bullets to disperse crowds, in the biggest crackdown yet on anti—coup protesters. over 400 people were arrested in yangon. the army, which seized power earlier this month, says it's sacked the country's un ambassador after he condemned the coup. us regulators have authorised the use of the single dose johnson and johnson covid vaccine, for people aged 18 and over. it's the third vaccine to become available, following those from pfizer and moderna. johnson and johnson say they will begin distributing it immediately. new zealand's biggest city has begun a snap seven—day lockdown — after the discovery of a new coronavirus case. the police in auckland have prepared checkpoints near the city's borders — and public venues have been shut. members of the public are being urged to stick

to the lockdown rules this weekend—the first since the road map out of the coronavirus restrictions was released. saturday saw some of the warmest temperatures of the year so far, and in london it brought many people out into the capital's open spaces — but there are concerns it could lead to some ignoring the rules. leigh milner reports. victoria park, broadway market in hackney and around the corner, london fields. a great day for a bike ride — a picnic, not so much. we want to make sure that lockdown is eased at the dates that the government has said, and my message is, please, the regulations are still in place. picnics and meet—ups aren't allowed until the 8th of march, but it didn't stop people here at high beech near loughton. i've been driving around this car park here for about half an hour, and it is absolutely packed. can everybody remember to keep their distance? if you're too close to the person in front... for the owner of this cafe, a long line of customers

is great for business, but hard to manage. today has been extra special. as you can see, we are really, really busy. we are asking people to distance themselves. it is not actually working at the moment, but i will go back and spread them out again. throughout the day, many people enjoy the sunshine across london. please keep your 2m distances, please. i but experts warn there's never been a more important time to remember the rules. when you've got a large portion who don't go out much — the older, the vulnerable, who have been vaccinated — and a large proportion of people who do go out more, the so—called mixers — the younger and more healthy — who haven't, that is the key time for a variant to emerge. and if we end up with a vaccine—resistant variant, then we're all going to be back to square one, but with no prospect of an immediate vaccine on the horizon. do not wreck this now. it is too early to relax. just continue to maintain discipline and hang on,

just a few more months — do not wreck this. as spring arrives, londoners are being reminded that lockdown isn't over yet, and there's still a long way to go. leigh milner, bbc london. now on bbc news, our world. the amazon rainforest is one of the most beautiful and biodiverse places on earth... ..and if you want to buy a chunk of it, now all you have to do is go online. we've discovered facebook has become a go—to marketplace for brazil's illegal land grabbers... ..ready to turn pristine rainforest into cattle pasture for buyers around the world at the click of a button... indistinct voices ..no matter what or who they harm.

i'm joao fellet and i'm going to take you undercover to meet the sellers behind the online ads... ..to find out who they are and how they are getting away with it. deforestation in the brazilian amazon is at a ten—year high. is facebook fuelling that destruction? deforestation is happening in every corner of the amazon.

it's not hard to find communities of illegal loggers working away. we were invited by a logger to actually visit the place where he's chopping the trees right now. we are about to enter the forest. this logger says he's been caught by the authorities twice, but all they did was give him cautions. one of the federal agencies which polices deforestation in the amazon is ibama, but they've had their budget slashed by the government.

a tree like this is worth twice the monthly salary for someone on minimum wage. this young logger tells us he's cut down thousands. but loggers like this are only part of the story. the destruction of the amazon is driven by the demand for land. and we've discovered that land deals these days are moving online. we started this investigation by typing some words on facebook, like forest. and there were hundreds of ads. people were selling chunks of the amazon rainforest. we started going through the ads one by one.

we quickly discovered that a lot of sellers openly admit they don't have any documentation which proves they own the land they're advertising. this plot in amazonas state, it's just been deforested. the seller says she has no documents and she would take a motorbike as part of her payment. chunks of rainforest as large as 1,000 football pitches were being offered, and it got worse. using satellite imagery, we were able to confirm a lot of the plots on sale were, in fact, inside protected areas. some of the most biodiverse places on earth were being advertised on facebook as perfect for timber harvesting and cattle farming. but how do we prove that this is notjust an online scam? how do we prove that this is real people selling real plots of land 7 we have to go there and find them.

