media condemning the chaotic scenes that took place at the us congress on wednesday. he said the people who carried out the acts of violence did not represent america. he also conceded that a new administration would now take office. president—elect joe biden has launched a stinging attack on donald trump, blaming him for the insurrection on capitol hill on wednesday. mr biden called it one of the "darkest days in american history". he said president trump had spent the past four years showing contempt for democracy. the indonesian authorities have released from prison an islamic cleric — abu bakar bashir — the suspected mastermind of the bali bombings in 2002. more than 200 people were killed. reports say bashir — now aged 82 — was collected from the prison south of jakarta by family members. it's a title given to up and coming musicians

and in the past has identified future superstars. adele, sam smith and celeste have all won it. this year's bbc sound of 2021 has been named as 23—year—old rapper pa salieu his hard hitting lyrics about life and death in his home city of coventry impressed thejudges, as lizo mzimba reports. # never let them draw out the energy # theyjust want you fall cos theirjealousy # protect your energy # the 23—year—old dubbed the uk's most inventive rapper in years was given the news on radio one by annie mac. you are the winner of the bbc sound of 2021. you won! you serious? he laughs that is crazy. so much gratitude, man. # they don't know about the block life # still doing mazza inna front line # his music reflects his experiences. he himself once survived a shotgun attack. his growing success means things are now

very different to a year ago. a yearago, surviving, man. people round me caged, people around me turned crack fiend, you know? i come from a real life, you know? # hello from the other side # with previous winners including the likes of adele, few would blame him for feeling a little extra pressure. nah, i don't really stand for pressure, man. i respect all the names and that's why i'm so honoured. me? really? # why you keep wastin' your energy? # never let them draw out the energy # with gigs and festivals on hold, breaking through is harder for new artists, but big things are still expected of pa salieu. lizo mzimba, bbc news. now on bbc news, it's time for the travel show. this week, we're

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, i don't know what to say. woo! this is a lot of fun! theme music plays

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's been under the rule of president nazarbayev, who moved the capital north to the purpose—built city of astana. one thing is clear, however — 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's 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. oh, it's a strong taste. the aftertaste is almost like you're smoking a cigar. i don't know why, but that's exactly what it tastes like. very sharp, though. very intense taste. ah! raxmet. 0h! 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, don't helps, 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. let's go. so we're on our way up to the baksy‘s apartment, should will be waiting

for us outside the door. not entirely what i expected. bells ring. chanting. we have just arrived here in the baksy‘s apartment and we've arrived 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. bells ring. this is extremely intense. can you explain to me a bit of what is happening right now?

like an exorcism? yes, yes. 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's my turn. having witnessed the devotion vera had to the process, i feel it wouldn't be right to go through it all without the same belief,

so we agree on just a blessing for my journey. but then, unexpectedly, i seem to be getting the full treatment. growling and grunting. bell rings. it feels good to make the sound, i don't know what to say. he is coaxing an experience along, it's very powerful. as the process continues, the baksy calls on the totem animals, as they did many years ago here.

i might 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'm 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 you look down at 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'd heard that here in kazakhstan, the sea was actually coming back, and it was bringing travellers too, so off i go in search of the aral sea, across miles of the old seabed. i've 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, recent 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 time, it was the fourth largest inland 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 it's actually — it's 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 and we're up so early this morning because they're going to take us this morning to catch some fish. they are quite chipper. myself, i'm working on it. but it should be a good day. chuckles my hosts tell me that 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 edige... hello. ..who you know already. we have 0mirserik, our fisherman, and his father

in the back. these are our boats. 0ut there, there's a lot of fish and the plan is today to catch ‘em and bring them back to shore. engine roars 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's been 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 — it's not too hard, actually. it's interesting because it's 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 to the end. we've caught a lot of fish. and besides the amount, they're — they're big fish.

myself, being a traveller, connecting with people is always very special and 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. oh, wow! they look almost like paintings! actually, it's a petroglyphs of the bronze age, which is 3,500 years old. and these cliffs are covered

with petroglyphs, right? this isn't the only site? yeah, exactly. there are many sites. it's many sites. it's about 5000 carvings here. wow. it was discovered in 1957 by archaeologist maksimova and it's more than 5,000 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 was a — 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 which 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. in the past 150 years, it has moved three metres. slowly, but it is moving. it really is incredible. chuckles i don't know how we're going to snowboard down it! laughs along for the ride was karla's friend and olympic kazakhstan snowboard trainer yelena. the dune stretches for 3km and reaches a height of 150 metres and let me tell you, it might look placid from a distance but it is an entirely other story once 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, yeah? that being said, it was comforting knowing that i'll be going slower than on snow. and also the cool thing about a sand dune is there's no trees! so, i mean, i guess it's safer, right? no doubt, though, this is definitely the definition of an extreme sport. and here i am, strapped in. ok, you ready? i — i think i'm ready. woo! great start! playful music this way, yeah? like this? oh, and then the board comes — oh!

playful music continues 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've 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 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. pants 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 — if i can — 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. thursday was a really cold day in the midlands, where the fog persisted. and it's cold widely at the moment, of course. we've got a widespread frost. and again, for many parts of the country it could be quite icy out there as well, and in some areas we're seeing some more sleet and snow falling. so it's a real mixture, some quite tricky conditions early in the morning,

a wintry mixture. we've got most of the patchy fog now across the south—east of england by this stage. but with sleet and snow falling mainly across wales and northern england, there's going to be a covering of snow for many. there could be even more than that over the pennines. a dry but icy start for northern ireland, and indeed for much of scotland, but a covering of snow for northern and eastern areas. the more persistent snow should have moved southwards by this stage and the wintry showers that we're left with will soon fade away, so it's going to turn dry and sunny for scotland and indeed for northern ireland. more cloud, though, for england and wales. again a mixture of rain, sleet and mainly hill snow for northern england and wales. a few wintry showers around elsewhere and the fog will be lifting through the morning. but a cold day wherever you are, temperatures again only 1—4 celsius. and as we head into the weekend, it's going to be really cold start on saturday morning. a widespread, quite sharp frost as well. some fog around in the morning across southern england to slowly lift, but otherwise england and wales looks dry and sunny.

for scotland and northern ireland, the cloud will tend to increase as the winds pick up and we'll see some wetter weather arriving in the north—west of scotland. but another cold day — those temperatures in the afternoon 2—4 degrees for many areas. the wetter weather that's coming into the north—west on that second weather front there, and that will slip its way southwards on saturday night, but weaken. but we're left with more cloud across the northern half of the uk. still some patches of fog in southern england. southern areas, though, seeing a bright but cold day. more cloud for northern england, northern ireland and scotland in particular. some further damp weather coming back into western areas of scotland. here it should be a bit milder, and generally those temperatures a degree or so higher on sunday. things are going to get milder for many of us as we head into next week as the winds come in from the atlantic. notice that colder air still across parts of scotland, so there is the threat of some snow here. but generally next week looks much milder, but there will be some rain and some stronger winds as well.

this is bbc news — i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: donald trump finally issues a statement, saying he condemns the storming of the us capitol by his supporters. to those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. and to those who broke the law, you will pay. joe biden says wednesday's events in washington mark one of the darkest days in us history, and he's blaming donald trump. the past four years, we've had a president who's made his contempt for our democracy, our constitution, the rule of law, clear in everything he has done. trump's education secretary — betsy devos — joins a growing