welcome to bbc news — my name's mike embley. our top stories: new national lockdowns in england and scotland as a surge in cases of the new coronavirus variant threatens to overwhelm the health systems. back on the campaign trail — president trump and joe biden hold rallies in georgia ahead of runoffs to decide which party controls the senate. france speeds up its vaccination programme after a sluggish start draws an angry rebuke from president macron. the us says it'll appeal against the uk's refusal to extraditejulian assange — a judge in london says the wikilea ks founder is at risk of suicide.

borisjohnson has warned the coming weeks will be the "hardest yet" as he announced another national lockdown for england. the uk is seeing a surge in coronavirus cases and patient numbers, but the prime minister said he believed the country was entering "the last phase of the struggle". he's instructed people to stay at home, although there are some exceptions such as going out to medical appointments and for essential shopping. our political editor laura kuennsberg reports. since the pandemic began last year, the whole united kingdom has been engaged in a great national effort to fight covid. .. an effort that isn't over, not even close, as downing street pointed the finger of blame at the new variant spreading fast. as i speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic. with most of the country already under extreme measures, it's clear that we need to do more. that means the government

is once again instructing you to stay at home. that includes children, who he said should go to school just this morning. our kitchen tables or shared sofas become offices and classrooms again. primary schools, secondary schools and colleges across england must move to remote provision from tomorrow, except for vulnerable children and the children of key workers. this might feel agonisingly familiar but there is one big difference. we're now rolling out the biggest vaccination programme in our history. by the middle of february, if things go well, and with a fair wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups. nearly 1a million offers planned to the most vulnerable and most elderly. the doors could be unlocked in about six weeks

but there is a list of big ifs. if the roll—out of the vaccine programme continues to be successful, if deaths start to fall as the vaccine takes effect, and critically, if everyone plays their part by following the rules, then i hope we can steadily move out of lockdown, reopening schools after the february half term and starting cautiously to move regions down the tiers. i want to say to everyone right across the uk that i know how tough this is. but now, more than ever, we must pull together. the weeks ahead will be the hardest yet but i really do believe that we're entering the last phase of the struggle, because with everyjab that goes into our arms, we are tilting the odds against covid and in favour

of the british people. so with the force of the law, most of life will retreat again behind closed doors. chairs on tables, empty streets, silent dinner halls — corridors falling quiet in every corner of the uk. good morning, everybody. this time, the hope a needle in millions of arms provides a way out of all of this, but the lockdown we'll live through first is far from being a quick sting. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, westminster. new curbs have also just come into force in scotland. the first minister, nicola sturgeon, has ordered people to stay at home, except for essential reasons, and schools to remain closed until next month. democrats and republicans are making their last pitches to voters in georgia, where two run—off elections on tuesday will decide who controls the senate in washington. donald trump has just addressed supporters. he repeated false claims that he won georgia in last year's presidential election. mr trump said if democrats took the senate their party's policies would be

implemented unchecked. your vote tomorrow will decide which party controls the united states senate, the radical democrats are trying to capture georgia's senate seats, so they can wield unchecked, unrestrained, absolute power over every aspect of your lives. if the liberal democrats take the senate and the white house, and they are not taking this white house, we are going to fight like hell, i will tell you right now. america, as we know it, will be over. it will never come back again, it will be too far gone. the democrats need to win both of the senate seats in georgia in order to control the senate — which would give them overall control of congress. let's hear what the president—elect had to say about the importance. unlike any time in my career, one state, one state, can chart the course. not just one state, one state, can chart the course. notjust for the next four years but for the next four years but for the next generation. by you can

make an immediate difference in your own lives. the lives of the people all across this country, because their election will put an end to the block in washington to that $2000 stimulus check. that money will go out the door immediately to people who are in real trouble. and we'll be speaking to a political science professor based in atlanta, georgia, a little later. two democratic congressmen have called on the fbi to investigate mr trump's phone call to the top election official in georgia, who's a republican. they say the president's request to georgia's secretary of state, brad raffensperger, to find enough votes to overturn mr biden‘s victory in the state, broke election law. i asked anthony michael kreis, professor at georgia state university college of law, what he makes of the phone call. under georgia state law, it's unlawful to make a demand of somebody to engage in something that is otherwise election fraud.

