this is bbc news, i'm vishala sri—pathma. our top stories: the ukjoins a growing list of countries imposing new covid restrictions on people arriving from china. barbara walters, the american journalist who led the way for women to present major network tv news programmes, has died aged 93. we all looked up to her. we wanted to be some form of barbara walters, and yet we have to know that she tread a much harder road than the rest of us. six years of tax returns which donald trump refused to make public have been released in the us, showing he paid nothing during his last year in the white house. cristiano ronaldo signs to play for the saudi arabian side al—nassr on a contract thought to be worth more than $200 million a year.

and brazil lights up in honour of pele on the first of three days of national mourning for the footballing legend. the world health organization has called on china to share accurate data on coronavirus infections and deaths. it follows a sharp rise in cases after beijing abandoned its zero—covid policy. on friday, the british government announced that all passengers travelling to england from mainland china will be required to produce a negative covid test before boarding their flight. a number of other countries including the united states, india, france, spain and italy have already announced similar measures. our political correspondent helen catt reports. a flight touching down this evening at heathrow from

qingdao. from thursday, anyone travelling to england from mainland china will have to show a negative covid test to fly. from a week on sunday, a sample of passengers at heathrow will also be tested on arrival. the government says it is a precaution, due to a lack of comprehensive information from the chinese government. the country has seen a surge of coronavirus, which analysts claim is being under—reported. the reason there are millions of cases of coronavirus infection happening is because the population there are either unvaccinated or undervaccinated, using chinese vaccines that don't work as well as the mrna vaccines that we've been using in western countries. and the consequence is that there's a really big surge in infections. and what people are concerned about is that among those new infections, there may be new variants of the virus. it is not thought that any new variants of coronavirus are circulating in china.

yesterday ministers here said that meant they had no plans to introduce testing. some had urged the government to consider it and are pleased at the change of heart. the approach we've taken on board does make it clear to chinese authorities that, given their lack of transparency on their data, we will have to put in measures, and it does do some improvement on protecting the nhs. so it is not the full measure, but i think it's pragmatic and a sensible first step. the changes will bring england in line with the united states. france has tonight, too, said it will bring in mandatory testing. italy, india and japan are among other countries which have already done so. the uk government says it will review the temporary measures if china improves on its transparency and information sharing. dr genie marrazzo is the director of infectious diseases at the university of alabama at birmingham. i asked her if the new

measures were justified. it's a great question, and part of the reason to ask that are the different approaches that are emerging right now. the european cdc is very much not in favour of these sanctions, and yet you just mentioned several countries that are getting on board. i think a lot of the rationale has to do with the fact that we really don't know what's going on in china. there have been anecdotal reports of extreme icu or intensive care unit loads, as well as use of emergency departments for what we think is a really serious upswing in infections. but in the absence of very good reporting and transparency, we just don't know. also, china has not really been submitting very many of its viruses for the genomic sequences that helps us define variants. so, while we say we don't think new variants are emerging

from china, we really can't say that with great confidence. so the two reasons to do this are to keep disease out and not import it. that's irrelevant if we all have covid in all of these countries right now. and the other reason is to avoid importation of a new, concerning variant, and we really don't know if that is a risk given the lack of data. yes, and it is interesting because you mentioned there about the lack of transparency. for lots of people and lots of countries and authorities, the end of this policy of zero covid in china sort of caught them by surprise. i mean, was there perhaps a better way of handling that? lots of experts have pointed to that. yeah, it's a great question. i think that if you look at what has worked in other countries, sometimes by default and not even with great strategic implementation, ie in the united states, what seems to have mitigated the ongoing devastation of what could be seen with this virus has been a step—up in effective vaccination.

and i'll come back to that, because china has a real problem with that for two big reasons. sinovac, which is their vaccine, is really not as effective as the mrna vaccines, especially in the elderly. so you've got a very big, vulnerable population to this new wave of infections. and people are very nervous that when you have this immunologically naive population, particularly older people, who are more likely to get infected and get severe consequences, that you are going to see a severe impact. the veteran american journalist barbara walters has died at the age of 93. born in boston, massachusetts, she was the first female co—presenter of a major network tv news programme in the united states. in a career that spanned five decades, walters won 12 emmy awards, 11 of those while working at abc news. tributes are already being paid to barbara walters on social media. dan rather, another leading us news broadcaster, tweeted:

