into allegations that female recruits have been sexually abused and harrassed on submarines. president biden condemns an attack on the husband of senior democrat nancy pelosi, saying there's too much vitriol in us politics. the un secretary general urges all sides to renew the deal on ukrainian grain exports, which is due to expire next month. and northern ireland is facing the prospect of another election, after parties failed to reach agreement on a return to power—sharing. now on bbc news, the travel show. mind blowing, look at this. incredible. i have been to japan several times, incredible. i have been to japan severaltimes, but incredible. i have been to japan several times, but never to explore the remote rural and volcanic south where you can expect the unexpected. the extrovert... risk—takers... and

the unpredictable. i want to see an aspect ofjapan the unpredictable. i want to see an aspect of japan where they enjoyed a wilder side of life. japan, a country of 6000 islands dominated by honshu, the home of the country's capital. where are you from? . country's capital. where are you from?- but— country's capital. where are you from?- but 500 _ country's capital. where are you | from?- but 500 kilometres from? japan! but 500 kilometres south of tokyo —

from? japan! but 500 kilometres south of tokyo is _ from? japan! but 500 kilometres south of tokyo is the _ from? japan! but 500 kilometres south of tokyo is the kansai - from? jéfié'ii but 500 kilometres south of tokyo is the kansai region they call the heart of japan and a city with a very different personality, 0saka. this was japan's real first gateway to the rest of asia, korea and china especially. it is a real trading asia, korea and china especially. it is a realtrading hub, asia, korea and china especially. it is a real trading hub, export, import, commerce, and it was run and still is by businessmen and merchants. and it is those generations of wealthy traders that have shaped the city, creating its own unique culture. it has become a centre forfood and own unique culture. it has become a centre for food and developed as a home for popular entertainment. it is frantic behind there. and in particular, humour became 0saka's speciality, flourishing into a multi—million dollar business. it is about 9am, and look at this, this is the hottest ticket in town.

0saka is japan's mecca of comedy. these guys are really famous here. this theatre claims to be the busiest and most popular comedy venuein busiest and most popular comedy venue in all ofjapan, the demand is phenomenal. it is open 306 to five days every year to full houses of up to four shows per day. that is around i million people per year. thanks to constant tv exposure, comics are huge celebrities. fans travel from all over the country to see the stars live on stage. why are you here?

the show includes many types of comedy, but one of the most common and popular is manzai, a double act which emerged in osaka. so, this is now the third act, it each one is going down well. i want to find out more about the roots of comedy in this city. katsura kishi practices the traditional form of comic storytelling. and he says 0saka's love of entertainment and culture evolved from its trading history.

so, there is a very special sense of humour here in osaka. kishi has learned to perform in english as well as japanese in order to share his art with the world. i'll come to your show tomorrow. we'll see. we'll find out. rokuko comedy was invented by buddhist monks to make their teachings more entertaining. there was a car accident and the family, a father,

mother, their children were all hospitalized. but their pet, a monkey, was the only one left with police. the police said, "oh, i wish this monkey could talk." it's a storytelling tradition that obviously resembles stand—up comedy. but this is some 200 years older. and what was the father doing? laughter maybe he was drinking and driving. well, what were you doing, monkey? after the show, i wanted to get some tips from the expert. 0h, very good. monkey, what was the father doing? hang on a minute.

what were you doing, monkey? and that is it? you should move to japan and you should be a professional performer. really? time now to leave osaka and head 30 kilometres south to a satellite city, kishiwada, home to japan's most famous and dangerous festival. i'm about to witness something really quite special. one of japan's wildest annual festivals. and it's rehearsal time for a jamboree that's been going on for 300 years.

it began when local craftsmen would show off their wares to the lord of the castle. today, the tradition continues, with teams, still all—male, from individual neighbourhoods competing in a procession around the city. this year marks the debut of a brand new float or danjiri, and piku is the proud master craftsman. are you excited? maybe i can help. can i help with the rehearsal? with the pulling? maybe. before anything can happen, there's an official blessing where they pray for safety.

they are kind of offering to the god and wishes for a happy and safe festival. i'm now a member of a very, very special group of... even though this is a dress rehearsal, it's deadly serious. deadly serious. it may not technically be a race, but pride dictates the four—tonne float hurtles around at full throttle. every year, there are accidents and even deaths. but the tradition continues. oh, wow. wow, wow.