so by asking the secretary of state to essentially falsify records and quote—unquote, recalculate the election results, donald trump has essentially asked the secretary of state to violate another provision of the georgia code. so there is a plausible theory that he himself committed what we would call solicitation to commit voter fraud here in the state of georgia. republicans who backed mr trump, as i'm sure you know, would say actually the president within the context of the call was just asking the secretary to look harderforfraud which the president believes is there. yes, so wonder key component of the statute is that the president has to be shown to have the intent to commit election fraud, and from the call itself, it is very clear that the president actually believes a lot of the conspiracy theories that have been basically given to him from his circle at the white house. so there is an equally plausible claim that the president didn't violate the statute because he was unaware

of what he was actually doing. i think that ultimately this will be a decision for prosecutors as to whether they want to pursue an investigation or invest the time in the course of prosecuting him. and their case as you see it would be to accuse the president of asking the secretary to invent boats, create those that were not there. it's significant that you talk about georgia state law. there's a difference obviously with federal law. federal law also prohibits anybody from engaging in activities that would constitute kind of intimidation, or that would introduce fraudulent counting of ballots. so by federal law and state law wants to protect the democratic process from being tainted. we want to make sure that our state and local officials are not coerced

into doing something that is unlawful because somebody in a greater position of power or authority is abusing that position in order to gain leverage, which is actually what is happening here. so yes, i think there is a real question about whether federal and state law has been violated here. it is plausible that there is a case to be made against the president, and it is now a political question of whether prosecutors want to invest the capital to use their prosecutorial discretion to pursue these claims. and leaving aside the law itself, you could also argue that the spirit of it here has been broken and the democratic process further damaged. that's exactly right. you know, regardless of whether there has been a criminal violation here and i think there is room for folks to debate that, what is not debatable is that the president of states has demonstrated to be ill fitted to lead a modern democracy. he is calling into question and subverting the democratic process before our very eyes. georgia has had a tremendously wonderful, successful election process in the last few weeks. 0ur election in november as a triumph. we have people who are able to vote, vote more easily than they ever had before and the process has been transparent.

we have tabulated our votes, not once, not twice but three times to confirm they were accurate. we have even engaged in a signature audit. there has been a fourth investigation to make sure that the elections have been accurate and it's been a success story a reasonable time. the president's work here is really damaging to democracy, truly antidemocratic and our elected officials and people in georgia and across the united states needs to resist this efforts to undermine our electoral process and american democracy itself. two professor of georgia state university, college of the france is accelerating its vaccination programme, after a slow initial roll—out which has drawn an angry rebuke from president macron. he's set a target for a million people to be inoculated by the end of the month, but efforts may be complicated

by a sceptical public. courtney bembridge reports. front—page news and front of people's minds as the health minister visited a vaccination centre in paris. he was stopped by a doctor who told him elderly patients were waiting to be vaccinated. translation: you can tell them it is soon. for the moment you are getting vaccinated because you have priority but soon it will be their turn and you will be able to protect them. france has been slow off the mark in the first week of the vaccination campaign, just over 500 people had the jab. regional leaders say there is too much red tape. translation: all the doctors wrote to me and tell me they are available, even on weekends, but we still do not have the directives to set up these logistics. the health minister says vaccinations have been ramped up this week and thousands more have now had the vaccine. translation: we are multiplying the number of centres by four which means that there will be about 100 hospitals that will offer vaccination. but the numbers are still low compared to more

thani million in the uk and more than 200,000 in germany. the sluggish start has irritated president emmanuel macron. the newspaper quoted him as saying the pace was like a family stroll which was not worthy of the moment nor of the french. emmanuel macron‘s target isi million people vaccinated by the end ofjanuary and the government says that many doses will be available by the end of the week. but the vaccine will not be mandatory and france is one of the most vaccine—sceptical countries in the world. a recent survey showed just 40% of french citizens would get the vaccine if it were available. translation: the french population has always been anti—vaccinations. we see that here when we do the flu jabs. every year it is a mess. it is up to us as doctors to convince them that here the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. that is clear. but some do not need any convincing. have you just been vaccinated?

yes, i have been vaccinated. how did it go? very well. i get the vaccination as soon as possible. i work in the health sector, i am an ambulance driver and i would like to be vaccinated. france is among europe's hardest hit countries. its death toll is above 65,000, just behind italy in the uk. and with an election looming next year, the stakes could not be higher for emmanuel macron. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: making headway on the moscow metro — women can now become train drivers as dozens of professions once deemed too dangerous are opened up. 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 despite 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. welcome back. very good to have you with us on a bbc news.

new national lockdowns in england and scotland, as a surge in cases of the new coronavirus variant threatens to overwhelm hospitals. going down to the wire in georgia. president trump and joe biden hold rallies ahead of a run—off vote to control the senate. well, earlier i spoke to andra gillespie who's political science professor at emory university in atlanta. i began by asking who she thought may win georgia's senate race. we don't know, the polls are statistically within the margin of error, it's too close to call, the outcome is likely going to be close one way or the other. georgia is complicated, particularly these two senate seats. it's a really complicated picture. georgia is in the midst of a partisan transition, so it went from being reliably democrat to reliably republican, now demographic changes are ushering in an era of new competitiveness, so it does not guarantee republicans or democrats clear, consistent victories, but it does portend very close election results and nailbiters, alternating democratic and republican victories, so we really do have to see what tomorrow's election results bring because it

