the uk has become the first country in europe to approve the use of two over 19 vaccines. the medicines regulator gave the go—ahead for the oxford astrazeneca vaccine. it isa the oxford astrazeneca vaccine. it is a landmark moment in the fight against coronavirus. other million doses have been available —— made available next week. daw .5 years after britain voted in a referendum to leave european union by gems parliament in london have approved a new free trade deal finalised last week stop prime minister borisjohnson said britain is marking a new beginning in its relationship with the eu. ten people have been injured, one critically, in a landslide that buried houses in aim norwegian municipality north—east of oslo. 11 people are not accounted for. it's not clear if someone caught up in the landslide or simply away when it happened. -- if —— if somewhat well.

now on bbc news — 100 women. the bbc has behind—the—scenes access to finland's coalition government led by five women. when i was younger, my perception of politicians was also that they are men in suits who talk on the 8:30pm news. sanna marin is the world's youngest serving female prime minister and heads the coalition of five parties, all led by women. from being the first country in europe to give equal voting rights, finland has been praised for its historic approach to gender equality. but is all as good as it seems to be? five, white educated females is not very representative in the end. and is this really a country for every woman? of course, our background still affects the possibilities that we have in life and this should not be the case but of course we have problems. for the first time, finland's all—female leaders

open their doors exclusively for the bbc. to show the inner workings of this historic government. li andersson is one of the five female party leaders that make up the country's coalition government. this week, the cabinet are going to be meeting to launch a signature government programme, the equality plan, aimed to improve equality across society, including on race and gender issues. there's so much been made since december 2019 about this being such a young government, and such, and the gender of the government, as well. what are your thoughts when you read the headlines

and see the kind of top line of what the international media has been saying? i have mixed emotions regarding it, because on the one hand, i understand the power of example and symbolic value of that, but i also think there is kind of this tendency of some people to say that, because there is women, you will make a certain type of policy or it is easier for you to agree when you are all women and so on, and that is not, i think necessarily the case and that is why i also want there to be a focus around policy. of the government, notjust the gender of the female party leaders. i mean, in finnish media, i think there has been some kind of comments around whether we'll go to the sauna together, because there is this old cliche about finnish politics that the decisions are made in the sauna, something that had been heavily criticised in feminist circles because, you know, the whole idea of male decision—makers sitting in a sauna is based on this concept of decision—makers

being solely men. like a boys' club? yes. and of course, i mean, what we want is not to reproduce the excluding structures that men have used as women, but really to change the whole structures. li andersson and sanna marin were both members of their respective youth parties, years before taking office. a tv debate featuring them both from 2011 was one of the first times a wider finnish public was introduced to them. when i was younger, my perception of politicians

was also that they are men in suits who talk on the 8:30pm news. and they are at a huge distance from me or my family or everyday life. i mean, especially in the youth organisations, i think there is a huge amount of idealism, which you should have when you are working in the youth organisations which i kind of miss, in a way in myself. so i think both me and sanna were a lot more work focused and maybe also a bit more aware of kind of the political realities of the field we are working in now, compared to what we did when we were in the youth organisations. prime minister sanna marin grew up in a modest sized town, two hours north—west of helsinki. she was raised in a low—income family of lesbian mothers and was the first person to go to university in herfamily. while she speaks honestly about her background, she remains fiercely

guarded about her family and private life. she would have been in any one of these classrooms? she has been in all of these classrooms and i have taught in all of these classrooms, but... at the high school, herformer head teacher recalls his memories. she was just an average girl, nothing extreme, nothing special. when you look at her and her first year of leadership, do you think any parts of her childhood or her upbringing would have informed how she is as a leader now from what you can see? i think in common—sense, that she, her childhood has not been very easy. her strength and hard—working way to do things and leadership must have got something from her youth and childhood.

education minister li andersson is attending a round circle chat with high schoolers. how did you guys feel when you saw this new government? i did not really mind that much. laughter. i am not saying it is bad, it is nice to see women, but i feel like as i have grown up, i have always felt that i could do whatever i wanted to do, so that is why seeing a woman didn't really mean as much because i knew that, it didn't really matter. li's government has an equality plan that is going to be, that is going to be addressing a lot of issues including education. to make an experience of yours easier in school, what would you suggest would be a change? maybe in health education, we do sexuality and gender, it is more focused on cisgendered and heterosexual people. it is mostly students i think who talk about it more, bring it up in class. iagree.

