veto for the first time — just weeks before he leaves office. the republican—controlled senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a defence bill mr trump had blocked. the legislation restricts his powers as commander in chief and is seen as a rebuke to the president. the united states has now recorded more than 20 million cases of covid—19, doubling the number in less than two months. johns hopkins university says nearly 350,000 americans have died with the virus. vaccination is continuing, with more than three million people said to have received jabs. research confirms the new coronavirus variant discovered in the uk has a much quicker rate of transmission. scientists say the variant, now identified in 18 countries around the world is the "most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began" and affects more of the under 20s.

coming up at six o'clock, breakfast with charlie stayt and nina warhurst. but now on bbc news, the travel show. this week we are in kazakhstan. the view from the top! a vast country in the middle of central asia. full of stunning landscapes and nomadic traditions. you can feel the fish tugging on the net. nature and the great outdoors have always been central to the kazakh people's way of life. birds chirping, fish jumping, sun setting... i get it. and i'm here to explore how they are now combining both ancient and modern ways to stay in touch with their wild side. grunts it feels good to make the sound, but i don't know what they are saying. woo! this is a lot of fun!

i've arrived in kazakhstan‘s biggest city of almaty. once, back when the country was still part of the ussr, and long before that, it was the capital city. now things have changed here. back in 1991 it was the last soviet republic to declare independence, ten days before the collapse of the union. since then it has been under the control of president nazarbayev

who moved the capital north to the purpose—built city of astana. one thing is clear, this country has undergone a tumultuous period. but through it all nature has continued to play a vital role for the once nomadic people here, and for travellers who visit. you start to get a sense of that at the green bazaar. there has been a market here since before soviet times. this is fermented horse milk, which has been around since the nomadic times and they say it is a cure for tuberculosis. it's a strong taste. the aftertaste is almost like you are smoking a cigar. i don't know why, but that is exactly what it tastes like. very sharp, though, very intense taste. some russian influences have remained, but some of the old kazakh traditions

that had been suppressed under the soviets are once again bubbling to the surface. like faith in tengriism, calling on nature through shamans, known as baksys. arman, my friend! i wanted to find a baksy, so i'm meeting up with someone who says he can get me an introduction. can you tell me a bit about what exactly a baksy is? ba ksy are spiritual servants who are create by nature to help people. these days in modern culture, do people still go see a baksy? yes, of course, it is part of our life. if official medicine, european medicine, doesn't help, people go to baksy. well, arman, i can't say i know what to expect, but i feel ready. arman takes me to a far corner of the city, and an old,

unmarked apartment block. we are on our way up to the baksy‘s apartment. she will be waiting for us outside the door. not entirely what i expected. chanting we have just arrived here in the baksy‘s apartment, and we are in the middle of some kind of ceremony. there are two ladies who are getting their souls cleaned, i guess. it's hard to know what's going on. chanting and grunting this is extremely intense. can you explain a little bit

of what is happening? like an exorcism? each baksy is different, and this one incorporates elements of islam, kazakhstan‘s most followed religion. there is a power in this room i can't describe right now. i have never experienced anything like this. so now it is my turn. having witnessed the devotion

vera had to the process, i felt it wouldn't be right to go through it without the same belief. so we agree on just a blessing for myjourney. but then, unexpectedly, i seem to be getting the full treatment. growling and grunting it feels good to make the sound, but i don't know what to say. he is coaxing. as an experience alone it is very powerful. as the process continues, the baksy calls on the totem animals as they did many years ago here.

i may not believe in everything that is happening here, but i do like to open myself to the experience as a traveller. all i can say is i know i feel something. although many muslims here frown on these ancient ceremonies, for some kazakhs, they are a direct link to their nomadic past. it's the world's ninth largest country, but kazakhstan is also one of the most sparsely populated. its people were traditionally nomadic, with their lives tied to their environment.

