this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm mark lobel. our top stories: president trump is recorded on tape asking an election official to find him extra votes in the state of georgia. the recording comes as some senators in the republican party say they support donald trump in questioning the results. democrats have called the phone call a disgrace. and it was a bald—faced, bold abuse of power by the president of the united states. in other news, borisjohnson warns that covid restrictions in england are probably about to get tougher as the uk records another 50,000 new cases in a single day. could julian assange finally be heading to the us to face charges of espionage?

a judge is set to rule on his case later. # walk on. and tributes to gerry marsden, the singer of you'll never walk alone who's died at the age of 78. hello and welcome to our viewers in the uk and around the globe. a recording has been released which appears to show president trump trying to persuade a senior republican official to find enough votes to overturn joe biden‘s victory in georgia. the washington post says the audio is from an hour—long phone call with georgia's secretary of state. according to the newspaper mr trump went from flattering to berating and threatening brad raffensperger to get him to recalculate the vote in his favour.

0ur reporter paul hawkins has the details. impeachment, the russia scandal and catching covid in the middle of a pandemic. the trump presidency has been a rollercoaster ride, so on one level, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. after all, donald trump himself said... losing is never easy. not for me, it's not. but, on another level, no—one could have foreseen that the president of the united states would ask georgia's top election official to find enough votes to overturn november's results. the call lasted an hour. a lawyer for the state

refuting the president's unsubstantiated claim that ballots had been shredded and voting machinery had been removed. the secretary of state added... the president then called him a child and threatened him with possible legal consequences, adding on twitter, "he has no clue." mr raffensperger tweeted back: condemnation of the call has been swift. well, it was, yes, certainly the voice of desperation. and it was a bald—faced, bold abuse of power. the president's refusal to accept the result has split his own party, with the former republican leader of the house of representatives saying it was difficult to conceive of a more anti—democratic and anti—conservative act. well, it's tough to be shocked anymore by what the president does, but this

was truly shocking. i wouldn't say he's committed a criminal offence. i think he's done what he's done for so long which is he's attempted to bully the secretary of state. but 11 republican senators, led by ted cruz, are still planning to challenge the election result when it's officially certified on wednesday. donald trump is holding an election rally on monday night in georgia where two republican—held senate seats are up for grabs in tuesday's election. polling suggests both races are tight, with the outcome deciding who controls the upper house of congress. but with donald trump questioning the voting process in georgia, will republicans still turn out to vote? paul hawkins, bbc news. earlier i spoke to republican, peter wayner, who previously served in the bush and reagan administrations. he's vice president and senior fellow at the ethics and public policy centre. i asked him about his reaction to the leaked recording of president trump. not shocked because it's

donald trump who did it. the american media deliberately misled them and they put out long enough so people didn't pay attention to the the audio. you headlines understatements behind it, even the allegations. your guy who said he was threatening the secretary of state, none of thatis secretary of state, none of that is true. if somebody listens to the 63 minutes which u nfortu nately i listens to the 63 minutes which unfortunately i had to do to do this interview, they will realise that is the case. it is a bunch of drama about nothing. to be honest, if what is accused in the headlines was true, i wouldn't defendant. accused in the headlines was true, iwouldn't defendant. but democrats think this could be a smoking gun. georgia has done to make recounts, a signature ordered and member secretary of state donald trump was talking to is that a few days ago, the secretary of state's office has a lwa ys secretary of state's office has always been focused on calling balls and strikes in elections in this case, three tracks of

voter fraud in this case, three tracks of voterfraud in the rat. he said it was 99.9% accurate. donald trump couldn't have thought he could convince him so why do you think is doing this? they we re you think is doing this? they were having a phone call because there is a lawsuit involved. they were trying to come to an agreement on the lawsuit about whether or not they will come forward. both sides of attorneys were on the call. not going to see a lot about that on the media right now and they were trying to reach an agreement on the information that the trump campaign is asking the secretary of state to release to them for them to be able to review because right now they arejust review because right now they are just having to base it on nothing. so there is an attempt to get information about the allegations and the reality is allegations and the reality is a lot of the things that president trump was speaking about on the call on assumed voter fraud were not necessarily accurate because he has received information from people who are giving him bad information. that is a fact. some of it is also questionable and not proven. again, it is just a media narrative. they are trying to hit trump a

couple of days before the georgia election and it was nonsense. do you not think now this will affect the georgia election? you're from georgia and know the race very well. what impact do you think this will have on the republican turnout on tuesday? i think is a very big attempt on the media to put a negative twist on it. that's what we were discussing, if you could reference me as the person who wants the program mentioned, to where president trump threatens the secretary of state, demanded he find votes, none of that is true. again, we live in a world where truth literally does not matter evidently. at least here in the us and american media, that it doesn't matter. it is all about began from the liberal media. the reality is, you go to listen to the coal and all the narrative is literally a nonsense call. if you and i both listen to this call prior to this interview tonight, we would say, there's nothing to talk about tonight and it would have been a non— thing and you would have had to

