welcome to bbc news. i'm ben bland. our top stories: a report into possible war crimes by australia's special forces in afghanistan outlines unlawful killings. the australian military isssues an apology and admits discipline broke down. credible information regarding deeply disturbing allegations of unlawful killings by some. the race for a workable coronavirus vaccine moves a step closer — pfizer says its jab is almost 95% effective. officials in the us state of georgia say they'll complete their presidential vote recount just a few hours from now. president trump still shows no sign of conceding.

there's credible evidence that australian special forces unlawfully killed at least 39 civilians, farmers and prisoners in afghanistan. that's the conclusion of a long—awaited investigation by the australian defence force into misconduct by its forces. the inquiry investigated 57 incidents and heard from hundreds of witnesses. it uncovered a "shameful record" of a "warrior culture" by some soldiers, according to the chief, general angus campbell. he apologised to the afghan people. to the people of afghanistan, on behalf of the australian defence force, i sincerely and unreservedly apologise for any wrongdoing by australian soldiers. i've spoken directly with my afghan counterpart, general zia, to

convey this message. general campbell also outlined a culture of toxic competitiveness. the report says that none of the alleged unlawful killings were described as being in the heat of battle. it is alleged that some patrols took the lot into their own hands. rules were broken, stories concocted, lies told and prisoners killed. what also emerged was a toxic competitive between special air service regiment and the second commando regiment. distructive of trust, cohesion and mission and a disgrace to both. our correspondent in sydney, shaimaa khalil, is following this. will this report lead

to criminal prosecutions? i think we can. it is going to bea i think we can. it is going to be a lengthy and complicated process according to the prime minister but he did say that a special investigator will be appointed within the framework of the home affairs department and that he will be responsible for taking the findings of this report, finding collaborating evidence and then referring to the public prosecutor who then can take it to the criminal code. it is a very long and complicated process, the prime minister said, because there are so many minister said, because there are so many incidents to be investigated further but this will ensure justice. this investigated further but this will ensurejustice. this is what he said to the afghan authorities and the afghan president when he apologised himself, his any further investigation will ensure justice to those who were the victims of those alleged unlawful killings. it seems

what emerged was a cultural problem within some parts of the military. what could be done to address that? because changing the culture is not something that is easily or quickly done. it is interesting, the chief of defence, general angus campbell, mentioned the word culture more than once in his address. he said it was not just the fact that these alleged unlawful killings happened, it was the fact that they happened in a matter of impunity, that these perpetrators had allegedly acted in a way where they were confused about what they were doing, they were not whatever the battle, it was quite deliberate and also done in an airof deliberate and also done in an air of competitiveness and that was a result of notjust individual action but as a result of a culture that allow that to happen and he said in addressing the afghan and australian people in his apology that the culture had to change. he said there were

mechanisms under way, interestingly enough, he said there was some resistance about there was some resistance about the change of culture and we know there is an independent oversight panel that has also been set to ensure accountability but also, crucially, set outside the chain of command of the army. you know, it is quite interesting the details of the amount, quite disturbing some of the details that general campbell mentioned, including the conversion of junior soldiers in shooting and prisoners as an initiation process. “— prisoners as an initiation process. —— coersion. a lot of the report has been deducted. we do not not specific incidents and individuals but in general, the released part of the report has made for some very uncomfortable reading not just for the military, the government but for the australian public.

to the latest on covid—i9 now. the number of deaths in the us has passed a quarter of a million. with cases still rising, the biggest school system in the country, in new york city, has now scrapped all in—person teaching. but there's some good news about the coronavirus vaccine being developed by pfizer and biontech. final trials show it is 95 per cent effective in people over the age of 65. what's more, it has passed safety checks, making it ready for approval by authorities around the world. our medical editor fergus walsh reports. yet more good news on vaccines. last week, pfizer biontech were the first to show that there vaccine is effective against covid. pfizer says the vaccine is more than 94% effective among the over—65s and showed the same consistent protection among volunteers from different ethnicities. there were 170 cases of covid—i9 across more than 40,000 volunteers.