today, travellers come to explore its relatively untouched landscapes. i want to find out more of the kazakhstani people's relationship with nature today. so i am heading east to the aral sea, the world's fourth—largest lake, or at least that's what it was. welcome to the dusty streets of zhalanash. if you can believe it, this used to be a bustling fishing village, but if you come over here and look down to the ground, you can see what used to be the bottom of the aral sea. there's not much fishing going on now. it's been called one of the world's biggest environmental disasters. the sea which stretches the border between kazakhstan

and uzbekistan was once about the size of ireland. back in the 1960s the immense stretch of water began to dry up. around 90% of it was wiped off the map, and with it the livelihoods of many of the people who lived on the sea's produce. i had heard that here in kazakhstan the sea was actually coming back, and bringing travellers too. so off i go, in search of the aral sea, across miles of the old seabed. i have arranged to meet a guide in this region. he wanted me to see the full extent of what the sea, which was actually a large lake, once was, thousands of years before it dried up in the 20th century. the view from the top!

what caused it to recede so far? the flow of water was diverted to feed the soviet cotton industry. uzbekistan still remains one of the world's top producers of cotton, but while the uzbek side of the sea remains mostly lost, interventions have meant the north aral sea in kazakhstan is returning.

approaching the shore, one of the biggest draws for travellers has been the eerie sight of shipwrecks scattered across the old sea bed. spiderwebs everywhere. here we are. the aral sea. at one stage this was the fourth largest man—made lake in the world, and soon it will reclaim that title. i made it. birds chirping, fish jumping, sun setting. i get it. i get it now. it's a beautiful place.

good morning. this is where we spent the night last night. it might look like we're in the desert, but actually it was very cold this morning. the bedding was just a simple roll out pillow mat on the ground with some blankets. but this is a fisherman‘s house. we're up early this morning because they are going to take us out to catch some fish. they are chipper. myself, i'm working on it. but it should be a good day. my hosts tell me i am not the first traveller to stay with them following the sea's return. though not all of them choose the early—morning fishing run. the sun has not yet crested over the horizon of the kazakh steppe. today we are fishing, and on the fishing team we have one sleepy, inexperienced

travel show presenter. we have our hosts, one of whom you know already, our fisherman and his father in the back. these are our boats. 0ut there, there's a lot of fish, and our plan is to catch them and bring them back to shore. 0k. we're maybe 100 metres offshore. we've encountered the first net. so from what i understand, the net was put out last night, right before sunset. and it stays out until sunrise and they come and they pull it back in and every day is quite a surprise but it seems that over the years, there are more and more in the nets almost every single day. ok, so it's my turn

to give this a shot — pulling in the net. it's not too hard, actually. it's interesting, because it is like when you are fishing with a reel, you can feel the fish tugging on the net. you must love it out here. so we've been pulling the net for about 30 minutes, now.

the basket‘s almost full. so i think we're probably getting near the end. we've caught a lot of fish. and besides the amount, they're big fish. myself, being a traveller, connecting with people is always very special. here you can tell that there's a lot ofjoy in the job this morning. it's not my normal life, being out here covered in fish scales in a boat but for them, it is, and you can tell that they absolutely love it, especially when they can bring in a haul like this. i wanted to see how kazakhstan‘s relationship with nature is changing. so i'm meeting up with a mountain guide back in almaty. she's agreed to take me out to some of the places she likes to explore. we begin at the location of one of the country's most impressive historical sites.

wow, they look almost like paintings! actually, they're petroglyphs of the bronze age which are 3500 years old. and these cliffs are covered with petroglyphs, right? this isn't the only site, there are many sites. there are many sites. there are about 5000 carvings here. wow. it was discovered in 1957 by archaeologist maximova. and it's more than 5000 carvings on the rocks in this area. and this is the central part which is very significant and very important at that date, because people were speaking from here and it served as a pantheon. so you can clearly hear what they were talking about, like, down in the valley, where the people and crowds were standing and listening. so here we see the 12 dancing men, which is doing the ritual dance, and here, it's a woman who is giving birth to a child.