the actress lynda carter, who was interviewed by barbara several times, said: and robin roberts, the presenter of one of the biggest us breakfast tv shows, good morning america, tweeted: genie wolf, an entertainment journalist who knew barbara walters for many years, spoke to me earlierfrom los angeles. we all looked up to her. we all wanted to be some form of barbara walters, and yet we have to know that she tred

a much harder road than the rest of us. she smoothed the road for women as interviewers and as journalists. we all wanted to be her, but we have to remember how hard they made it for her. when she became anchor of the evening news, i was working for good morning, america, and i used to record in this recording studio at abc. and there was a big picture of her and a big picture of harry reasoner. the day they took her off the air, i walked into that recording studio and i saw the pictures off the wall and i thought, "oh, there's a show business lesson." the male anchors did not like accepting her as a co—anchor. this was #metoo but in a professional way, and they were not subtle

about their criticisms of her. genie, she really was a trailblazer, and it's something that's used a lot, that phrase. in those tweets and tributes already we can see that she really did sort of did pave the way in a time, perhaps, when females weren't on tv as much. is there a standout interview for you in her career? no, i think every one is different. everyone remembers the monica lewinski interview, because with over 70 million viewers, it was the biggest interview ever at the time, in the middle of that scandal. they remember anwar sadat. they rememberjimmy carter. they remember every president, including... she chuckles ..including barack 0bama, and including donald trump. you know, you have to remember, when you get to the point where people were imitating you on saturday night live, barbara had a continual little speech defect. so on saturday night live they called her �*barbara wah wah�*. and i must say, though she was tough and unrelenting, she did have a good sense of humour about herself.

she never backed off. people said — the two things that they always said about barbara was she would say, "what kind of tree do you want to be?" and after she got made fun of for that, she stopped. and also that she would make people cry. but the main thing we have to remember is that she made powerful people accountable. she would ask the question over and over again. never had to be, you know, ladylike. had to be very knowledgeable. and i remember when i interviewed her the first time, i had cards in my hand and she said, "good, "jeanne, i need my cards in my hand, too." the controversial social media figure andrew tate has appeared in court in romania as part of an investigation into sex trafficking and rape. both he and his brother tristan tate have now been the 36—year—old was arrested with his brother in romania, where he has been living for the past five years. their lawyer says they both refused to answer questions from the prosecutor. andrew tate has a huge online following, but several platforms have banned him

for offensive and misogynistic comments. our culture editor katie razzall reports the social media star you might have never heard of, but your teenage children most likely will have. provocative and condemned for extreme misogyny, andrew tate regularly shows off his supposedly luxurious lifestyle online and seems to relish causing offence. well, it's been proven that the smartest people in the world are men — that's been proven. and i say that female infidelity is more disgusting than male infidelity, and i think that the world agrees with me. earlier today, tate and his brother were arrested at their compound in bucharest, accused by the romanian authorities of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content. the suspects are alleged to have set up an organised crime group. hello, hello. so how did tate, who calls himself the most famous man

in the planet and has had billions of views on social media, become so popular, mainly with with teenage boys? campaigners against digital hate speech say he is adept at spreading hate content online. and what he's done is he's created highly controversial content, cultivated a group of followers but also haters who work together in reality, mathematically, to amplify his content, to engage with it — whether it's to hate tweet it or praise it. and through that, he's built himself an enormous global brand. a global brand of huge influence. and earlier this year, tate did an interview at his romanian home with the times journalist hugo rifkind. he was, man to man, quite good company. my experience would have been different had i been female. i certainly wouldn't have like to introduce him to my female friends. he does manage to speak to teenage boys in a way that few people do, because teenage

boys can think a lot of nasty things, and they quite like the validation of somebody older repeating those nasty things back to them. and he did that in a very, very uncomplicated way. ever combative, the former professional kickboxer says he is simply standing up for men. his words, he claims, are often taken out of context. tate is banned from most social media platforms, but that hasn't stopped his views spreading — an influencer whose influence shows no sign of waning. katie razzall, bbc news. donald trump's tax returns covering a six—year period have been released in the us. he had battled for years to keep the documents secret, claiming their publication would affect investigations into him. they show that for two of the years covered, mrtrump paidjust $1,500 in federal income tax. here is the statement mr trump released earlier. although these tax returns contain relatively little information and not information that almost anybody would understand — they're extremely complex — the radical democrats�* behaviour is a shame upon the us congress.