fill another spot. i'm happy you had me on to talk about the no—nonsense goal but the reality is, if anyone knew what actually happened, they wouldn't. while we've got you here, do you think donald trump should listen to the 10 former defence secretaries who say he should accept the election result are not involved in military? no-one is involving the military. this is insane. you have watched american media, don't do it, it will fry your brain, save yourself. don't watch american media. there is no military involvement. the former secretary of defence has had no say in elections or even reasons to involve themselves. the republican strategist seth weathers there. the british prime minister has warned that coronavirus restrictions in england are probably about to get tougher in order to bring the virus under control. there've been another 55,000 positive cases recorded in the uk in the latest 2a hour—period — and a further a54 people have died. it's one of the worst affected countries in the world. here's our political correspondent, chris mason.

arriving in a hurry to deliver a difficult message. the prime minister gave his first interview of the year, today. he warned that coronavirus restrictions in england are likely to get worse before they get better. it may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in many parts of the country. i don't... you know... i'm fully, fully reconciled to that. and i bet... so... ..the people of this country are reconciled to that. the prime minister's analysis of this pandemic from the very start has often contained splashes of optimism, but today felt different. vaccines and testing offer hope, but borisjohnson struck a sombre tone, as he lent on downbeat language about the need to be realistic about the very difficult period ahead. primary schools in england outside london and parts of the south east were expected to reopen this week,

but some, at the last minute today, have decided to remain closed. in secondaries in england, there'll be a staggered start to the new term, with pupils expecting exams in the summer going back first. schools are safe. very, very important to stress that. the threat to... the risk to kids, to young people is really, very, very, very small indeed, as the scientists continually attest. the risk to staff is very small. and, of course, the benefits of education are so huge. but the signs of everyday life, like these in high wycombe in buckinghamshire, are here to stay. and labour have now gone a step further, calling for another england—wide lockdown. it is inevitable that more schools are going to close, many will be closed tomorrow morning. but the more important thing, in a way, is that national restrictions need to come in, in the next 2a hours. let's not have the prime minister saying, "i'm

going to do it, but not yet" — that's the problem he's made so many times. the prospect of further restrictions, shops closed, a slump in demand, staff home—schooling their children, is placing colossal pressures on businesses and a demand for more support. how do we get this bridge across from a really difficult christmas period for small business, through to the spring or through to the easter, which people are now thinking is the recovery and, actually, the government should be throwing everything it's got at helping small businesses to survive the next two to three months. and so, 2021 begins as 2020 ended, shrouded in worry and uncertainty. the vaccines will allow us to turn a corner in tackling this pandemic. but the rest of winter looks bleak. chris mason, bbc news. from that outlook on the infection to the injection. more than half a million doses of the 0xford—astrazeneca

vaccine will begin to be rolled out across the uk in the next few hours. but there are questions over the speed at which those most at risk across the country will receive theirjabs, and concerns over the government's decision to delay offering the public second doses, of both the oxford and pfizer vaccines. here's our science editor, david shukman. it began with a blaze of publicity and now the vaccination programme moves up a gear, to try to protect tens of millions of people now that a second type of vaccine is about to be deployed. i hearfrom particularly my general practice colleagues up and down the country that they are raring to go. they're really, really busy but they also know that this is the best thing that they can do to protect their patients. so, as supply allows, more sites will be able to offer the vaccine and that's exactly what we need to aim for. the big hope is the 0xford—astrazeneca vaccine. it's easy to handle. it doesn't need to be stored in extreme cold and the first doses are due to be given tomorrow. so, in the coming months, how will this mass programme take shape?

the government's ambition is that by easter, that's april 4th, to have reached something like 30 million people. they're the most at risk — over 50s, health and care workers and adults with vulnerabilities. that involves around two million injections every week and for many people, that will be their first dose only. all of this depends on two key factors. production — can it be ramped up sufficiently? also delivery — will it be smooth in this massive operation? this comes as government advisers say it's better to delay giving second doses so that more people can quickly get a first dose and at least have some protection. but pfizer says this idea hasn't been tested for its vaccine and some leading scientists want more research. i think it's so important that with this decision that's been made that there are actually scientific studies that go on to look at the effect of delaying the second dose.