as you walk around the site, it's amazing how many carvings you see here. this here is the club? yeah. karla tells me it's thought they believed the more animals they carved into the rocks, the more animals they would successfully hunt. it adds so much to the experience here today, being able to come just in touching distance of things that are so old. i'm used to multiple layers of security, men standing there, making sure that you don't breathe on art like this. but being able to see every little chip out of the stone really makes it special. but what karla really wanted to show me was how some people

are mixing old kazakhstan with the new. sandboarding on kazakhstan‘s most famous singing sand dune. famous because under the right conditions, the dune makes a humming sound, almost like an organ. humming. wow. it's huge! i can see the little dust devils twisting up the sides. it almost looks alive. the skin of the dune, sweeping back and forth like a snake. and i heard that it almost is — it actually moves. over the past 150 years, it has moved three metres. slowly, but it is moving. it really is incredible. i don't know how we are going to snowboard down it. chuckles. along for the ride was karla's friend and olympic snowboard trainer leanna. the dune stretches for 3km and reaches a height of 150

metres and let me tell you, while it might look placid from a distance, it is an entirely other story when you're up there. it's a little bit windy today but we're on the singing sands and i guess that's always how it is here. for myself, i have gone snowboarding before. what are some differences with sandboarding ? 0k. lean back, yes? that being said, it was comforting knowing that i would be going slower than on snow. and also the cool thing about a sand dune is there are are no trees! so it's safer, right? there is no doubt, though, this is the definition of an extreme sport. here i am, strapped in.

i think i'm ready. this way, yeah? like this? oh, and then the board comes... 0h! playful music. laughs. woo! this is a lot of fun! though i promise you that you get sand in a lot of places you do not want sand. one of those places is your mouth. i've got — i'v got a bit of a crunch in my teeth right now. but woo, it is a rush! karla's about to come down. she's standing up. she looks excited but a little bit nervous.

you've got it, karla, yeah! but before long, we're starting to get the hang of it. surfing music plays. this is a lot of work. what's incredible, though, is when you come down, as the sand starts to avalanche, you can feel it shaking and reverberating underneath the board. it's very cool. it sings as you come down. we've got our final round from the very, very top — if i can make it! let's stay here and take a break for a sec.

yeah! and with that, my trip to kazakhstan is at an end. and what a ride it was. hello there. this cold weather isn't giving up anytime soon.

it will stay for the weekend and most of next week. at least for the weekend there'll be quite a lot of sunshine around. mainly across western areas. it'll be cold and some further wintry showers, most of them across the eastern side of the country. the blue air mass indicates that cold air very much with us saturday. northerly winds pushing these showers into scotland, northern ireland and wales. plenty of them starting to go to the east coast of england. a few of them also pushing into the midlands. and there will be a covering of snow in places. but many places staying dry with the sunshine, though it will be cold. those showers start to spread a little bit further inland as we move through saturday night. further sleet and snow in places. probably the clearest of the skies in western scotland and northern ireland, so here the coldest to start sunday. elsewhere, cold again but with a risk of ice from all the showers. as we head on into sunday, we see high—pressure

in the north of the uk, lower pressure to the south and that'll start to drive in eastern and north easterly winds. some subtle changes for part two of the weekend. that will push most of the showers into eastern scotland and in eastern england and they will drive their way a little bit further west through the day and there will be some sleet and snow there, not just at higher ground. probably the best of the sun will be across sheltered western areas and it will be a cold day when you factor in the breeze. head on into monday, a similar set up, the breeze feeding in more clouds and showers to much of england and wales and could see rain and sleet across the south—east. further north, lighter winds for scotland and ireland, and quite a bit of sunshine around. we have the stronger winds for england and wales particularly along the sea coast and it will feel pretty raw as these temperatures will struggle to get much above three to six degrees. it will feel colder than it suggests. and the blue colours are still with us as we head into next week and you guessed

it, yes it is going to stay cold. it will be rather cloudy in places too. quite windy for a time and i think the winds could ease towards the end of the week, but by the end of the week, we could see rain, sleet and snow for some of us.

good morning. welcome to breakfast with nina warhurst and charlie stayt. 0ur headlines today: pressure grows to shut more schools. a teaching union demands a two week closures of all primaries and secondaries in england following the government's u—turn over london. a new warning over hospitals. a senior doctor tells breakfast that nhs staff across the uk should prepare for a spike in covid admissions. 50 years since the ibrox disaster in which 66 football fans were killed, rangers and celtic will today come together to pay tribute to the victims. one year on from australia's devastating wildfires, we hear how people's lives and the landscape are on the road to recovery. manchester united close the gap and go level on points