this is bbc news. i'm mike embley with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. president trump dismisses his top cybersecurity official chris krebs, who denied there was evidence of fraud in the presidential election. president trump to cut troop numbers in afganistan and iraq, but stops short of outright withdrawal. as fighting continues in ethiopia, thousands flee across the border into sudan. in thailand, more violence in the streets of bangkok as protesters demand changes to the country's constitution.

breaking news this hour, president trump has fired the director of the us cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, chris krebs, because of what the president claims were failings in the electoral system. writing on twitter, he said... our correspondent lebo diseko joins me from washington. first of all wishes of the

things a president is claiming there, there is no evidence for whatsoever. actually not, no evidence at all and it is quite incredible really that the president of the us, a culture that represents democratic values redder in the world would fire the head of an agency because they released a statement contradicting his claims that the election was unfairor claims that the election was unfair orfraudulent. claims that the election was unfair or fraudulent. and just to be clear from the statement released was not just to be clear from the statement released was notjust that agency, which is part of the department of homeland security, it was in conjuncture with a number of other organisations including the secretaries of state. they are the people at the state level that are in charge of the election and people from the election and people from the election voting machinery industry and also election security industry is well and not only did they find that it was the most secure election advert, they also said that there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in

any way compromised. most of the claims of donald trump has made and also claims that have not been stood up in court. there have been several court cases or attempt to take these allegations to court around the country and not been stood up at all. chris krebs has responded on twitter. he has said on allegations election systems a re said on allegations election systems are compromised, 59 security experts all agree in every case in which we are aware these claims of either being unsubstantiated or are technically correct. given what the president is still claiming, given that he is not conceding and given the sackings and the moves he is making him the message quite a lot of nervousness about what else he is planning. i think a lot of people have not been in the situation before where you we re the situation before where you were just not sure what the president might do next and is particularly vulnerable period, this period between presidents,

a tradition period that should be happening in which donald trump is repeatedly refusing to acknowledge and is actually blocking his administration from talking to thejoe biden incoming team and given them security access they need and those key security briefings that they need as well. and we had this side ofjoe biden earlier on the day getting security briefings from experts but they don't have security clea ra nce but they don't have security clearance and they don't have that classified information that classified information that he needs. so it really is quite something as you can tell some kind of lost for words really. understood. thank you very much for the moment. donald trump had threatened to bring all american troops home by christmas. he's not going quite that far, but he will reduce the us military presence in iraq and afghanistan before he leaves office. so, let's look at that plan in a bit more detail. at the moment, there are 3000 soldiers stationed in iraq. 500 of them will be pulled out. the drawdown looks much more meaningful in afghanistan,

where 2000 of the a500 us troops will be withdrawn. they are part of the nato force in place to support what is a fragile government. the acting defense secretary, christopher miller, made the announcement at his first news conference. together we have mourned the loss of more than 6900 american troops who gave their lives in afghanistan and iraq. and we will never forget the more than 52,000 who bear the wounds of war and all those who still carry its scars, visible and invisible. in light of these tremendous sacrifices and with great humility and gratitude to those who came before us, i am formally announcing that we will implement president trump's orders to continue our repositioning of forces from those two countries.

there has been pushback from the generals and from the nato secretary general, who warned of a "high price" if us and allied forces leave too quickly. that view is echoed by senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, who rarely criticises the president. a rapid withdrawal of us forces from afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight, delight the people who wish us harm. violence affecting afghans is still rampant. the taliban is not abiding by the conditions of the so—called peace deal. the consequences of a premature american exit would likely be even worse than president 0bama's withdrawal from iraq back in 2011. mitch mcconnell there and we will have more on that in later

bulletins. ethiopia is claiming that its defence forces have made sweeping military gains in its northern tigray region and are maching on its capital. insurgent regional forces say they're putting up resistance. the united nations is warned that a full—scale humanitarian crisis is unfolding as the conflict escalates, with nearly 30,000 people fleeing the conflict there since the start of november. 0ur senior africa correspondent anne soy reports. the way to safety is fraught with great risk here. these are ethiopians from the northern region of tigray. two weeks of fighting between the local government there and the national army has forced them to flee. they are arriving in their thousands every day in sudan. translation: we came with the clothes on our backs. i don't know where my husband is. i have been looking for him for five days. translation: i don't know, but there was heavy fighting and many people died. after that, they told us to leave, so we fled.

