this is bbc world news, i'm simon pusey. our top stories: the us warns the russian troop build—up near ukraine is the largest since the cold war, as attempts to find a diplomatic solution continue. after days of confusion the downing street lockdown parties report is now expected to be delivered without waiting for the police inquiry. tens of thousands displaced, and over 80 killed, as tropical storm ana sweeps across countries in south eastern africa. more doubts emerge about novak djokovic�*s covid status during his attempt to enter australia for the tennis open. and, the influential online streaming platform, twitch, accused of encouraging unhealthy behaviour.

hello and welcome to bbc news. russia's president, vladimir putin, says the us and it's allies in the nato military alliance, have ignored moscow's main security concerns over eastern europe, with ukraine at the heart of tensions. the comments were made in a phone call with president macron of france, after washington had rejected russian demands that nato rule out ukraine joining the defence alliance. gabriel gatehouse reports from western ukraine. somewhere in a frozen field in western ukraine, they're preparing for war with the help of the british military. ukrainian soldiers are trying out their latest weapon. it's a shoulder—held anti—tank missile

that's been provided by the uk. this is an exercise. but here, they know they may have to use their weapons against real russian tanks in the not—too—distant future. it's a very big deal when our partners, our friends, from other countries are doing everything possible to improve our defence capabilities. do you need more? do you want more? you know, it's hard to say what we need more if we are facing the war. for this moment, we have at least something that we make sure that we are capable to defend our countries. the brits have had a small military presence here since 2015... how many of you are there? so, the training team is ranging between eight to nine individuals. ..a couple of dozen officers in a training capacity. the ukrainians have been fighting russian—backed

separatists in the east for nearly eight years now. but by supplying these anti—tank missiles, the uk is sending a strong signal — both about its commitment to ukraine and about how it assesses the current russian threat. part of this is about training the ukrainian military, of course, and about the ukrainian military being ready for any eventuality. but a big part of this also — and the reason that we've been invited to film all of this — is because this is about sending a public message. is russia really about to launch a full—scale invasion of ukraine? the view in london and washington at the moment seems to be yes, it's likely. but in kyiv, they're playing it down. translation: you get - the impression from the media that we're at war, that there are soldiers on the streets, that there's mobilisation going on, that people are running away. we don't need that panic.

there's a lot of posturing going on at the moment. moscow saying nato's ignoring its security concerns as it continues its troop build—up on the border. the response from the west is increasingly alarmed, and alarming. this is perilous geopolitical terrain and ukraine is trying to chart a course through it. there may yet be what they call an �*off ramp�*, a way of defusing the crisis, but there's a danger that talk of all—out war becomes a self—fulfilling prophecy. gabriel gatehouse, bbc news, western ukraine. a senior british civil servant is expected to deliver her report on lockdown parties at downing street to the the british prime minister soon, without waiting for the police to finish their investigation. scotland yard has made it clear that it has not delayed the report's publication. here's our political correspondent, iain watson. which rules could have been broken behind the famous black door

during lockdown? the report from the senior civil servant sue gray was expected to provide some answers this week — that was until cressida dick, the country's top police officer, said on tuesday that her force was launching its own investigation. the metropolitan police had said then that they had no objections to sue gray's report being published, and in not one, but two statements today, the police insisted they weren't delaying the report. but crucially, they asked for only minimal reference to be made in the cabinet office report to the relevant events, saying this was: so, to translate — they don't want to see too much in the public domain about the more serious allegations of rule—breaking in downing street until they've carried out their own work. the labour leader said this must be done promptly. what i want to see is sue gray's report in full and the investigation finished

as quickly as possible, because we're in this situation where the whole of government is paralysed. sue gray's task is to set out the facts about events such as the bring—your—own—booze drinks in the downing street garden and the apparently raucous leaving dos on the eve of prince philip's funeral. other political leaders at westminster have gone so far as to suggest that the met could be helping out borisjohnson if its intervention causes a potentially damaging report to be delayed or diluted. well, first, the met said they had to wait for the sue gray report. now, they say the sue gray report has to wait for the met. so, of course, people feel this looks like a stitch—up. this does look as if it's been a stitch—up, and the only person that benefits from this is borisjohnson. the government are, of course, entitled to raise questions- about... these suggestions were met with derision by this government minister. i don't think any prime - minister would suddenly think it was a great idea to be i interviewed by the police.

