same old thing, maybe dressed up differently. there's a lot of women making good movies. a lot more than there was. they're still not up to parity. but even this year there have been notable movies made by women but no recognition. what's going on? hey, get in line! i'm not saying that to make light of it. it's obvious that there is work that still needs to be done. spike lee there, speaking to our arts editor, will gompertz.

a reminder of our breaking news this hour: authorities in thailand say a soldier who went ona thailand say a soldier who went on a rampage in a mall in the city of nakhon ratchasima, you can see pictures of that shopping centre now, as been killed. he killed at least 20 people. his rampage began in the afternoon when he killed his commanding officer at a military camp, and the reports we have suggested the shooter went on to appropriate military equipment, including body armour, he carried on through the city and he went to the terminal 1 the city and he went to the terminal1 shopping centre you can see in the centre of town, and authorities say he continued his shooting, killing 20 and injuring 42 in total. he was holed up in the basement and security forces said he had been shot dead. more on our

website and i'm on twitter. please stay with us. hello. storm ciara will batter the uk today. it's powerful, it's dangerous and it will bring exceptionally windy weather. it's unusual because it will affect such a widespread area. very few places will escape the severe gales that are forecast, and hence the met office have got amber warnings in place notjust for the wind but also for some rain. let's start with those winds, because they will affect most parts of the uk. the amber warnings for england and wales, we expect damage and disruption, potentially a danger to life as well but it will be equally windy for scotland and for northern ireland. a stormy day across the board.

as i say, it's a double—edged sword because there some wet weather. the rain has been coming down through the night and the amber warning is potentially for some rivers that will fill up very quickly across southern scotland. but many places will have a lot of rain, 40—50mm, which could lead to flash flooding as well. either way away from northern scotland it will be a mild start and a mild day but inconsequential because it will be very windy. these are the wind speeds we're talking about. for scotland and northern ireland, it is very windy as well. 80mph inland for england and wales is an unusual occurrence, once or twice a decade, hence the concern this is a powerful storm. the detail across the northern half of the country, the main rain clears and then there is a lot of showers coming in, hail and sleet and snow across the hills, hail and thunder, and the escalation in the wind, potentially reaching above 80 miles an hour for the central belts. argyle and bute. that needs watching. don't concern yourself because the amber warning may be extended. a stormy day and a stormy day

for england and wales with bands of rain and squally wind moving through, and the winds escalate with some very powerful gusts of wind that could bring down power lines and trees, rip off roof tiles and generally cause some dangerous conditions as well. if that weren't enough, it's also going to coincide with the spring tides, which means we already large waves with the winds but coinciding there could be coastal flooding as well as inland flooding because of the sheer intensity of the rain as it comes along. now, that storm does blow away but you can see we keep a strong wind which crosses on monday and it is a north—westerly so it will feel colder with increasing amounts of snow over the hills but we will notice a difference in the weather. as i say, it will remain windy but not as stormy as the day ahead. the warnings are all on the website, including the details. take care.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the gunman in the thai mass shooting has been shot dead by security forces. the serviceman had killed 21 people and injured dozens more in a gun rampage in the city of nakhon ratchasima. jakraphanth thomma killed his commanding officer before stealing weapons from a military camp. the number of people who have died from the new coronavirus has now passed 800, overtaking the total death toll from the sars outbreak in 2003. cases in the worst affected region of china appear to have stabilised slightly. the three main political parties have tied in first preference votes, according to an exit poll for the republic of ireland's general election. none are expected to reach the 80—seat threshold needed