everyone did. they don't mind that the barren lands of eastern sudan have little to offer. they build makeshift shelters in which they can finally sleep in peace. aid is slow to come. the sheer size of the arrivals is really overwhelming the humanitarian response over there. it's kind of a call on humanity, to whoever is listening, because a country like sudan who already has nearly a million existing refugees, this is an additional shift in the refugee numbers, and they will also need international support in this. these are some of the few pictures coming out of tigray. the national army says it has taken control of the western side. the state broadcaster showed what they say are celebrations in one newly liberated town.

with the communications blackout there, it's difficult to independently verify reports from the region, and the government has rejected calls for mediation. we don't need any mediation until we bring the ringleaders to court, because any mediation would incentivise impunity and unruliness. and so, the onslaught continues. the federal government says it's making the final push for the regional capital mek‘ele after a three—day deadline to surrender passed, but there's doubt it can quickly subdue the war—hardened former rulers of ethiopia who govern tigray. as with every conflict, the real losers are the civilians whose lives have been disrupted and continue to be threatened with little help coming their way. anne soy, bbc news. let's get some of

the day's other news. tropical storm iota has brought widespread flooding to central america as it moves west across the region. the storm has crossed into honduras from nicaragua, where rivers have burst their banks and tens of thousands of people are in shelters. people are still recovering from hurricane eta two weeks ago. there's concern about a lack of food and drinking water. argentina's president, alberto fernandez, says he's presenting a bill to congress to legalise abortion, a campaign promise that was delayed by the pandemic. the measure will help save thousands of women dying every year in botched illegal abortions. it is currently allowed only in cases of rape or if the mother's health is in danger. francisco sagasti has been sworn in as peru's new interim president, the country's third head of state in under a week. the 76—year—old engineer and academic will lead peru until the presidential election next year. last week, president martin vizcarra was impeached over bribery allegations, which he denies, a move that sparked protests across the country.

police in bangkok have used water cannon and tear gas against protesters trying to get close to parliament, where debates are taking place on amendements to the constitution. thailand has seen months of demonstrations demanding reform and the resignation of the prime minister. jonathan head reports from bangkok. in thailand, a military—backed government is battling young protesters who want a proper democracy. they've been campaigning for months for a fairer political system, but also for a monarchy that respects the rules. today, that battle got rougher and wetter. well, these protesters are now trying to pull away at this concrete barricade to make a way through, and they are spraying water cannon.

it's laced with chemicals, so you can really smell the tear gas in it. these protesters want to get through to parliament cos that's where the reforms they're demanding are supposed to be discussed. they're worried that a parliament dominated by the military—backed party, their reforms are just going to be swept aside. that's why they're staying put. and you can see how determined they are. for a moment, they vanished in clouds of tear gas. but didn't retreat far. though a few were overcome. they've shattered a taboo against even talking about the monarchy. but they're up against the old

men of thailand's parliament, and they've ruled out any discussion of the king. he's at the heart of this conflict. these days, the king is often seen on royal walkabouts, raising his profile. but he's spent most of this year at a luxury hotel in germany and has been accused of accumulating excessive wealth and power. many thais, though, still believe that their king is above criticism. yellow—shirted loyalists came out to confront the protesters and to insist that thailand must stay as it is. well, it's all over for today, but the protesters are promising to come back again, as they have for the past 4—5 months. in asking for a monarchy that's accountable and a military that

stays out of politics, they believe they're making reasonable demands. and they're up against a state which doesn't even believe these things can be discussed. the gap between both sides is a yawning and not getting any closer. jonathan head, bbc news, bangkok. stay with us on bbc news. still to come, social media and the us election — the bosses of facebook and twitter are quizzed by the senate. music. benazir bhutto has claimed victory in pakistan's general election, and she's asked pakistan's president to name her as prime minister. jackson's been released on bail of $3 million after turning himself in to police in santa barbara. it was the biggest demonstration so far of the fast—growing european anti—nuclear movement. the south african government has announced that it's opening

the country's remaining whites—only beaches to people of all races. this will lead to a black majority government in this country and the destruction of the white civilization. part of the centuries—old windsor castle, one of the queen's residences, has been consumed by fire for much of the day. 150 firemen have been battling the blaze, which has caused millions of pounds' worth of damage. this is bbc news. the latest headlines — president trump has sacked his top cybersecurity official, chris krebs, for issuing statements in defence of the integrity of the recent elections. president trump is to halve troop numbers in afghanistan and iraq. the move has been criticised by both republicans and democrats.