i know people get excited by dead cat strategies, i but this is a sort of- trophy—hunted dead lion being slammed on the table, which i think is hard to say is helpful. i i'm told sue gray was trying to redraft parts of her report to try to address any police concerns. she wanted to avoid redactions — in other words, blanking out whole swathes of text — in case that looked like a whitehall whitewash. but tonight, she seemed to face a choice of either delay or delete. and if anything less than her full report emerges, there'll be a political outcry. many conservatives will be keen to read that full report because some of borisjohnson�*s own mps will try to oust him if they don't like what they see — just look at what the former occupant of number 10 said in a letter obtained by her local paper. theresa may stated:

some say that the events have descended into farce at the heart of government, but for those directly affected by the tragedy of the pandemic, it's no laughing matter. for the people who are here at the wall every week, painting hearts, it's infuriating, it's distressing and it's really disappointing. tonight, it seems these families, as well as the politicians, are going to have to wait longer for the full picture of what happened in lockdown to become clear. iain watson, bbc news, westminster. let's get some of the day's other news. data from oxford university shows that ten billion coronavirus jabs have now been administered around the world. more than 60% of the world's population have now received at least one dose of a vaccine, though this figure falls to less than 10% in low income countries. police in brazil have disclosed details of an investigation into presidentjair bolsonaro which accuses him of trying to discredit the electoral system by spreading false information. mr bolsonaro said the electronic voting system was flawed and

susceptible to fraud. the us east coast is bracing for a major blizzard to hit the region for the first time in four years. the storm is forecast to stretch from the carolinas to maine, packing hurricane—force winds in coastal parts. five states have declared emergencies. more than 4,000 flights have been cancelled. the peruvian government has said the coastal oil spill two weeks ago, that has already been declared an ecological disaster, is twice as big as previously reported. almost 12,000 barrels were dumped into the sea instead of the 6,000 previously reported. a tanker unloading oil was hit by freak waves triggered by a tsunami after a volcanic eruption near tonga. campaigning has drawn to a close in portugal ahead of sunday's parliamentary election. hundreds of supporters of rival parties staged marches and rallies in the capital

lisbon and the city of porto. voter surveys indicate the race between the governing socialists and the main centre—right opposition is too close to call suggesting a hung parliament may result. tens of thousands of people in three southern african countries have been cut off by flood waters following torrential rains brought on by tropical storm ana. officials say more than 80 people across madagascar, mozambique and malawi have died. mark lobel reports. a ripple of calm after the storm that ripped through madagascar, where dozens died and tens of thousands fled their homes. translation: | am very sad | because we worked like crazy to make money and now, our house is destroyed. how can we not be sad? we are victims of this disaster and get no help. there is nothing.

makeshift shelter for the young and homeless. the flooded island in a state of emergency with electricity scarce. storm ana's next stop was mozambique. here, it also destroyed thousands of homes, ripping through schools, hospitals and power lines. translation: four children died. - four. plus the man from the army, too. but for sure, more died. no—one told us the water was coming. each neighbour was just running for themselves. their staff will help an estimated 16,000 people it says need humanitarian assistance here. the un has described this storm as a blunt reminder of the reality of climate change. mozambique's by minister points

out that his country contribute little to climate change but is one of the ones that suffers most from its impact. in neighbouring malawi, roads were sliced apart, and many livelihoods destroyed. translation: this is devastating. - look — all of my maize crop has been buried. i planted 1.5 acres. it's all gone. following this storm, there is an unwelcome warning of another one building in the indian ocean that could add to the damage. mark lobel, bbc news. this is bbc news. the headlines: the us has warned that the build—up of russian troops on the ukraine border is the largest since the cold war. earlier, the russian president, vladimir putin, told his french counterpart, emmanuel macron, that he had no plans for an offensive. the report into parties held at downing street during lockdown is expected to be delivered to the prime minister shortly. there had been speculation the report would be delayed. a bridge in the us city of pittsburgh has collapsed

