and despite assurances from washington that the alliance does remain strong, the country is showing no signs of turning back. laura bicker, bbc news, seoul. rather her than me! in tennis, the world number one novak djokovic says he will defend his australian open title, after receiving a medical exemption from having a covid—19 vaccination. the nine—time australian open winner hasn't spoken publicly about his vaccination status and every player at the event, which takes place later this month, has to be fully vaccinated or have an exemption granted by an independent panel. time for a look at the weather. here's matt taylor. is it back to business as usual? yes, at long last. back to the turn of the year, the warmest new year's day on record, 16.3 celsius in london, widely into the mid—teens

across the country. the weather has had a good word with itself and it feels like january, shock to the system this lunchtime, temperatures are only a degrees above freezing in spots and snow on the ground in places, particularly in the northern half of scotland, this was kingussie this afternoon. in northern scotland frequency no shadows combined with severe gale forth winds, making hazardous travel conditions and rough seas. we will see wintry flurries through northern ireland, wales, maybe the south—west, the mild air across the south—east is clearing away but not before turning into sleet before it departs. for those of you in the southeast who went to work with temperatures up to 9 degrees, it will feel subzero in many areas on the way home, —6 with the wind chill in northern scotland. staying windy across the north, further snow showers in places, a

widespread frost into tomorrow morning. when you have the showers there is the chance of ice first thing. lots of crisp, winter sunshine tomorrow for many, a new snow showers across northern scotland, some wintry flurries in the west and greater chance of rain showers clipping the eastern coast of england. most of us will be dry and sunny, not feeling as chilly as today per temperature is a big shock from earlier. with light winds into wednesday night and even colder to come into thursday morning, temperatures as low as —6 2—9. there will be a bit more snow, particularly over the higher ground of scotland, may be too low levels, the higher ground of northern england and north wales before turning back to rain, milderair tries to push in, brightening up in the west later the temperatures close to where we should the for

this stage injanuary. into friday, after a frosty and icy starter., sunshine and showers for many, turning wintry places too, many southern and eastern areas staying dry, but it will be cold. turning milder by saturday. that's all from the bbc news at one, so it's goodbye from me, and on bbc one we nowjoin the bbc�*s news teams where you are. it's impossible to tell south africa's story without him. soft singing. in one of his last public appearances, desmond tutu sat in a wheelchair in st george's cathedral, cape town.

you are the one who understood what it meant... too frail, at last, to take his usual place in the spotlight. but that warm, irreverent spirit was there till the end. and what a life it was. i want to to say, "our much to freedom..." march to freedom..." crowd: our march to freedom... ..is unstoppable. crowd: ..is unstoppable. we are going to be free! do you agree? a life that helped to guide and shape a turbulent nation. this is god's world and he is in charge and, boy, it's going to be ok. but it's going to be ok after an exorbitant price has been paid, unnecessarily.

in all seriousness, does the white south african government think that black people are human? i will myself call for punitive economic sanctions, whatever the legal consequences may be for doing so. and when they saw that awful thing happen there, many of them said, "uh—uh, if these people can still do "things like this, maybe they are not yet ready for freedom." # we walk hand in hand...# there we go. whoopee! the one thing that helps desmond tutu stand out and occupy this unique place in south african history is that he was there at every step of the way,

through this country's torturous journey from apartheid to democracy and beyond, with that clear moral, often angry, sometimes laughing voice. a man defined, above all, by his sense of hope. desmond tutu was born in 1931. he overcame childhood polio and tb. poverty denied him the chance to become a doctor, instead he was drawn into the anglican church. south africa was now controlled by an increasingly strict system of racial apartheid, of racist laws designed to subjugate the black majority. by the 19705, tutu was dean of the anglican church injohannesburg and it was now that he took a step down the path

that would come to define him. channelling the anger, the frustration of south africa's downtrodden. in a letter to the white apartheid prime minister, tutu warned that "a people made desperate by injustice "and oppression will turn to desperate means." "i am frightened, dreadfully frightened," he wrote, "that we will soon reach a point of no return. "i wish to god that i am wrong." basicallyjust saying to him that if the government doesn't show, by some dramatic, symbolic act, that they are taking seriously ouranguish and our expression of it, that i had a nightmarish fear that we were going to have an explosion. and this was 1976, may. and he dismissed my letter contemptuously and, of course, something like a few weeks later, 16thjune happened, when violence, in fact, did erupt.