could go either way. it so much more competitive because of what mr trump would see as fraud, but many other people would say is a surge in voter registrations. more effort to resist voter suppression, simply more activism by the democrats. yes, the population in georgia has become increasingly non—white and non—white voters are more likely to be democratic than republican. even with voter suppression efforts, we are seeing people of colour register and turn out to vote in greater numbers, and we are also seeing them be joined by liberal white voters, and what we have seen happen in georgia and other statewide elections as the margins between democratic and republican candidates have been narrowing over the course of the last decade, and so it was only a matter of time before democrats actually started to reach parity in elections, and if they do a good job turning out people to vote, they will at least be competitive, and have a possibility to be able to pull off a victory.

professor, even if more african—americans, asian—americans, hispanic people are registering to vote and voting, that is not enough to turn georgia democratic, is it? no, so those three groups together comprise about 36% of georgia's electorate, so you still need white voters in order to win, so in the presidential election, joe biden got 30% of the white vote, which is enough combined with strong minority turn out in democratic voting to be able to produce a majority, and so, if something like that happens tomorrow, that will put jon 0ssoff and raphael warnock in pretty good stead. do you have any sense of how mr trump's various interventions have played voters? i think the big concern is on the margins, and in a close race the turnout of every person matters,

and in particular, democrats are trying to drive their score up by turning out infrequent voters, people who you do not usually count on to turn out in a run—off election, so this would include first—time voters, new voters, and people who only vote in presidential elections. the types of voters that donald trump also turned out to vote on the republican side, and they may be the most impressionable and susceptible to discussions that they should boycott the election results or the results of the election are fraudulent, so the concern among republican applicants is they are making it harder to get the vote out. i'm not sure if the rally matters as much as the behind—the—scenes field operations, so if republicans are knocking on doors and making phone calls or sending text messages to their voters to make sure they turn out to vote, they have an opportunity to offset the confusing message from president trump. would you say that there are lessons from georgia for political activists on both sides?

particularly in the south? in this senate race there were unlimited resources, and what we saw from those unlimited resources is they were actually able to buy the material, buy the resources, buy the human capital to be able to do the job of trying to touch every voter in the state multiple times, and when you have that type of sustained effort, when you have that type of outreach effort, it yields greater turnout. with deserved respect to the changing demographic, georgia is different from its neighbours in that it has a much more multicultural and racially diverse electorate, it also has, even though it is a small portion of the population, more white voters who are willing to vote democratic in elections, so that is why you see georgia become more electorally competitive as opposed to neighbouring states like alabama, for instance, or south carolina. political science professor andra gillespie there in atla nta. new york governor andrew cuomo says his state has found

its first case of the more infectious virus variant, first detected in the uk. it's raising concerns over the healthcare system should it spread rapidly in the state. mr cuomo has also told hospitals to speed up vaccinations or face a fine or loss of future supplies. any provider who does not use the vaccine could be fined up to $100,000 going forward. they have to use the allocation within seven days, otherwise they can be removed from future distribution. i don't want the vaccine in a refrigerator or freezer, i want it in somebody‘s arm. governor cuomo there. america's department ofjustice says it is extremely disappointed by a british court ruling which prevents the wikileaks founderjulian assange from being extradited. the us wants him to stand trial for publishing classified documents. but a judge at the old bailey in london said concerns over his mental health meant the extradition could not proceed. 0ur diplomatic correspondent james landale reports. free julian assange!

julian assange has long attracted loyal supporters, and this was their reaction outside the old bailey as they heard the news. no extradition — yeah! for more than a decade, the wikileaks founder has resisted extradition, spending seven years holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london, before being removed almost two years ago and detained in belmarsh prison. the us authorities want him to face 18 charges, mostly of espionage, relating to his alleged role in the leaking of thousands of secret military documents. many focused on the wars in afghanistan and iraq, including this video appearing to show a us helicopter firing on civilians in baghdad. to some, mr assange is a champion of free speech who revealed war crimes. to others, a law breaker who endangered the lives of us agents. and today, after years of legal battles, he was driven into court to hear his fate.