hours before a visit to the area by president biden, to tout the investment his administration is making in america's infrastructure. six vehicles, including a bus, were on the bridge at the time, but no deaths have been reported. here's our north america correspondent peter bowes. it took just seconds for the snow—covered forbes avenue bridge to collapse early on friday morning. the steel structure, built in 1970, is a common route for motorists travelling into downtown pittsburgh. the emergency services were flooded with calls. this woman lives near the bridge. she described the moment it collapsed into a ravine below. it sounded like a huge snowplough pushing along a raw tarmac surface with no snow. at the scene, a bus dangles precariously from what remains of the bridge with several cars in a similar position. miraculously,

no—one was seriously hurt. we were fortunate. the bus went over, and right now, we don't have no fatalities. we have three hurt — they are being looked at — and ten have been seen and they are ok, so we will continue to hope for the best and make sure we get through this together. the collapse happened just hours before president biden was due in the area to talk about infrastructure. he went straight to the bridge to thank first responders and make a promise. we're going to fix them all. not a joke. this is gonna be a gigantic change. in november, mr biden signed legislation into law that includes $110 billion to repair and rebuild roads and bridges. in his preplanned speech later in the day, the president — who grew up in pennsylvania — said the bridge collapse

highlighted an urgent need to improve the country's infrastructure. all these years, i never knew pennsylvania — pittsburgh, pennsylvania, had more bridges than any other city in the world — yo! applause but across the country, there are 115,000 bridges in poor condition. that is just simply unacceptable. it isn't known yet why this bridge collapsed so suddenly. it had been inspected as recently as september, but a report in 2019 revealed its condition was deteriorating. efforts are now under way to remove vehicles from the mangled structure, but given the difficult terrain, officials say it could take months to clear up the debris. peter bowes, bbc news. a race against time is under way for the us navy to reach one of its downed fighter jets. an f35cjet crash landed off the uss carl vinson in the south china sea

earlier this week but concern remains about whether china will make an attempt to salvage the $100 million aircraft first. mark cancian is a senior adviser for the international security program at the center for strategic and international studies in washington dc. while china has denied any interest in recovering the aircraft, he says, given the chance, it would. well, these aircraft have avionics, they have sophisticated electronics, they have sensors — that is things like radars and infrared detectors. they have weapons — the us' most sophisticated weapons — and even some of the materials that go into making these aircraft are very specially designed and developed. these would all help the chinese first to counter the us and any country that operates the f—35 aircraft, including the united kingdom, and it would also help them build their own aircraft. they are trying to counter the us advantage and they would use this information

to make their own aircraft more effective. what do you think is going to happen in the next few days and weeks? well, there's no question the united states is going to go get it. first, they've told — they've said they were going to go get it but also, when something like this happens, the united states routinely goes and recovers the aircraft, and it does that for a couple of reasons. you know, one is because of the technology but it's also for the accident investigation, to find out what happened, why the aircraft crashed. and sometimes it's a question of personnel recovery. fortunately, that's not the case here. about once a year, there is an aircraft that goes in and the united states will recover it. we've pulled aircraft out from great depths — almost four miles below the ocean — and in just last year, salvage operations recovered a uk f—35 in the mediterranean, so this kind of work is relatively routine. the united states has a great advantage in this race in that we know where the air plane is and the chinese don't. i mean, the chinese probably have a rough idea where it is,

but we know exactly where it is, and we will be sending ships out there to salvage it. typically, that's taken about a week — or, rather, a month or six weeks. i think, the united states is going to try to do that as quickly as they can. and are there any concerns around issues around this particular type of plane, because this is not the first time an accident of this nature has happened. the f—35 is a new aircraft that has had problems but its accident rate isn't bad. the united states has lost five — that's not unusual for this kind of aircraft — so it's not the accident rate, it's the fact it's such a sophisticated aircraft. it's also a problem with the navy — that this is the first deployment of these f—35s. they were hoping it would go very smoothly and, you know, clearly, something has happened and they are going to have to look at that and figure out what happened so it doesn't happen again. mark cancian. research from the bbc has cast doubt on the timing of the positive covid test result that novak djokovic recently used to enter australia. it allowed him exemption