bruce fein is a constitutional lawyer and a former associate deputy attorney general under president ronald reagan. he gave me his reaction to the release of the documents. well, first of all, mr trump's statement is facetious. every president except himself has had their tax returns publicised. it's been voluntary, not compelled under a century—old statute. and i was in washington when president richard nixon's tax returns were released. he had to pay hundreds of thousands of extra dollars and had been audited, actually, by thejoint committee on internal revenue rather than the irs in order to ensure neutrality. we don't know for certain, because the documentation that should support the entries and the tax have not been completely evaluated. part of that is because,

although there are 400—some entities that poured revenues or losses into the tax returns, there was only one irs agent assigned to investigate. and moreover, it was two years late in starting, which also looks suspicious. moreover, two things: we had one of two entities that was convicted of fraud with regard to the books only a few weeks ago. so if we look at the circumstantial evidence and the pattern and practice of mr trump to be deceptive with regard to finances, it looks like when there is greater examination — and as we speak now, the irs is looking at the tax returns with greater intensity — i think it'll either be petty larceny or grand larceny. but there's clearly going to be wrongdoing shown, in myjudgement. right, 0k, and he is sort of obviously entitled to not submit these returns, and he has done so after some

resistance. and actually, a lot of the sort of lines that are coming out were sort of alluded to previously by various reports of this sort of idea that he hadn't paid huge amounts of tax through various years in the years that were covered. do you think that this will sway the republican base? because lots of people do like mr trump. he has a strong support base. will this impact them? i think that for the trump supporters who have so—called drank the kool—aid, this may well reinvigorate their support because they will believe the lie that this disclosure is somehow unique, that other presidents have been able and have concealed their tax returns, even though anybody who studies the issue for a very brief period knows that's not true. 0ther presidents, including mr biden, their tax returns

are in the public domain. i think the fact that with inflation and the financial stringencies becoming greater in the united states, as they are in great britain, with inflation surges and some of the dislocations caused by the war in ukraine, the fact that somebody whose wealth according to himself runs into the billions of dollars is paying zero income taxes — $750, far less than they are — will cause some, i don't know exactly what magnitude, to peel away from trump. and he will look like it is a fraud to suggest that he is aligning himself with the common us citizen. as the year draws to an end, spare a thought for the world's 500 richest people, who have lost almost $1.1; trillion this year. that is according to the bloomberg billionaires index, and it suggests the biggest losers included the tech entrepreneurs

and russian oligarchs. earlier, i had a chat with our reporter emily brown. what does index tell us of all these rich people? well, $1.1; trillion is clearly a staggering amount. we've been taking a look at some of the names on that list, starting with elon musk, who has lost his title as the world's richest man — and this is after the values in shares of his company tesla fell, and this was also impacted by some concerns about changes to twitter after, of course, he took over the social media company back in october — and it means that this year, he has lost $132 billion. small change to him, probably. he's now worth $138 billion, so it's still a lot of money — and to put that into context, that can buy you about 1,000 boeing commercial planes,

which is pretty impressive. and it means that this guy is now the richest person in the world. this is bernard arnault. he is a french businessman and he is luxury brand owner of louis vuitton and sephora and he is now worth $165 billion. moving on to mark zuckerberg, whose fortune declined $45.6 billion. it means that he is now ranked in 25th place on the billionaires�* index. and if you cast your mind back to 2018, you'll remember that amazon founderjeff bezos was announced as the world's richest man. well, unfortunately, he's now ranked in sixth place. he's now worth $107 billion. they've all taken a bit of a hammering, these tech entrepreneurs. what about russians? the oligarchs have taken a bit of a hit in terms of sanctions, haven't they? yes, that's right. russian oligarchs were faced with strict sanctions from western nations

over the war in ukraine. looking at abramovich first of all, who is, of course, the former owner of football club chelsea. he was forced to sell the club and this is after he was faced with uk government sanctions. and also, the fortune of gennady timchenko — this is a billionaire energy investor and also close friend of vladimir putin. he is now worth $11.8 billion. wow, 0k. any sort of winners out of this? yes, there have been some winners. gautam adani, who is an indian billionaire, is now the third richest man in the world. he's the chairman of the adani group, which has interests in ports and in power generation and green energy. and it's been a pretty good yearfor him — he's seen a rise of over $41; billion. emma—lee browne speaking to me earlier. north korea has fired

ballistic missiles to the east of the peninsula. this comes days after the north flew drones into south korea's airspace. young young has launched more missiles this year than ever before. —— pyongyang. cristiano ronaldo has signed for the saudi arabian football club al—nassr. the portuguese striker left manchester united after strongly criticising manager erik ten hag in a television interview last month. al—nassr has described the signing in a tweet as history in the making, as tom grundy reports. football by the most famous reagent has finally found a club. cristiano ronaldo once with manchester united and real madrid soon to be in the yellow and blue of the saudi site al—nassr. one of the region's �*s most successful teams, but for the club and their supporters, teams, but for the club and theirsupporters, is teams, but for the club and their supporters, is about more than what cristiano ronaldo can offer them on the pitch. translation: offer them on the pitch. tuna/mom- offer them on the pitch.