162 of those were among the volunteers who got dummy or placebo jabs, and only eight in the vaccinated group. there were no serious safety concerns, but a small minority of volunteers suffered significant headaches orfatigue. i think this is good news and also very encouraging that the vaccine seems to show equal protection in elderly people, because that was a question we couldn't answer after the first announcements last week. 0ur immune system usually declines as we age, so it's highly significant that the vaccine protects the elderly, who are most at risk from covid. the pfizer vaccine has to be stored at —70 degrees which creates some problems. it is that regulators could approve the vaccine by early december. nonetheless, it seemed

increasingly likely that some covid immunisation will begin before christmas. in the past two weeks, pfizer and biontech and moderna have announced hugely successful trials of their covid—i9 vaccines. others are in development, while a third major trial — from belgian companyjanssen — is going on in the uk. according to the who's vaccine tracker: there are 155 vaccines around the world in pre—clinical trials. some of the leading contenders in the race for a vaccine are pfizer and biontech in germany, the university of oxford and astrazeneca vaccine in the uk. and in the united states, moderna and novavax. the oxford university—astrazeneca vaccine had a successful phase i and 2 testing period. phase 3 testing is being carried out on participants in countries including the uk, braziland india. sinovac, the chinese pharmaceutical firm, says its vaccine is nearly ready and will be rolled—out early next year. sinovac is one of the four chinese vaccines in last—stage human trials.

in russia vladimir putin announced that the country has approved the world's first coronavirus vaccine from the gamaleya research institute. the drug has not been tested in large numbers and not by the most rigorous of methods. here's dr peter hotez, a vaccine specialist and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine in texas, talking about the latest developments. that is certainly the hope, because clearly we are having a lot of trouble enforcing social distancing of masks in some countries, we have not had that culture because of an absence of federal leadership. so that requires you to become more dependent on biotechnology solutions like vaccines. i think we're going to have a pretty robust ecosystem. all of these vaccines pretty much work the same way including ours. we are not scaling up production of our covid vaccine in india, bioe in hyderabad, and we can do this because in some ways

it's an old school problem in virology, all about using a strong immune response to the spiked protein of the virus, meaning the virus binds to our tissues with the spiked protein, producing high levels of virus neutralising antibody and t cell health and you will get a vaccine and there are multiple ways to do that so we are seeing the first probably to coming out through pfizer and the moderna, also the oxford astrazeneca vaccine will follow but there is an ecosystem in place, you might not see 155 but you might see a dozen making it through licence share and you need that because ultimately we want to vaccinate the entire planet, and get everybody vaccinated. let's hear now from america's top infectious disease expert, dr antony fauci. he's been speaking to my colleagues christian fraser and laura trevelyan

about the pandemic. it's a very serious situation because there are lagging indicators. for example, when you see cases, then a couple of weeks later you see hospitalisation, then a few weeks later you see deaths. so when you see the massive increase in cases that we're seeing now, particularly as more and more people will be doing things indoors, which we know makes the risk even greaterfor surges, we're in a very difficult situation. we have to turn this around. you mentioned appropriately that there's light at the end of the tunnel in that we have at least two and likely more effective vaccines, but we've got to get people in united states, and i'm sure in the rest of the world including the uk, to continue to double down on some of the fundamental public health measures that we know work in mitigating against these type of surges. the universal wearing of masks,

the physical distancing, the avoiding congregated or crowded sessions, particularly indoors, doing things outdoors preferentially over indoors, washing hands, they sound so simple and we know they can work. but there's a degree of what we're referring to, and i know you have it in the uk also, of covid fatigue. that people just are worn out with these kinds of restrictions. we've got to get them to hang in there a bit longer because help is on the way and vaccines are coming. and they will be extremely helpful in our endeavour. i want to talk plenty about the vaccines, but i've got to address the politics because it's the elephant in the room. and i know it's very difficult for you at the moment, but the picture you just painted, if the death count is going to double, it's an uncomfortable comparison, but we're talking about one 9/11 every single day. and when you're in a conflict like that,

the commander—in—chief has to lead from the front and should be leading from the front now. given that he's not talking to you and you're not allowed to talk to the incoming president—elect, at what point do you say enough? yeah. well, what i'm doing and some of my colleagues are, as much as we possibly can, to being the voice of what needs to be done. and that's why i'm here with you and that's why i've been doing this all day, to get that message out. you do what you can do with what you have. this is what we have, and this is what we're trying to do. we're trying to get the message out on the one hand. 0n the other hand, we're working very hard to get those vaccines deployed so people can start benefiting from them. if the food and drug administration here in the united states gives emergency use authorisation, how soon until health care workers get it here in america and how soon till the rest of us get it?