a lot of the ads we found were coming from one place in particular... ..the state of rondonia. it is known as the wild west of brazil. a state famous for its violent land disputes and for having one of the highest rates of deforestation in the amazon. in the 2018 election, people here voted heavily in favour of now president jair bolsonaro, who told communities like this that the amazon rainforest was theirs to develop. shouting we've come here to try to find the sellers we saw on facebook, but, to do that, we need to send someone undercover. we'd found an operative with a good knowledge of land

deals who's willing to help expose what's going on. using undercoverfilming equipment, he's going to pose as a lawyer checking out land on behalf of wealthy investors from sao paulo. but land development is a dangerous business in rondonia. in the past five years alone, more than 50 people have been murdered in land disputes here. so to protect our operative, we're going to hide his real identity. but you can call him lucas. we arranged for lucas to meet the first seller at a local cafe. would our cover story work? phone line rings

fabricio is a middle—class guy with a steadyjob as a supervisor at a slaughterhouse. he seems to have a comfortable life in the city, and still he's involved with this, which makes us think that he's doing it as a side gig. fabricio begins to open up. the plot he's selling is the size of 57 football pitches, but he tells lucas he doesn't have any legal proof of ownership. sellers and buyers rely

on the culture of impunity that exists in the amazon. they're just very comfortably negotiating plots of land that they don't legally own. it is so easy to play the system here. a very important detail about this ad is, when he posted it, there was a satellite picture showing an area that was fully covered by forest. but fabricio tells us that is no longer the case, and he invites lucas to come and see for himself. lucas follows fabricio in his car two hours outside

of the state capital, porto velho. we track his movements remotely. they arrive at an area that should be covered in primary rainforest. indistinct speech last year, there were 103,000 recorded fires in the amazon. clearances done for profit by people like fabricio account for much of the deforestation. fabricio has now tripled

his asking price. valuable, and that is how he will profit. the illegal land market in the amazon is booming. access to buyers on social media could help make we contacted fabricio for his response to the investigation, but he declined to comment. almost entirely covered in rainforest until the 1980s, rondonia today looks like a patchwork quilt of cattle pastures. there are eight cows for every person here. protected areas and indigenous territories are almost all that remains of the once—vast amazon rainforest in this state, and

now even they are under threat. we meet up with environmental activist ivaneide bandeira. she's been fighting deforestation in rondonia for more than 30 years. ivaneide wants to show us an area of protected rainforest.

her charity, kaninde, works with indigenous peoples to help them protect their territories from land invaders. but it's dangerous work. 2a environmental activists were killed in brazil in 2019 alone. ari was a member of the community living inside rondonia's largest indigenous territory, uru—eu—wau—wau. he was found with stab wounds in his neck. no—one has been arrested for his death.

one of the sellers we found on facebook was advertising land inside ari's home, the uru—eu—wau—wau indigenous territory. he's one of the invaders grabbing land from ari's family. the uru—eu—wau—wau indigenous territory is a rainforest paradise in the middle of rondonia's farming heartland.

we've come here to meet bitate, the leader of ari's indigenous community. bitate is only 20 years old, but, under his leadership, the community has set up a team to monitor and catch invaders. ari was a member of the team. shouting this man was caught inside the territory with a gun. funai — the federal agency meant to protect brazil's indigenous peoples — doesn't have an office here. the closest is 200km away. bitate says the invasions are getting worse and worse.

invasions happen here with or without facebook, but facebook makes it easier than ever for sellers to find buyers.

could we find the invader trying to sell part of the uru—eu—wau—wau reserve on facebook? the next day, our undercover operative, lucas, heads out of town. the seller we found on facebook advertising lands inside the uru—eu—wau—wau territory has agreed to a meeting. just as before, he thinks lucas is a lawyer representing wealthy investors from sao paulo. the seller is a man called alvim alves. he has brought with him several official—looking documents. none of them is a legal land title. one of the documents he shows lucas mentions the cu rupira association. the federal police labelled

this association, this curupira association, as a criminal organisation focused on stealing land from the indigenous people. these associations occupy protected areas and lobby pro—agriculture politicians to grant the stolen lands to their members. then alvim invites our undercover operative, lucas, to meet a man he says is the leader of his association. lucas is introduced to edinario batista. edinario denies being the leader of the curupira association, but says, like alvim, he has plots inside the uru—eu—wau—wau indigenous reserve.