i personally think that it may well produce as good or better an immune response, but we really need to study it. sites like this offer hope of a way out of the pandemic. the challenge now is making sure the vaccines get used as effectively as possible. david shukman, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: tributes to gerry marsden, the singer of you'll never walk alone, who's died at the age of 78. the japanese people are in mourning following the death of emperor hirohito. thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respects when it was announced he was dead. good grief! after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the

rest of the gang are calling it quits. the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow in spite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. around the world, people have been paying tribute to the iconic rock star david bowie who sold 140 million albums in a career that spanned half a century. his family announced overnight that he had died of cancer at the age of 69. the world's tallest skyscraper opens later today. the burj dubai, has easily overtaken its nearest rivals. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: a recording has been released of president trump urging georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes to overturn joe biden's

electoral victory there. borisjohnson warns that coronavirus restrictions in england could probably become tougher, as the uk again records more than 50,000 new cases per day. the wikileaks website has called for charges against its founderjulian assange to be dropped, ahead of a judge's decision on monday on whether to extradite him from the uk to america. he's wanted in the united states in connection with the publication of classified documents ten years ago — he's currently being held at belmarsh prison near london, after breaching his bail conditions two years ago. our world affairs editor, john simpson has the story. julian assange set up wikileaks as a crusade to reveal corruption and abuses right around the world. light them all up. come on, fire! this, for instance, is a video of american soldiers firing from a helicopter at iraqi civilians in baghdad.

the us military tried to keep it secret but assange broke their code and made it public. in 2010, he handed hundreds of thousands of us diplomatic cables and military logs to newspapers around the world, uncovering huge numbers of american intelligence secrets and agents. soon after that, sweden issued an international arrest warrant for assange, alleging sexual assault. when the high court in london decided he should be extradited to sweden, assange broke bail and took refuge in the ecuadorian embassy. the united states must renounce its witch—hunt against wikileaks. in 2014, i went to see him in the embassy, which was only the size of a large flat. it's a difficult situation. other people are in more difficult situations. before the 2016 us

election, wikileaks published secret democratic party e—mails which damaged hillary clinton and may have helped her opponent, donald trump, to become president. it alleged the hacking came from russian agents. sweden's case against assange for rape came to nothing. but finally in 2019 ecuador allowed the british police to arrest him and he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaking bail. the us government started proceedings to extradite him. there is, say newspaper editors, an attack on press freedom but one american expert says the true charge against assange is hacking government secrets. i think that the story about assange should be a truthful one. there's a lot of

stuff being peddled. the discussion about what wikilea ks is will change significantly and you won't see so many journalism outlets, so many organisations, ngos, to support journalism making what are really unsupportable claims about this being a political prosecution. it's simply not. assange's lawyer disagrees. this means any journalist reporting upon the crimes of a foreign nation, reporting truthful information about human rights abuses, war crimes, can be extradited. the most dangerous aspect of this is that not only can you be extradited but when you return to the united states, as in this case, you will not benefit from constitutional protections which is a terrifying precedent. even if tomorrow's judgement goes against assange, the appeals process will last a long time. john simpson, bbc news. i've been speaking to chip gibbons from the us civil liberties organisation, defending rights and dissent. he told me what he expects on monday.

unfortunately, a lot of observers of the trial have said that the judge will most likely grant extradition to assange to the us and then there will be appeals. i say unfortunately becausejulian assange's case is a case about a political offense. the us government has pursued julian assange for over a decade because he released information about us crimes and us warcrimes, and as the judge heard during the trial, human rights experts testified how they used that information in their own work to get justice for victims of drone strikes in pakistan, to get justice for victims of torture in guantanamo. some of the information that was used in the guantanamo case has been taken up by the icc investigation into us war crimes in afghanistan. of course, the icc prosecutor has also been sanctioned by the us, and this case, as a us civil liberties activist, is very important to me becausejulian assange is the first person charged under the espionage act for publishing or printing of truthful information.

and if you can charge assange, everyone has said, you can charge the new york times which has published the same information which is why the new york times, the guardian and all these newspapers and free—speech groups are against this. but from the perspective of the world, it's even more significant. assange is not a us citizen, he doesn't seek to operate in the us, he is an australian national, he operates abroad and the us is essentially saying, it has the right to apply its espionage act extraterritorially to any publisher, any journalist in the world who publishes information it doesn't like. in this case, information that was newsworthy, hence why the new york times, the guardian and all of these different outlets covered it, about us human rights abuses and us war crimes.

information the us public has a right to know in order to make an informed decision about its own foreign policy and to know what it is the government does in their name, and information that people of the world have a right to know because everyone has a right to know when a human right abuse is committed. if i may, you are saying that you expect he might be extradited, but either way, do you think that there will be an appeal? my understanding is that either way there will be an appeal and it will go on for a while. and if he comes to the us, there will be constitutional challenges to the charges against him. in the last few minutes, a malaysian coroner has delivered a verdict of misadventure into the death of french—irish schoolgirl nora quoirin, whose body was found in the jungle in 2019. the 15—year—old, who lived in london, had gone missing from an eco—resort outside kuala lumpur, where she'd been on holiday with herfamily. her body was found beside