well, the plan is that hopefully by the end of december, the first tier of people, and that is going to be the recommendation of our centers for disease control and prevention, our cdc, who get advice traditionally from an advisory committee on immunisation practices, an acip, plus also weighing in with the national academy of medicine. i don't know what their decision is yet. i don't want to get ahead of them, but almost certainly it's going to include health care workers in the first tier. but i'll leave that decision to them. by the end of december, they will start getting vaccinated. and then as we go through january, february, march, april, we hope that we get the people of the higher priority through so that by the time you get to the end of april and go into the spring, april, may, june, you can then get the bulk of the people who are not in any of those priorities,

the 25—year—old woman who has no underlying condition who wants to get vaccinated. hopefully as we get into the second quarter of 2021, we will have those people vaccinated. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: president trump still refuses to concede the election but the recount in georgia is unlikely to go in his favour. 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 into 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 civilisation. 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: a report into possible war crimes by australia's special forces in afghanistan outlines dozens of ‘unlawful killings'. the australian military issues an apology and admits discipline broke down.

dr samantha crompvoets is the sociologist whose secret 2016 report into cultural issues in the australian special forces sparked the official investigation into war crimes committed in afghanistan. she joins us now from sydney. it's very good to have you with us. it's very good to have you with us. given the fact that it was your investigation that launched the official enquiry, what do you make of the conclusions? i think there are mixed feelings. there is a feeling of being vindicated and a great sadness i think that there is actually evidence that these things occurred. based on what you discovered as part of your report, what do you think needs to be done to remedy that? general campbell outlined a number of things that have been happening over the last couple of years and will continue to happen, including

some organisational restructuring of the special operations units and the disbandment of one. and in terms of things that can be done immediately to change some of the cultural problems that we re of the cultural problems that were identified within some parts of the military, what do you think is the most urgent step that needs to be taken? well, some of the findings really do go to some of the breakdown in oversight mechanisms, so the way that enquiries were carried out or assessments were done of complaints that were raised at the time, and also some of those influentialjunior non—commissioned soldiers who really were the perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities. it emerged from the enquiry that there were examples of

junior ranked officers or junior ranked officers or junior ranked officers or junior ranked soldiers being pressured into carrying out some of these acts, more senior ones, almost as part of initiations. it's very hard, isn't it, to tackle that in an organisation where hierarchy is at the very centre of how it operates? it is, in some of the most alarming findings in the enquiry werejust how exceptional those soldiers were at concealing what was occurring in those small platoons. what has this done, do you think, to australia's standing internationally? well, i think there are certainly tarnished reputations because of what's occurred. the actions

taken and general campbell is leading. at every level, hopefully it will stand us in good stead going forward. very good stead going forward. very good of you to join good stead going forward. very good of you tojoin us, thank you. britain, the united states, canada, australia and new zealand have accused china of breaching its international obligations in hong kong with a concerted campaign to silence its critics. the countries' foreign ministers say beijing has undermined the rights of people in hong kong to elect their representatives. most opposition politicians resigned from the territory's legislative council last week. beijing gave the city government the power to eject lawmakers deemed to be disloyal. these countries around the world have shown themselves to

be fighters for freedom, democracy and the rule of law and when the uk departed from hong kong, it certainly guarantees the sino british agreement which was sanctioned by the united nations has been clearly breached. it's something they need to stand up for and is some ink for the five ministers involved to stand up, not only for beijing but to the rest of the world, the five eyes means democracy and we will call out these breaches. this clampdown on opposition within hong kong, it can hardly be said to have come out of the blue. the increasing tightness of control that is being exerted on hong kong was clear by beijing. do you think the national community failed

to act quickly enough?” the national community failed to act quickly enough? i was speaking earlier today with hong kong what you are seeking the release of the 12 pro—democracy activists who are currently imprisoned and i would happen to agree with your search and you just made. loving countries of the world have been too slow to react to the beijing regime, the dictatorship, which is clamping down, be it on pro—democracy in hong kong, uyghurs, fallon gong, christians, the list goes on and on, the human rights abuses are there to be seen and should have been called out an early hour, and we can reflect on that. the good news is it is being called out, as it should be. let's get some of the day's other news. thousands of houses have been destroyed and many residents left homeless

on wednesday after storm iota slammed northeastern nicaragua. it's one of the fiercest storms to hit the region in years. ethiopia has denied targeting civilians during its campaign to put down a rebellion in the tigray region. the regional leadership say they've been fighting back but have accused the government of targeting civilians. government forces say they are continuing to advance, though information on the conflict is hard to verify. it's now two weeks since the us presidential election and donald trump is still not conceding to joe biden. he's still making unsubstantiated claims of ‘massive' voter fraud. in one of his most recent tweets, the president claimed that in detroit there were more votes than people and that he won the state of michigan. twitter added a warning, pointing out that claims of election fraud are disputed. the trump campaign has also put up $3 million for a partial recount in two heavily democratic areas of wisconsin. meanwhile the time limit for georgia to carry out a manual recount of votes, which was triggered by the narrow margin of mr biden's victory,