it's hard to evict large groups of people, especially when there's no forest left to protect. president bolsonaro says protected areas hinder brazil's development. edinario reveals the association's got a politician setting up meetings for them in the country's capital, brasilia. land—grabbing in brazil isn't just enterprising hustlers looking for money on the side. organised groups like this, backed by politicians, are more and more common. the politician edinario

mentioned is representative colonel chrisostomo. as we head back to rondonia's capital, porto velho, we make a call to his team. the colonel agrees to meet us the next day. colonel chrisostomo. a former army officer, colonel chrisostomo was elected for the first time in 2018 on the same political wave and with the same party that helped president bolsonaro rise to power. the colonel admits helping the curupira association meet federal agencies in brasilia, but he tells us his role as a politician is to connect people.

we contacted alvim and edinario for a response to our investigation, but they both declined to comment. since bolsonaro's government came to power, illegal logging and mining groups have been given unprecedented access to government officials. back home in sao paulo, we take the results of our investigation to brazil's environment minister, ricardo salles.

but our experience in rondonia tells a different story. and now facebook is allowing brazil's land invaders to reach millions of buyers around the world. in response to the bbc�*s investigation, facebook said... the social media giant told us... but in places like rondonia, a lot of people don't want to preserve the most biodiverse rainforest on earth. they want to develop it. despite decades of international pressure, the destruction of the amazon

rainforest isn't slowing down. it's speeding up. the weather's been pretty good lately across most of the uk. lots of sunshine, it feels like spring. the flowers are coming up. there's certainly more oomph to that sunshine, and there's every reason to believe the weather is going to stay settled for the next few days because of high pressure. but high pressure doesn't necessarily mean sunshine everywhere. in fact, it really does all depend on how the wind blows and where around the area of high pressure. and sometimes we get sort of lumps of cloud stuck in that high, and they may creep in from the coast well inland.

so, it does mean that some areas in the morning could be pretty overcast. where the skies are clear overnight, there'll be a touch of frost in the morning, but elsewhere, it's going to be above freezing. so, this is what it might look like in some areas early on sunday morning, and in fact possibly even into the afternoon. here's an example. around lincolnshire, east anglia and down into the south east, possibly london, too, you may have to wait a while before that cloud burns to the coast, if it does. in some areas, it might actually hang around, and temperatures will struggle to seven degrees. but out towards central and western areas, we're talking about 10—12 degrees. not spectacular, but actually mild enough, really, for the very end of february. because as we head into the 1st of march, the first day of meteorological spring, again a touch of frost in the morning to greet us, to greet march. temperatures out towards western areas a little bit milder there, 3—6 degrees.

now, here's the high pressure monday and into tuesday. it'll sort of be around about here. in fact, extending its reach well into europe across the alps and further south into the mediterranean as well. now, look how much cloud there is on monday. now, this is so, so difficult to predict. in fact, it could linger, it may not. it may actually clear away, so there's a bit of a caveat there. yes, plenty of sunshine with the high pressure, but it's not guaranteed. and it's a little bit cooler, only around eight degrees. in fact, there will be a tendency for temperatures to drop a little bit as we go through the course of the week. slightly cooler air may be reaching us from the northern climes, but enjoy the sunshine if you can.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories us regulators approve the use of the johnson and johnson covid vaccine — for everyone aged 18 and over. myanmar security forces use tear—gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds — in the biggest crackdown yet on people protesting against the military coup. new zealand's biggest city, begins a snap seven—day lockdown — after the discovery of a new coronavirus case. tributes are paid to the record—breaking, british charity fundraiser, captain sir tom moore — at his funeral, family members say his spirit will live on.