the education tells a lot about what is important, what is valuable, what is the thing you want to teach the young ones? and if you do not include the minorities, then you do not, people do not learn about them. in reality, it is a lot dependent on teachers. yeah. it's also dependent on the school. i think all teachers do not necessarily have the tools that they would need to educate you and maybe sometimes you need to educate the teachers. laughter. although finland is celebrated for its equality, recent reports from the council of europe have detailed what they call a concerning rise in racism the country. bella forsgren is the only black politician in finland's government and akunna onwen is the chair of the finland antiracist forum. for us on the outside when you look at finland, one of the first countries in the world to allow women to vote and run for government, you know, really good laws

when it comes to maternity leave and also paternity leave, real conversations that are being had about the pay gap. is that inclusive of all women? would you say it is inclusive of black women as well? if we had exactly the same conditions, exactly the same timing and age and...

if we had exactly the same conditions, exactly the same timing and age and... family background, and yet sanna marin was black, would she be prime minister? now? not now. no. laughter. not now. she was the first female minister of the interior in the 80s but you saw many from the previous decades and she was in office when it was the chernobyl accident. what happened in finland was that people did not know what's happening there and we got the information quite late and so on.

so she didn't get re—elected any more afterwards and so on, but then we have had some females afterwards. not too many. actually, i'm the first green ever in this ministry. so that is something new. i think the representation with five white educated females is not very representative, in the end. and there were a lot of critical writings when this photo went viral, that if we really look at the equality here, it does not show yet, and i agree on that. the idea of maintaining, taking care of the welfare state, as a system, led me to study social politics and i thought that 0k, i have got quite a lot of help from the welfare state. my dad, especially, was unemployed, had some substance abuse problems, they divorced when i was one—year—old.

so i was also brought up with a single mother for a little while in my life. so maybe this background influenced something that, in many countries, that this would not be the beginning for a political career. actually it was the first female president and the only female president, she says it's not the person who breaks the glass ceiling, but the people who follow. and i think that is to the point. you always, you need the person who will break the ceiling but then you also need all the people who will follow. and you should never stop that. far up in the arctic circle, finland's northern territory is home to europe's only indigenous population. the sami people. sami's ancestral land spread from russia to sweden sami's ancestral land spread

from russia to sweden and the sami people still live off the land. in finland, they were only officially recognised by the government in the ‘90s and they still face a battle for their right to the land and their way of life. can you only get cloudberries in finland ? i think all over the arctic. an arctic fruit? yes. it is our vitamin bomb. it's a little vitamin pill? yes, it's very good for you. sara wesslin is a journalist based in a sami town. she works for the finnish broadcaster where she is one of the two reporters to work in the skolt sami language. what are the major issues concerning sami people right now? we don't have a sami representative in finnish government. is that worrying?

yes, of course, and there has been many years, there has been talk about and discussion about it, should samis have their own representatives in the eu? in your idealfuture, what would you like this government to do? what would you like sanna marin to do? for sami women? we don't have to be ashamed that we are sami, living in finland, we can be proud that we are part of finnish nation. even being in the table, being in the room with decision—making. one old saying that, "nothing about us without us." one of the main issues addressed in the government equality plan is the rights of gender minorities in finland. trans rights activists have for years asked for reform of the trans act, a law that currently requires those seeking legal gender recognition to undergo enforced

sterilisation. finland is the only nordic country that still requires infertility in order to get your legal gender recognised. in order to get male to female or female to male you need to prove that you cannot have biological children. in some cases, the people can become infertile enough by taking hormones, but if you are unable to take hormones or do not want to take hormones, then you will not get your legal gender recognised until you are in some other way found infertile, meaning that at the end if nothing else helps, then it is surgical removal of your organs. for me, the case was that i was already perceived as a male when i started the legal process. and it still took me 2.5 years with a female passport,

meaning i could not travel, outside of basically nordic countries, i could not apply for a job, could not apply for nothing without having issues, having to prove my identity. that made me be in a hurry with the medical part. we have had a female president, we have the youngest female leader of the country, but alone that does not, it is just a token alone, it has to have the support of the system behind it before it actually makes a difference in the law. we have had a coalition with some sort of a very conservative party, saying that if this goes forward, we will resign from the coalition and all the other parties have caved in and said ok, fine, let's do it next time. so it's possible the trans act could be the sacrificial lamb once again? it looks that way. any coalition government

is a mixed bag of politics and agendas that have come together in the hope of being more effective, but to implement any real change, all government plans require unanimous support across—the—board. when you build a government in finland, you put a lot of thought on what we call the government programme and there is a negotiation we had for three weeks in 2019 and then when you have that programme, everyone knows that this is it. this is what we have decided together. when you are five different parties, you have to all the time try to see how you find solutions when you have different opinions. i mean, no party can have itjust their own way and sometimes there are these tensions that have to do with making compromises behind closed doors, and of course, we are all one government so we all have

to defend the compromises that we make in public. nice to meet you. shall we walk up together? great. finland's party leaders are meeting at helsinki's houses of the estates for the cabinet meeting to discuss the new equality programme. trans rights and racism are on the agenda. do you prep yourself up before... before doing these things? no, no. they ask and i will answer honestly, so you don't need preparation. automated voice: please enter the conference password. finland has had coalition

governments forever, so of course we are used to trying to make compromises and trying to find consensus between different parties and ideologies and i think it's also a big strength for us. of course it is not always the fastest way to get things done, but i think it's more... it goes further, this kind of decisions, than the ones that you only make yourself. there is always one or a few issues on the table that we all want to discuss together. so that we will have different perspectives. for example, equality programme is something that not only one minister or ministry can do. it is something that every ministry has to focus on and make a decision in theirfield.