the uprising that began among soweto high school students soon swept across the country. the fight against apartheid was now on the streets — seemingly unstoppable. and for many white south africans, desmond tutu quickly became a symbol of everything they feared. when i went to work for him, there were people who, sort of, in our circle of acquaintance, or our family's acquaintance, who thought i was crazy. you know, he was the devil incarnate — literally. one of our family's friends, we learnt, said that i was going to work for the devil incarnate. because... because he was a terrorist. he was a fellow traveller. he fronted for the marxists. he was the embodiment

of evil, he was — he was... the hatred was just extraordinary. but tutu's true message was something else. the enemy, he made clear, was not white south africans, but the system that denied so many people their humanity. we will not really be free until we are all free. and we want to share this country with you. it is our country, our country, all of us, black and white, and for goodness�* sake — for goodness�* sake, let us hold hands together. almost by default, tutu was becoming a figurehead, marching with fellow priests to a notoriousjohannesburg police station to demand a prisoners�* release. yes, i have a petition, which i will read, which i seek to present to you. you can present it to me.

i don't want to listen to it. i'll take it. thank you. challenging the apartheid government, not as a mere politician, but has something much harder to contain. politician, but as something much harder to contain. we pray for those who rule this foolish land, who make its laws, land, who make its laws, and those who uphold... he wasn't bound by some ideology, he was driven by, if you like, what drove the old testament prophets — a passion forjustice, a belief that god cared most for the oppressed and the widow and the orphan and the foreigner. the people at the bottom end of the human pyramid, those were god's favourites. and it made him very powerful, of course, because he was up against an apartheid government that wrapped itself in the church and called the anc its communist

enemies and tried to take the race issue out of it, and yet here was this black anglican priest challenging them. exactly, exactly. he was able to hit the regime at one of their most vulnerable points. they claimed to be the bastion of western christian morality, if you like. — on the southern tip of africa. they claimed to be the last defence in africa against communism, whereas desmond could point out to them, if you claim to be christian, then how can you possibly treat my people like this? desmond tutu�*s status was enhanced by the fact that the anc was banned. nelson mandela was imprisoned. ohter potential leaders were either in exile or in the underground, or dead. and so this apolitical priest emerged as the public face,

the voice, of the struggle for freedom. i think desmond tutu was the voice. i think i would rather say the voice of the people when the liberationl movements were banned or restricted. and some of us went in and out of prison, he was the voice - of the people and he represented the views of the people _ and their feelings on the ground. as the struggle became ever more violent, tutu often positioned himself between black protesters and white security forces, trying to find a way to avoid bloodshed. but, increasingly, tutu also found himself mediating between rival black groups. in the townships, anger

and desperation were growing. and the search for traitors, for people spying for the apartheid security forces was turning murderous. suspects were killed on the spot. sometimes with a so—called necklace — a burning tyres placed over them. famously, tutu plunged into a crowd to save one suspect from the mob. for those young people it was almost like make an example of this guy, because we have got lots of these spies amongst us who should be stopped from spying on us and we die because of them. so, there would have been justification in their minds. and desmond wading into the crowd, again, you know, this little man, small in stature, but incredibly powerful — morally and spiritually. and essentially putting himself over the body of that person saying, "i'm not going to let this happen."

and that kind of courage silenced the mob. tutu was not afraid to confront and condemn his fellow black south africans. and the world is filled with people who support us, people who want us to be free, people who are struggling on our behalf in other countries. and when they saw that awful thing happen there, many of them said, "uh—uh, if these people can still do things "like this maybe they are not yet ready for freedom." but if we use methods such as the ones that we saw, then, my friends, i going to collect my family and to leave a country that i love very deeply.