a stream after a ten—day search operation. an inquest by midadventure indicates a death was due to an accident and not criminal, or somebody‘s negligence. the bbc‘s howard johnson joins me now from manila. first of all, how do they reach this verdict? this has been going on for months, this verdict came today after more than four months of evidence, more than 40 witnesses came and today the coroner delivered her verdict, this one of death by misadventure, what that means is that she believes nora simply wandered off alone, there was always this debate over whether she had been kidnapped, the parents said they believed there was a criminal element, that she had perhaps been ta ken criminal element, that she had perhaps been taken from the house where they were staying on the resort, but as we heard today the coroner ruled that out, she said that she believed it was more likely that she had simply wandered off alone, she said it would be pure speculation for her to say that

there could have been a third party involved in her death and that would be a breach of her duty, and so what we are seeing todayis duty, and so what we are seeing today is our verdict that has gone against what the parents wanted. they had called for this inquest and they were hopeful they would receive an open verdict meaning they could bea open verdict meaning they could be a possibility of criminal involvement but today the coroner has ruled that out. and just remind us why this particular case touched such a nerve? nora is a 15-year-old, a french irish 15—year—old who lived in london, she had been on holiday with her parents in august of 2019. she had been there just one day and that night she disappeared. august the fourth began this massive search operation trying to find this child that had developmental issues and learning difficulties, we heard during the inquest from her teacher, the head teacher of her school in south—west london, we heard how she had

difficulties with mobility and with balance, and yet today during the inquest we saw the coroner summarising, showing a video of nora dragging a suitcase through the airport, they said that they believe that yes, the school reports that yes, the school reports that were delivered during the coroner's summary were accurate, that she did have these difficulties but there was this conflicting evidence of the cctv that was shown today, but obviously this was a big story because it happened during the school holidays in the united kingdom, a lot of people were watching and really hoping that they could find nora. i was there at the time, ten days later they found her body on a palm oil plantation, and they found the body next to and they found the body next to a stream. nora was naked at the time, she was not wearing underwear but her parents had said that she had gone to bed with underwear on, but when the body was found there was no underwear and they have never found the underwear, so lots of questions still remain about

these mysterious circumstances but the coroner said she simply wandered off alone. howard, thanks very much for bringing us thanks very much for bringing us the latest there, that the death by misadventure verdict has been delivered via. thanks for joining has been delivered via. thanks forjoining us on bbc news. hello. 2021 has certainly started on a cold and wintry note. through the weekend we have seen sleet and snow from many places, not everywhere, this was near sheffield on sunday afternoon. there's also been heavy rain showers around. over the coming few days the story stays the same, staying cold with a mix of rain, sleet and snow, mainly over hills, the snow. some sunshine but often quite windy conditions, particularly through monday and tuesday. we have high pressure sitting to the north of the uk, low pressure down towards the south, south—west and in between those two areas, we're drawing in that cold wind coming in from the north—east of the north sea so that brings showers on monday, rain for east anglia and the south—east and the channel isles and further north, one or two wintry showers over the pennines, southern uplands and one or two over the higher

ground of wales. a good deal of sunshine developing for many areas, it will be a windy day, though, with gusts over 40 mph along the coast of east anglia and through the english channel. temperatures up to about 4—6 degrees, below average for the time of year and feeling colder when you add that wind—chill. moving through monday evening, overnight into tuesday, we've got more showers feeding in from the north sea on the north—easterly wind and it could be ice and snow around for parts of eastern scotland and north—east england as well. temperatures overnight not quite as cold as recent nights but still getting down to freezing or below, the coldest across the north—west. heading into tuesday, a similar day to monday, watch out for ice and snow once again, particularly for eastern scotland, northern england and further rain showers to come for east anglia and the south—east of england and the channel isles, this stubborn area of cloud and rain persisting. another cold day with some sunshine

and around 3—6 degrees and still are wind—chill on tuesday. moving through into wednesday, high pressure tends to move away towards the west so we are in between weather systems heading into wednesday, a quieter day and the breeze turns to a northerly direction for the middle to the end of the week. probably quite a bit of sunshine, still a few showers for eastern england, one or two for the south—east and channel isles as well. and it is staying cold for the time of year with temperatures only about 1—4 degrees on wednesday. bye for now.

this is bbc news, the headlines: donald trump is recorded on tape asking an election official in georgia to find extra votes for him, in an attempt to change the official result of the presidential election in the state that certified joe biden as the winner. one of president—electjoe biden's advisors said they now had irrefutable proof of a president pressuring an official from his own party to get him to rescind a state's lawful, certified vote count. the white house has not yet responded to the call being made public. borisjohnson has warned that coronavirus restrictions in england are ‘probably about to get tougher‘ to curb the rise in infections. the labour leader, sir keir starmer, has called for a new national lockdown to be announced within the next 24 hours. those are your headlines on bbc news.