gender minorities are also discussed in the equality programme. particular transgender people and finland has been in the spotlight, it has been three years since the european court of human rights has said that forced sterilisation should not be allowed in terms of recognising personal gender identity. but it is the case still in finland. what do you think of that? everyone should have the right to determine their own identities, so i think we need to do many changes in our legislation and our government programme actually supports this kind of idea. for you, are trans women, women? it's not my job to identify people. it is everyone's job to identify themselves. if someone feels that he or she is a woman, then it is not my place to say.

one of the things with early covid—19 response was a lot was written about how well finland, taiwan, new zealand and germany did in terms of their covid—19 response, quick and decisive action. the other thing those countries have in common are female leaders. well, of course there are countries led by men that have also done well, so i don't think it is a gender—based issue, i think we should more focus on how the countries that have done well, what they have done, what they have learned, what we all can learn from each other and that we also

have a response together, because it's a global pandemic. at some point, something might change and that popularity might change when a decision needs to be made, especially maybe during covid—19 times. does that worry you at all? i don't... look at polls. the most important thing is we try to make the decisions that we have to make based on the best knowledge that we can use. and also that we are trying to make decisions in a way that helps ordinary people in their ordinary lives. in crises and also in normal times.

of course, our backgrounds still affects the possibilities that we have in life and they should not be the case but of course we have problems. it is not the last time that we will discuss these issues and of course it is important that we are all focused on how we will make the programme a reality. so this is my mission as a prime minister. but there are challenges ahead. and no prime minister in finland has seen a full term for decades. but with 85% approval rating, sanna marin is enjoying a striking level of confidence in uneasy times.

hello. snow and ice continue to be hazards for some as we move into the final day of 2020. still very much in the cold air across the uk, temperatures widely well below freezing through the early hours of thursday morning, with the potential for some freezing fog across parts of england and wales. for new year's eve, it's a cold day wherever you are. for most, a mixture of wintry showers with some sunshine, but across scotland through the morning, a more general spell of rain, sleet and snow sliding its way southwards and also into northern ireland as well. as the morning wears on, that snow will tend to become

confined to higher ground, just pushing to the far north of england through the afternoon. a few wintry showers for parts of northwest, southwest england, west wales. the further south and east you are, mainly dry with some sunshine once any freezing fog has lifted through the morning. still a cold northerly wind, particularly biting for parts of western scotland and northern ireland. not quite as cold across scotland and northern ireland compared to wednesday, five or six celsius the top temperature here, compared to just two or three celsius further south. through the final hours of 2020, we see this band of wintry showers just continuing to sink their way southwards, but most of the snow by this stage should be over higher ground. bit of wintry mix across scotland, quite a few showers along the east coast, where temperatures will hold up to around four or five celsius at midnight. head inland, they'll be closer to freezing. a few showers developing across northern england, parts of northwest wales, maybe south—west england through the early hours of new year's day. but also once again, the potential for some freezing fog developing across central, southeastern parts of england

and wales as we head through the early hours of 2021. another cold night but not quite as cold as recent nights, but some places still getting a few degrees below freezing. so here's how we start 2021, with still a fairly messy picture, low pressure to the east of the uk and frontal systems still just trying to slide their way across. not much on them, but certainly through new year's day, there will be a fair few showers around, particularly for east and northeast coasts. and a few of those will penetrate their way a little bit further inland. still the chance they could be wintry, particularly over higher ground. the further south you are across the uk, much more cloud around, and temperatures still not much higher than five or six celsius. looking ahead, then, to the first weekend of 2021, it stays cold, we'll see fewer showers but still the risk of some ice and snow in places. bye— bye.

this is bbc news, welcome to our viewers in the uk, on pbs in america and around the world. my name's mike embley, our top stories: a landmark moment in the fight against coronavirus — the uk becomes the first country in europe to approve the use of two vaccines. a new beginning in britain's relationship with the eu — prime minister boris johnson's assessment as parliament backs the new post—brexit free trade deal. after the landslide — the search for those feared missing amongst the buried houses in a residential area outside norway's capital. the republicans raise further objections to the us election results as the trump administration continue to claim it was fraudulent.