35 floats in total tackle this course at the same time. so, when you get down these very narrow streets in particular, it's really, really dangerous because that is a four—tonne load on top when they turn the corners, they can bash into the corner of buildings. it's crazy. it's like bull running in spain. but madder. after three hours of rehearsal, the teams take a breather. were there any dangerous moments, any times when you were a bit worried?

do you have the energy to do two more days, long days? so ijoined the hundreds of thousands of spectators for the real thing, the biggest event of the year. right now, we've got a perfect vantage point and they're about to do what is called yara mashi, which is the really dangerous corner turn.

we're now doing what surprisingly few visitors to japan do, which is to leave behind the main island of honshu and head out to explore one of the thousands of others. my next destination is japan's fourth biggest island, shikoku, where the roads become narrow and winding. and you're surrounded by dense forests of cedar trees. the views from up here are simply stunning. we're now in the mountains on the western side of the island. the aia valley. in the 11th and 12th centuries, these remote highlands were a perfect hideaway, literally. right. i'm now going to relive a bit

of ancient japanese history. we're really inland and remote here up in the mountains. and this is where disgraced or defeated warriors would escape to. so, this is the legendary kasra bashi bridge. apparently about 1,000 years old, made of vine, wisteria. here we go. it's supposed to be really dodgy to cross. but, hey, if warriors did it before, so can i. the plan would be you would get across this bridge and then cut the vines so that the enemy couldn't catch you.

mind you, getting across the bridge in the first place was enough. the gap between these planks of wood here is, i'd say, large enough to have your foot go through. look at that. they're sprinting across here! you did very well. so, these guys are using the side railings, which is very sensible. but i think the real samurai way is to walk across to the middle. i'm going to do that. 15 metres up and 150 feet across, this bridge is today reinforced with steel girders and rebuilt every two or three years. yes. what a samurai can do, ican do. so, further inland we go, and the stranger things become.

so i'm now walking into a village, which on the face of it is like many other rural villages injapan. it's peaceful, serene and quiet. almost too quiet. nagoro is going through the same process as thousands of other villages here — a low birth rate and an exodus from the countryside to the big city, leaving an alarming number of new ghost towns. but one lady who returned to her home village to look after her elderly father was dismayed by this trend and vowed to try and repopulate the village after a fashion.

konichiwa. nice to meet you. and yourfriends. now it's become a cottage industry, using old newspapers and clothes donated by fellow villagers and well—wishers. ayano has created her own scarecrow community. we will call it hero. it takes two days to prepare and make each scarecrow. and now there are 350 of these mannequins, way outnumbering the ten villagers left here. some people may find this scene rather spooky, but for her, it's brought unexpected celebrity. tourists arrive in regular numbers from all over the world, and there's an annual scarecrow festival.

now it's time to take the new boy to find some friends. i think i'm more attached to the scarecrows than she is, frankly. wow. ayano used to attend this school, as did most other locals, but two years ago it closed down. so she's preserved it for posterity. frozen in time from its last ever day.

from a community on the verge of extinction to one forever on the edge of danger. my next destination takes me 600 kilometres south to japan's third largest island and the city of kagoshima in the shadow of the country's most volatile mountain, sakurajima. japan is home to 108 active volcanoes, more than almost any other country.