from rules barring unvaccinated people. however the serial number on his test dated december 16th appears out of sequence with a sample of tests analysed by the bbc. our sports correspondent, natalie pirks, has the details. another day, another media scrum. but as novak djokovic received honorary citizenship in a montenegrin town today, this hero's welcome was a far cry from his treatment in australia. this shot of the unvaccinated star stuck at the border was the beginning of a saga that ultimately saw him deported. fighting to stay, he'd argued he'd been granted an exemption to play by tennis australia because, very close to the wire, he'd tested positive for covid—19. his legal team presented two covid test certificates to the court from the serbian institute of public health. the first, allegedly taken on december 16, shows a positive result.

the second, processed from a different lab six days later shows a negative one. but a couple of weeks ago, a german research company wondered why the unique confirmation code on the early test was higher than the later one. usually, they're generated in chronological order. the bbc has delved deeper. a total of 56 test certificates were collected and their unique confirmation codes plotted against the date of each result. in all cases, the earlier the result, the lower the unique code. all except one — novak djokovic's positive test on december 16. according to the bbc�*s graph, this confirmation code would actually suggest a test some time between the 25th and 28th of december. djokovic travelled to australia on january 4. how likely is it that that is a glitch in the system? it's not likely, but we don't know all the aspects and it's possible that there is some other explanation,

so i really hope the public institutions will provide transparency and clarify all this. so far, djokovic, the serbian institute of public health, and its office of information technology have not responded to bbc requests for comment. i think everyone's polarised at the moment on novak djokovic, which will be hurtful to him, but it won't do his reputation any good if it's found out that he's been telling porky pies. rafael nadal will contest the australian open final on sunday, locked on 20 grand slams with the serbian. a 21st is unprecedented in men's tennis. djokovic may only have himself to blame as his rival takes shot at the prize he so covets. natalie pirks, bbc news. a week after his death, but out

of hell has re—entered the british charts at number three. released in 1977, it became one of the bestselling albums ever and has accumulated more than 500 weeks in the uk charts. meat loaf died last friday, aged 7a. playing video games for a living is an aspirational career for millions across the world. however, the most influential online streaming platform, twitch, is accused of encouraging unhealthy practices. there are now calls for the billion—dollar company to change the way it operates, as the bbc�*s gaming reporter, steffan powell explains in this exclusive report sings with man off-screen: welcome to my... man: what the f... like, what?! screaming: i'm in trouble! this is twitch, where all day, every day, you'll find people filming themselves playing video games and interacting with viewers. some, like ninja here, can earn big bucks. he's reportedly worth around £18 million. owned by amazon, 30 million people across the globe visit the site daily.

traditionally, communal gaming meant coming somewhere like this and sharing a screen with a mate. but today, online gaming means that people play with friends from all over the world from home, and what online streaming platforms like twitch have done is allowed some to turn that into a job. i missed every shot, i think. laughs. which is what sam, known to her followers as �*sooshi', did. the former office manager loved it but is one of many i've spoken to that says they've sacrificed their health to make a living using the site, saying it encourages long periods online. i'd say it had an effect on my confidence a lot. i still — to this day, i still don't open the door. like, i don't open the door to anyone. sam took a financial risk to stream for a living. she was online for up to ten hours a day every day to pay the bills. that lead to anxiety and symptoms of agoraphobia. i don't think i went out in, like, the first year that

i was full time, barely. maybe to the shop, at a push. it sounds really silly but i don't really like talking to anyone, like, face—to—face because i haven't — it's been so long since i've done it, like, to another human. i don't like it. we are starting to split. streamers have told me the longer you're online, the more your channel will grow subscribers and advertising revenue. it is a numbers game with twitch. it's a lot about being on throughout the day as often and as long as you can, so that it's really, really disincentivised to stream for short bursts. as a result of these concerns, bbc news has been told that twitch needs to make changes to better protect content creators. it encourages streamers to be on stream for many hours — sometimes 2a hours or more — and that clearly has effects on people's physical health and mental health. and i think the platforms really need to think about changing the mechanics of the platform, changing the financial model to protect the health of streamers.