in 1984, tutu�*s role in south africa was recognised internationally with a nobel peace prize. the prize brought him not only fame, but a degree of protection inside south africa that many other anti—apartheid activists could only dream of. we took him seriously because he was an influential person and that is why the government did not touch him. he was free to travel all over the world, he was free to address meetings and so on because, you know, if he did not do that, the furore in the world would have been tremendous. and tutu did travel the world, rallying and shaming governments in the west to confront the truth about what was happening in south africa.

the cold war was still active, the apartheid government had carefully positioned itself as a useful western ally against the spread of communism in africa. but tutu challenged all of that, playing an crucial role in persuading western nations to back economic sanctions against the apartheid regime. i give notice that even 18—24 months from today, february the third, apartheid has not been dismantled or is not being actively dismantled then for the first time i will call for punitive economic sanctions. he was key. there's no doubt about it. he came at the right time and he was very critical in terms of campaigning for sanctions. he was scathing of the blindness of people who for economic- of people who, for economic and ideological reasons - and political reasons, had a stake in preserving white dominance and the south african militaryl

dominance and all the rest of it at the southern tip of africa. i his opinion of ronald reagan was... he came out having met - with reagan and was scathing. the system of this country is evil! he said, of apartheid, very clearly, - "n is evil. — it is evil without remainder." there is no redeeming feature about it. - it stands with nazism in its... in its complete lack- of respect for the value of what he called god's little people. and that made him very awkward for britain and america, to countries that were trying to find a negotiated path through this. yes.

i think, again, the strength- of desmond's leadership and his role was to be so clear—cut, _ to be so clear about what was right and what was wrong. and not to allow himself to be i sucked into the ifs and the buts and the compromises. by now, tutu was archbishop of cape town and senior anglican cleric in southern africa. apartheid rules meant that, technically as a black man, he couldn�*t live in the archbishop�*s official residence. he ignored that law and many other laws. indeed, tutu had begun hinting at the possibility of backing the anc�*s armed struggle. but south africa was already changing. secret talks had begun between the government and the outlawed anc.

some black politicians now bristled at the way tutu behaved, the way he�*d organise a march without consulting them. i want you to say, "our march to freedom..." crowd: our march to freedom! desmond tutu called for a march and we were outraged. what mandate does this man have? so, we took ourselves off to bishop's court and to his credit, we literally rang the bell and said it is us and we want to see him, and he let us in. i discovered afterwards it was also monday where he goes into retreat, he is deeply spiritual. but he let us in and so i said to him excuse me, just what mandate after sunday, he goes into retreat. but he let us in and so i said

to him excuse me, just what mandate do you have to call marches? to call a march. and he just, he looked at me completely horrified but straight in the eye, and said to me, "i have a mandate from god." i just... what do you say? and then, abruptly, everything changed. the cold war was over and the apartheid government agreed to release nelson mandela from prison. that the government has taken a firm decision to release mr mandela unconditionally. it is indescribable. we thank god that he has heard our prayers and our leader has come out, will come out tomorrow. hallelujah. hallelujah! this was tutu�*s reaction, captured by an american television network.

and there's mr mandela... mr nelson mandela. the rest of the journey to full democracy was not smooth. thousands died in the next few years. south africa teetered on the edge of civil war. but in 1994, president mandela was sworn in and archbishop tutu began a new role. we are charged to unearth the truth about our dark past, to lay the ghost of that past, so that they will not return to haunt us and we will thereby contribute to the healing of a traumatised and wounded people. the truth and reconciliation commission opened south africa�*s rawest wounds, inviting apartheid�*s victims to tell their stories and its perpetrators to beg forgiveness.

in other hands, the process could have collapsed. but tutu, often in tears, was once again channelling the mood of the nation. it was almost as if he was carrying the whole country on his shoulders and the way that he, you know, in his characteristic manner, you know, this small as he is because he is a short person but, small as he is his shoulders and his hands and his spirit and his presence, you know? he would walk into that room in that robe of his and you could feel the sense of hope. there was no question about it. it was in the air, it was everywhere. and for that reason, you know, his presence was highly critical for the trc.