the bosses of twitter and facebook have defended their approach to tackling misinformation during the us election campaign. jack dorsey and mark zuckerberg were facing a hearing in the us senate. heavily featured in the discussion, president trump's post—election tweets and this stand—off between the new york post and twitter in october over a story that made unverified claims about hunter biden, son of president—elect joe biden. both facebook and twitter intervened to limit its spread. here's senator lindsey graham. what i want to try to find out is if you're not a newspaper at twitter or facebook, then why do you have editorial control over the new york post? they decided — and maybe for a good reason, i don't know — that the new york post articles about hunter biden needed to be flagged, excluded from distribution or made hard to find. that to me seems like you're

the ultimate editor. twitter‘s ceo jack dorsey told the hearing his company's decision to block links to the new york post article about hunter biden had been "wrong". here he is speaking to republican senatorjohn cornyn. and this was a policy around distribution of hacked materials. we did not want twitter to be a distribution point for hacked materials. well, you do realise that by taking down that story, you probably gave it more prominence and more visibility than it ever would've gotten had you left it alone. we realise that, and we recognise it as a mistake that we made, both in terms of the intention of the policy and also the enforcement action of not allowing people to share it publicly or privately, which is why we corrected it within 24 hours. facebook‘s chief executive

mark zuckerberg told the committee the company had conducted the largest election integrity effort by any firm in recent times. he was also asked about this group, stop the steal, which supported president trump's unfounded claims of voterfraud. by the time facebook took it down, it had grown to 350,000 members. here's what he had to say. one of our top priorities is making sure that people don't use our platform to organise any violence or civil unrest. and that was the basis under which we took down that group, because there were a number of members who were posting potentially violent or encouraging violent comments that violated our policies. we can now speak to evan greer, who's deputy director of tech and privacy rights group fight for the future. good for the future. to talk to you. thank you for

good to talk to you. thank you for your time. what did you ta ke for your time. what did you take from this hearing, more heat than light? i think we saw a repeat of what we have seen in the past which is that politicians on both sides of the aisle here in the us fundamentally don't understand the policy that underpins the internet and really what they are doing is working the referees rather than pushing toward what we need which is meaningful reform to rein in the monopoly power is a big tech companies. the problem is democrats say big tech needs more moderation and republicans accusing him of too much moderation already. that is exactly right and what we saw today, democrats yelling about what speech these companies allow the republicans arguing baselessly that they have some form of bias and again i think what we are missing here is policies like federal data privacy legislation that would actually address the harmful business practices of companies

like facebook and google and we need that is it a more partisan posturing by lawmakers. when you say harmful, you'd do see real harm being done by the data harvesting and the surveillance and capitalist business model? absolutely. but i think it's important that we look at the business model itself rather than endlessly going back and forth about specific moderation decisions for the problem with social media is not free speech, it is the algorithms, the data harvesting and it's the size of these companies. it's their monopoly power and we would not even have this conversation if you could choose from dozens of different platforms but the fa ct different platforms but the fact is that there is a small handful of them and they have amassed entirely too much power andl amassed entirely too much power and i think if there is one sort of optimistic note from the hearing today, it is that while we did see a lot of political grandstanding by both democrats and republicans, they are responding to the fact that there is growing public assistance that something needs to be done to rein in the

growing extensive power of these large companies. and then, thank you very much indeed. hope to talk to you again. thanks for having me on. long day, what a hearing. a spanish businessman who acted as a go—between to secure protective garments for the uk's national health service staff in the coronavirus pandemic was paid more than $27 million of taxpayers' money. the consultant had been in line for millions more according to court documents in florida seen by bbc news. as our special correspondent lucy manning, reports the legal papers also reveal the american supplier of the ppe called the deals "lucrative". designer jewellery from a miami company is some way from the uk's struggle to get protective equipment. but the owner of miansai moved from pendants to ppe during the covid crisis, winning uk contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

the owner, michael saiger, says he had business connections in china and court documents from america show just how lucrative his new venture has been. notjust for him but the man he paid to help him, a spaniard called gabriel gonzalez andersson. the two men fell out, prompting a court case in miami. the legal documents open the lid on just how british taxpayers' money was being spent. gabriel andersson was, the court documents make clear, to help with product sourcing, logistics and quality control. the contract says that when the department for health and social care got the ppe, andersson would then be paid what was described as a consulting fee. byjune, saiger had successfully delivered two ppe shipments to the uk. for helping with that, gabriel andersson was paid a consulting fee of $28 million. that's about £21 million. the court documents say saiger‘s contracts with

the government were lucrative and mr andersson did very well from them. the uk put in more orders. there were three more contracts agreed which would yield yet more money for the subcontractor gabriel andersson. a dealfori million boxes of gloves, the consulting fee was more than $1.5 million. for another contract for 3 million boxes of gloves, the fee was more than $3.5 million. and a final contract for 10 million gowns for the uk government, and andersson would get $16 million. but it is claimed andersson didn't fulfil his role in these contracts and it led to delays delivering the ppe to nhs staff. the campaign group the good law project is planning to challenge the government in court over the deal. i don't blame saiger for making these vast profits. if government is handing out free money, then by all means stand in line. the real criticism that is to be made here is of the huge profits that government allowed to be generated.