in a statement, twitch said that streamers' safety is their number one priority. they added that advice and mental health resources are available on their site, and say that they're developing a new programme to support streamers with the pressures of thejob. sam's reduced her hours on twitch now. it got too much. this could be bad. today, she's notjust battling for victory in the virtual world, but also to get a conversation going about healthy streaming practices in the real one. steffan powell, bbc news. the world's most famous female mouse is getting a makeover. minnie mouse will soon be changing into this smart blue pantsuit, swapping out of her traditional red polka dot dress, while keeping her iconic bow. the new look was designed by stella mccartney to celebrate 30 years of disneyland's paris resort. minnie will debut the outfit from march, marking women's history month. that is about it from me. you

can follow me on twitter and more news on the website. from me and the rest of the team, please, keep watching. goodbye. hello there. so far this month, it's been pretty quiet with high pressure dominating the scene. we've had light winds for most, but that's certainly not the case this weekend. northern parts of the country will be impacted by some severe gales at times, which could cause some disruption, and we'll see another spell of wet and windy weather during sunday night. higher pressure further south, which means the winds will be lighter, but this deepening area of low pressure's been named by the danish met service as storm malik, and you can see why — plenty of isobars across the north of the uk as this system continues to push down in towards the norwegian sea. widespread yellow wind warnings across the north of the country. gusts of 70—80mph likely across parts of scotland. an amber warning issued for parts of eastern scotland, could see some impacts from aberdeen

down towards edinburgh. got a weather front sinking southwards through the day. that will bring some cloud to southern england, where it will stay quite mild, but behind it, skies brighten, sunshine and blustery showers, but it will be turning colder. it will be very windy for a time across the north and east of the country for saturday night but very quickly, a ridge of high pressure builds in. winds will turn lighter, most of the showers will ease down, so under those clear skies with lightening winds, then temperatures will fall. a touch of frost out of town under those clear skies. so, our ridge of high pressure will bring us a fine, settled start for much of sunday but we'll see the next area of low pressure hurtling into the north—west of the country. that's going to bring another round of rain, gales and mountain snow. so, it will start chilly with some frost but plenty of sunshine for much of england and wales. a bit more cloud for scotland and northern ireland. later in the day, it will start to turn wetter and windier across the north—west.

some mountain snow for scotland and gales developing once again, particularly across the west of scotland and then pushing into northern ireland, the rest of scotland, then northern england later in the day. those winds always little bit lighter further south but it will be a chillier day compared to saturday with temperatures of 4—9 degrees. and then, that area of low pressure moves across the north of scotland. we'll see a real squeeze in the isobars. gales or severe gales affecting northern ireland, much of scotland, perhaps the north of england. again, gusts of 70—80 mph fora time, so this could cause some disruption. so, two storms this weekend for the north of britain which could bring some damaging gusts. we're likely to see some disruption in places, so stay tuned to the forecast. see you later.

peter bowes, bbc news. this is bbc news,

the headlines: the us has warned that the build—up of russian troops on the ukraine border is the largest since the cold war. earlier, the russian president, vladimir putin, told french president, emmanuel macron, that he had no plans for an offensive, but that nato had failed to address russia's main demands. after days of confusion over the publishing date of the downing street lockdown parties report, it is now expected to be delivered without waiting for the police inquiry. the exact timing is still unclear. there had been speculation that the report might be delayed because of a metropolitan police request. tens of thousands of people have been cut off by flood waters following torrential rains brought by tropical storm ana. at least 86 people across madagascar, mozambique, and malawi have died. rescue workers have struggled to reach regions where roads and bridges have washed away.

new post—brexit border rules between britain and the eu,