beneath us, three peaks of the volcano and two craters. there are three eruptions a day on average from sakurajima. and today it's happily gurgling sulphuric gases, making the air pungent. 100 years ago, there was a massive eruption of this volcano which basicallyjoined it to the main island. it used to be a separate island. in fact, all the time, new islands are being created across japan because of volcanic activity. 5,000 people live in this area, their daily lives constantly affected basically by what this volcano does. so, what's it like actually living down there? only a couple of months before our visit, 77 people here were evacuated.

akira 0mura is a local tour guide who's lived here for six years, and he says he loves the energy of the place. first stop, an unusual beach with a sand isn't really sand, but lava. really sand, but lava ash. tourists who we meets are always surprised that the volcano erupts so frequently and that people actually live here. but that's because they're so well prepared. the monitoring equipment here is some of the best in the world, and locals take the danger in their stride. mayumi 0yama was recently forced to evacuate from her beloved hometown.

but in spite of the constant threat of upheaval, she wouldn't live anywhere else. and there are some fringe benefits from living in a volcanic zone. south of kagoshima lies a unique hot spring resort. basically i'm about to be slow baked in a sand oven of 50 degrees celsius for therapeutic reasons.

it's hot. i'm sweating underneath here. and it's a very strange experience. but i think the thing is to just relax into it, i guess. so, at the end of my all too brief time injapan, i'm struck by the sheer diversity of the country in terms of culture, landscape and people. yes, you are smart. you're good. as soon as i got off the regular tourist trail, i encountered quirky, humorous, adaptable individuals who love to live life to the max. and ultimately i'm left with a deep

sense of serenity and tradition that is, i would venture to say, uniquelyjapanese. that was unlike anything. hello. we have plenty of rain today, moving its way northwards, this was a picture early on in northamptonshire. a lot of cloud there, go rain now starting to clear towards the north. as we head through the rest of the

weekend, we stick with them i would have been, particularly today and are less so tomorrow. more rain around at times. due to the fact we have low pressure setting to the atlantic, that is driving northward and eastward. bringing the win from and eastward. bringing the win from a southerly or south—westerly direction. you can see the orange colours on the map showing that mild air mass which is with us at the moment. northern ireland to southern scotland as we head through this afternoon. the northern half of scotland giving try. western part of england and wales, we could see heavy showers later in the day. down towards central areas in the south—east, 22 in that sunshine will feel quite worn out there. most places in the mid to high teens. into this evening and overnight, and span the rain could be quite heavy four times for scotland and that will gradually push its way northwards overnight. clearing skies, semi scattering show is moving in from the west where will turn what it we tonight and will be frost—free with temperatures not falling lower than 10—111. don't

forget that the clocks are set to go back by an hour during the early hours of sunday morning. so it is good by british summer time for now and certainly the weather feeling less summary as we go through the week ahead. still a fair amount of dry weather but a scattering of blustery showers in the west and an area of cloud bringing patchy rain to the far south east and east anglia as well. that looks like it will bring sunshine later on that gusty winds, we could see a0 or 50 mph winds. temperatures tomorrow still above average but 13—17. down towards the south—east, that is about 5 degrees cooler compared to today. as we move through into monday, high pressure sitting across the near continent but weather fronts and trying to move in from the atlantic. that sets us up for a fairly unsettled week ahead. 0ften windy, more rain around at times, we still need plenty in the south. plenty of showery symbols on the charts, but what you will notice are the temperatures are starting to dip throughout the week ahead. that is

it for now.

this is bbc news, these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. a new wave of violence in iran, with security forces firing on anti—government protestors. the head of britain's royal navy orders an investigation into allegations that female recruits have been sexually abused and harassed on submarines. president biden condemns an attack on the husband of senior democrat nancy pelosi, saying there's too much vitriol in us politics. the un secretary general urges all sides to renew the deal on ukrainian grain exports which is due to expire next month. the coronation of the new zulu king is taking place in the south african city of durban. and northern ireland is facing

the prospect of another election, after parties failed to reach agreement on a return