in a statement, saiger said, "at no time have we ever used any middlemen. we have few full—time staff so for large projects we bring in short—term contractors for additional expertise. we are exceptionally proud to have played our part in providing front—line workers with the millions of pieces of ppe they need." the department of health said, "we have been working tirelessly to deliver ppe, delivering more than 4.9 billion items. proper due diligence is carried out for all government contracts and we take these checks extremely seriously." in august the bbc revealed the government bought 50 million masks that couldn't be used in the nhs and it is likely to face more criticism tomorrow when the spending watchdog publishes its report into how ppe was purchased. lucy manning, bbc news. now before we go, a christmas tree is meant to be a symbol of hope, celebration and joy.

but the unveiling of the rockefeller center christmas tree in new york has been met with criticism on social media. its bare, spindly branches appear to be something charlie brown would pick out. others say it's the perfect embodiment of 2020. the tree itself pushed back on the criticism, sort of, saying in a blog post, "good lord. ijust got here. can you give me a minute to spruce up?" a reminderof the a reminder of the top story as president trump has sacked his top cybersecurity official for issuing statements in defence of the integrity of the recent elections. in a tweet, the president accused chris krebs, of making it highly inaccurate state m e nts of making it highly inaccurate statements relating to the polls. it has to be said mr trump's tweets contains quite a lot of inaccuracies itself but it had been widely expected since the agency website reposted the statement that

electoral officials called the month possible collection of secure in american history. that's it for now. thank you for watching. hello. the very mild air that's been with us for the past few days is going to get swept away, and we're set to see a real change in weather type through the course of wednesday. it's going to be windy with some rain moving eastwards, and behind that, some colder air moving in, too. it's all down to this area of low pressure with its trailing cold front here, which is moving its way eastwards. lots of isobars on the map, indicating strength of the wind as well. still very mild out there. in fact, first thing wednesday, the temperatures well in double figures, teens for most of us. more typical, really, these temperatures of daytime highs. now through the day, we've got some initial heavy rain across western parts of britain and northern ireland, western scotland, too. the rain will edge its way slowly eastwards. something really persistent for the northern isles and also for western parts of scotland as well. but it becomes a little bit more patchy as it heads across eastern england during the course

of the afternoon. so, cloudy ahead of that, with a return to some showers behind it and a drop in those temperatures. we are back into single figures in the west late on wednesday. now, wednesday evening, that's when the winds are really going to be picking up, particularly for parts of scotland and northern ireland, western fringes of england and wales, too. further showers moving south and across scotland, those showers will be wintry, even down to low levels, first thing for thursday morning. so certainly colder air moving in. you can see those northerly wind arrows and blue colours that are going to be spilling further south, a colder air mass across the uk as we head on into thursday. a bump of high pressure is going to be squeezing away most of the rain, but we've still got some pretty windy conditions, especially in the east. so, gales possible for eastern scotland, down the east coast of england as well. some sunshine for most places through the day on thursday. one or two showers dotted around here and there, and they could be wintry across parts of scotland, in particular over the higher ground. it's certainly much colder than recent days. largely in single figures for most of us. we may welljust get 10—11

degrees across parts of wales and the south west of england. but it doesn't stay cold for very long because by the time we get to friday, we see more cloud and outbreaks of rain working into the west. the breeze coming in from the south—westerly direction once again. so, many of us back into double figures by the time we get to friday, and it's looking fairly unsettled through friday. into the weekend, it's a little bit up and down, quite breezy through the day on saturday. cooler but brighter for most of us. some sunny spells by sunday. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. the headlines...

president trump has sacked his top cybersecurity official, chris krebs, for issuing statements in defence of the integrity of the recent elections. in a tweet, the president accused the director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure secure agency of having made a ‘highly inaccurate' statement in relation to the poll. president trump has decided to halve the number of us troops in afghanistan and iraq before he leaves office. he stopped short of a threatened full withdrawal. the move has faced criticism from both republicans and democrats who fear it will damage fragile peace talks with the taliban. as fighting continues between ethiopian federal forces and tigrayan insurgents in the north of the county, thousands of refugees have poured over the border into neighbouring sudan. the un says they are urgently in need of food and fuel, but a communications blackout in the region means there is limited access. labour has reinstated its former leader, jeremy corbyn,