from the dock, he listened as districtjudge vanessa baraitser dismissed his defence that the us charges were political and a threat to media freedom. but when it came to his mental health and depression, she ruled that, in a us high—security prison, "the risk that mr assange will commit suicide is a substantial one, and as such it would be oppressive to extradite him to the united states." 0n hearing the ruling, mr assange simply wiped his brow. his partner and mother of his two sons, stella morris, burst into tears. we are pleased that the court has recognised the seriousness and inhumanity of what he has endured and what he faces. but let's not forget the indictment in the us has not been dropped. the us department ofjustice said it was extremely disappointed and would appeal against the ruling. mr assange was remanded

in custody ahead of a bail application later this week. james landale, bbc news. this is looking like quite a breakthrough. the kuwaiti foreign minister is saying saudi arabia will reopen its airspace, and land and sea borders to qatar. there's been a long—running dispute between qatar and several of its gulf neighbours. saudi arabia led a coalition of countries in the gulf and beyond that cut ties with qatar injune 2017. an agreement aimed at ending the rift is to be signed in riyadh on tuesday, according to a white house official. this shouldn't really be a breakthrough, but it seems it probably is. commuters in moscow had something of a surprise as they returned to work after the new year break. for the first time in decades, female drivers have been allowed on the city's metro system. a recent change in the law lets women take up dozens of professions, apparently up until nowjudged too dangerous. the bbc‘s tim allman explains. beneath the streets of moscow, a social revolution is taking place.

the most shocking of sights for some, a woman at the controls of an underground train. one dozen female employees already worked on the city's rail network, now they are fully qualified drivers. translation: we believe that in this day and age everyone should have a choice to work wherever he or she wants, no matter their sex. we are happy that moscow metro has allowed an opportunity to the women who worked here to get a new profession. a new profession but an old one, too. women were actually allowed to drive underground trains in moscow all the way back to the 1930s. but then the soviet union banned them from this and hundreds of other professions, said to be harmful or dangerous. now that has been overturned, they will notjust be train drivers. they can now drive lorries, tractors and serve on board ships. but there are still dozens ofjobs that are prohibited.

so far, only internal candidates have been allowed to apply but moscow metro promises but soon the jobs will be open to anyone to do. these women are not just drivers. they are also pioneers. a reminder of our top story. borisjohnson has warned the coming weeks will be the "hardest yet" as he announced another national lockdown for england. the uk is seeing a surge in coronavirus cases and patient numbers, but the prime minister said he believed the country was entering "the last phase of the struggle". he's instructed people to stay at home, although there are some exceptions such as going out to medical appointments and for essential shopping. that's it for now. there is much more for you anytime, national and international news, on the abc website on our twitter feeds. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter. i'm @bbcmikeembley. thank you for watching. come

again. hello. well, let's see what the weather is up to on tuesday. and in summary, not an awful lot of change. it's going to stay pretty cold and in fact over the next few days, you can see that cold air sitting over europe. and the nagging north—to—north—easterly wind will keep things very chilly here in the uk. so, let's summarise the week ahead. got a lot of cold weather on the way, overnight frosts, additionally windy in the south and along the north sea coast, and on top of that, rain, sleet, a bit of snow, some ice around as well. as far as the rain's concerned, it looks as though the wettest place will be east anglia and the south east, and that's because of the wind direction. it'll be blowing out of the north—east and the showers will keep coming

to this same place. so, we could see 20—50 mm of rain over the next couple of days — so, some big puddles there. anyway, back to the here and now. so, here are the temperatures early in the morning — freezing or below in most towns and cities. here is that north—easterly wind blowing across the north sea, and you can see those showers affecting east anglia and the south east. can be quite grey and wet both in the morning and in the afternoon here. elsewhere, i think a mixture of sunshine, and occasional rain, and wintry showers. but the further west you are, the better the weather will be. belfast, ithink, swansea, plymouth in for some sunshine but chilly, 3—5 celsius briefly in the afternoon, and then very quickly, those temperatures will drop during the course of the late afternoon and evening. and you can see, that north—easterly wind continues through the course of tuesday and also into wednesday. and that weather pattern is pretty evident here. you can see the isobars pointing out at the north—east, due south—west, and that's how the wind blows.

so, once again on wednesday, it's copycat conditions. again, that extreme south—eastern portion of the uk can be quite grey and wet at times with those persistent showers. best of the weather will be in the west, but notice a weather front‘s approaching there, the far north—west of scotland. so, some rain there, i think, for our friends in stornoway. but still wednesday night, we're expecting another widespread frost across the uk. temperatures in many areas will be well below freezing, down to —5 even, in bigger towns and cities, and you can see how chilly it remains in some of the bigger cities over the next few days. that's it for me, bye—bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines: england and scotland have been ordered into new lockdowns to contain a surge in virus cases threatening to overwhelm health systems. schools will be closed to most pupils, also non—essential retail and hospitality. borisjohnson says the weeks ahead will be the hardest yet, as a more infectious variant spreads. donald trump and joe biden are campaigning in georgia — ahead of two crucial runoff votes for the senate on tuesday. at an event in the city of dalton, mr trump said if democrats took the senate their radical politics would be unchecked. the us president—elect, joe biden, urged georgians to vote in record numbers. the us justice department is to appeal against the uk court decision not to extradite the wikilea ks founder, julian assange. thejudge said there was a real risk of suicide, in an american maximum security prison. julian assange is wanted on 18 charges relating to the release