well i've been speaking to our correspondent will grant in washington. i began by asking him if the latest challenges would affect the outcome in the state of georgia. there in the state of georgia. can be small pockets of changes, there can be small pockets of changes, can't bear, but i think they may be little more than hundreds here and there and what donald trump needs to affect a ny and what donald trump needs to affect any kind of change in georgia will be in the thousands and it simply doesn't appear to be happening. the hand count, we should be hearing back sometime on thursday. while there might be a slight eating into the lead ofjoe biden which is narrow, it was below 0.5% which triggered the recount in the first place. it's certainly not expected to change the result of the state. i'm also intrigued by the challenge in wisconsin because it seems that the areas they've chosen i heavily democratic areas, which will be very unlikely to have a

different result is a recount? i think absolutely. to extend, they've paid these $3 million needed to trigger partial recount because obviously so much bluster and so much noise is made. notable they haven't paid the $8 million required for a state recount. those two are the most popular ones in the most important counties in the most important counties in the state. there might be a margin of change there. again, in no way is it expected to change the situation for the president—elect who of course is calling, and has been for the past 11 straight days, or donald trump to recognise the reality of is in front of him, i think increasingly, top republicans are joining the chorus on that.

you can reach me on twitter — i'm @benmbland. much colder today than it has been of late thanks to an arctic blast, but this arctic blast is going to be quite brief because milder air looms in the atlantic and will arrive on friday for many areas. so today, cold. it will be windy as well to start with, and we'll have a mixture of sunshine and showers. the pressure chart shows why it's windy — northerly winds, lots of isobars across northern and eastern areas, hence the gales — but this ridge of high pressure will continue to nudge in through the course of the day, so the winds become lighter and will also kill off many of the showers, too. behind me there is that milder air with the frontal system that will start to make inroads on friday. so, today starts cold, windy, gales across northern and eastern areas, wintry showers continuing across scotland. these will tend to ease down. and we'll have some showers

across england and wales, these becoming confined towards the south east. many places seeing a lot of sunshine into the afternoon. the cloud will start to thicken up, though, across northern ireland ahead of this next frontal system. a chilly day to come, much colder than of late. temperatures are 4—10 degrees, but when you factor in the wind, certainly across northern and eastern areas, it's going to feel much colder than those values suggest, perhaps even subzero across central and eastern scotland. now, as we head on into tonight, it turns cold across central and eastern areas with a touch of frost. rain will start to push in to western areas. could see a few showers moving in ahead of it. and these will be wintry with some snow over the scottish hills as it bumps into the cold air. temperatures slowly recovering out west with the rain, but it stays quite chilly further east. but that cold air gets pushed out of the way as we head through friday, as the milder west to south—westerly winds move in off the atlantic. so it's a chilly start across northern and eastern areas, dry, too, but the rain out west will slowly spill its way eastwards. could see some transient snow over the scottish mountains as it moves its way eastwards. behind it, it turns a little bit drier for northern ireland, for wales and the south west of england by the end of the day. and here, at the end

of the day, it'll be much milder — 12—13 degrees. still fairly chilly across the east — 9—11 degrees. now, as we head on into the weekend, it stays pretty u nsettled. low pressure to the north of the uk, higher pressure to the south. across the north, it's going to be windy with gales on saturday across scotland with some showers, but lighter winds for england and wales, perhaps one or two showers on sunday. i think it's going to be mild for many of us on saturday. turns colder, though, across the north of the uk on sunday.

this is bbc news, the headlines: a report into possible war crimes by australia's special forces in afghanistan outlines dozens of unlawful killings. the australian military issues an apology and admits military discipline broke down. the inquiry, which heard from hundreds of witnesses over four years, says there was a ‘warrior culuture' amongst certain soldiers. new data from pfizer and biontech says their coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective in the over—65s, and works well in people of all ethnicities. the pharmaceutical firms want to get approval to use the jab as early as mid—december. 0ther vaccines are also showing promise. the us death toll from covid—19 has passed 250,000. the are more than 11.5 million cases in the country. it comes as new york city says its temporarily closing public schools again over fears of a second wave of the virus.