after one term as president, nelson mandela stepped down. his old home in soweto turned into a museum. desmond tutu�*s house is a few doors down. two nobel prize winners on the same street. but there was no easing into a quiet retirement for desmond tutu, mostly perhaps because itjust was not his style. but also because there was still so much to do and so much to say and, increasingly, so much going wrong in the new south africa. there was the scourge of hiv, mishandled for so many years and then there was corruption flourishing spectacularly during the presidency ofjacob zuma. tutu, as usual, spoke without caution and from the heart. i am warning you.

i am warning you that we will pray as we prayed for the downfall of the apartheid government, we will pray for the downfall of a government that misrepresents us. but the anc largely shrugged. south africa�*s turbulent priest had become an irritant, a voice to be ignored. applause. tutu was still lauded abroad. desmond tutu continues to give voice to the voiceless and bring hope to those who thirst for freedom. applause. cherished by royalty and by rock stars. # i still haven't found i what i'm looking for.#

but at 80 years old, you are more punk rock than anyone i know. applause. but his days as a central figure in south africa�*s drama were over. so, how will he be remembered? as a man of fierce moral clarity, of courage, of prayer and laughter. but, perhaps, above all, as a man of hope. how many times, at the very darkest moments, you would hear this little diminutive bishop stand up and say to the regime, "why don't you join the winning side, before it is too late?" and people would laugh, but they would also know that he was telling the truth. because he was so utterly convinced that, ultimately,

justice would prevail. # justice shall prevail # someday.# hello, again. it�*s been a cold start to the day and it is going to continue in that vein through the day. we�*ve got this weather front producing some rain across the southeast. cold air is followed on behind, we�*ve had some ice this morning, but also some snow at all levels across the northern half of scotland, accompanied by gales, even severe gales with exposure across the far north of scotland.

that combination, of course, means we could see some temporary blizzards and snow drifting on some of the higher routes. now, we lose this rain as we go through the course of the afternoon. there�*ll be a lot of dry weather. but on the brisk winds, we could see further showers, which will be wintry in places primarily on the hills in the west. two degrees, the maximum temperature in aberdeen. but add on the wind and it will feel more like minus four. and as you can see from this chart, wherever you are, it�*s going to feel cold today. now, through this evening and overnight, we hang on to the snow across scotland, accompanied by the strong winds, further wintry showers coming in on the brisk wind across northern ireland, northwest england, wales, southwest england, possibly too as far south as the north and west midlands. and it�*s going to be another cold night with a widespread frost and the risk of ice. now, we start off on a windy note tomorrow, but as a ridge of high pressure builds in things settle down a touch. the winds will ease. many of the showers fade. there�*ll still be some coming in from the west, the east and also the north. once again, it is going to feel cold wherever you are. but these temperatures are closer to where they should be at this stage

in january. as we move from wednesday night into thursday, this high pressure moves away. we�*ve got this warm front coming in behind it, something a little bit milder and hot on its heels, we�*ve got this cold front. so behind that, something a bit colder follows on. so as the rain bumps into the cold air ahead of it, we�*ll see some snow on its leading edge, even at all levels. and then as the warm front goes through, we see a return to rain. here comes the cold front behind it and the cooler conditions. so, eventually we will see a return to some wintry showers. temperatures six in the north to maybe ten as we push down towards plymouth with a change of wind direction to more a southwesterly. as we head into friday, the winds coming in from the west, not particularly strong, but blowing in a fair few showers. the strongest winds will be through the irish sea. and we could actually see some gales later in the day across parts of western scotland. temperatures three in the north to nine in the south.

this is bbc news broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. i�*m ben brown, our top stories: prince andrew�*s lawyers prepare to ask a us court to dismiss a civil sexual assault case brought by virginia giuffre. pupils across the uk head back to school amid concerns about staff shortages. covid is causing problems around the world with schooling. we�*ll hear from the head of a teacher�*s union in the us. a second chinese city is locked down and the winter olympic bubble sealed, as officials rush to contain outbreaks, a month before the opening ceremony. after questions about his covid vaccination status, novak djokovic gets a medical exemption and says he will travel to australia to defend his open title.