translation: ,, , , ., ., translation: sdr is a global leaend translation: sdr is a global legend and — translation: sdr is a global legend and needs _ translation: sdr is a global legend and needs no - legend and needs no introduction. hopefully he will benefit al—nassr and the saudi league because when a player lack ronaldo plays on saudi football pitches, all eyes will be on the saudi league and al—nassr club. of course it is al-nassr club. of course it is a global deal.— a global deal. for the rich gulf state, _ a global deal. for the rich gulf state, it _ a global deal. for the rich gulf state, it is _ a global deal. for the rich gulf state, it is nothing i gulf state, it is nothing —— and other sporting group. have already hosted formula 1 grand prix is an boxing fights, and last year the saudi investment fund help to buy you because united. this is a deal that looks set make the five—time calendar winner the best paid footballer ever. he will reportedly earn close to 200 million us dollars a year until 2025. ., ., ., ., , 2025. for a long time, he has seemed caught _ 2025. for a long time, he has seemed caught between - 2025. for a long time, he has i seemed caught between wanting to play for a club that could challenge for the best trophies and a sort of club that he felt was commensurate with his talents, and finding a club that could pay him a salary that could pay him a salary that he felt commensurate with his salary demands. this transfer _ his salary demands. this transfer comes -

his salary demands. this transfer comes at - his salary demands. this transfer comes at the . his salary demands. this | transfer comes at the end his salary demands. this - transfer comes at the end of a turbulent year for this is a seven—year—old. last month he said he was being forced out of the club. , ., ., , the club. this move in many wa s the club. this move in many ways marks _ the club. this move in many ways marks the _ the club. this move in many ways marks the end - the club. this move in many ways marks the end of- the club. this move in many - ways marks the end of cristiano ronaldo's career as a top level footballer playing in the most powerful leagues in europe. al—nassr said they hope the signing would inspire future generations. for cristiano ronaldo, this represents the end of the generation that saw him dominate european football. tom grundy, bbc news. three days of national mourning have been declared in brazil following the death of the football legend pele, who's died at the age of 82. he was the only player to have won the world cup three times. katy watson reports. brazil's most famous landmark paying tribute to brazil's most famous name. and at santos, the club where pele played for so many years, brazilians came to mark his passing. the whole nation is in mourning

for a man who defined the beautiful game. commentator: pele! and number three! - pele made it against the odds. in an often racist and classist country, this poor, black and exceptionally talented footballer was a success story right from the very beginning, a player who stayed true to his brazilian roots but who had fans the world over. he absolutely transcended his sport. the man on the pitch, the man off the pitch, the dignity and grace that he seemed to exude for the people around him — i don't think they make them like that anymore. truly a great. and those qualities were remembered at sao paulo's museum of football today, the exhibition space filled with memories of pele. this was the shirt he wore in 1970 when he won his third world cup title. it was packed with brazilians of all ages who came to pay their respects. translation: for us, | he is a national symbol who turned into an international symbol, who took our country to all corners of the world.

we say he's our king. brazil may not have a monarchy, but in football, we have our king who, sadly, left us. translation: i don't think pele has died. l it's edson. pele and his legacy will be eternal. with the football he achieved in his era, imagine what he could've done with today's technology. brazilians always keen for a photo opportunity. today, of all days, was one to remember. it's been a day of reflection here in brazil and i think this headline sums it up — "pele died — if, indeed, pele can die — "because his influence here in brazil "will remain for generations to come." preparations are under way at his club in santos where a public wake will be held from monday. big crowds are expected. brazilians want to remember their beloved king. katy watson, bbc news in sao paulo. you can read more about that on

the website of the bbc news app. but is it for me for now. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @bbcvishalasp. thanks for watching. hello again. we've got some big weather contrasts around on saturday, which of course is new year's eve. now, for england and wales, it's going to be a mild day, but there'll be some heavy rain around. colder air across northern areas, and in scotland, that will bring some snow. some very different air masses across the country at the moment. strong south—westerly winds bringing the mild air across england and wales, but the colder air in scotland will continue to bring some snow showers in here. so, weather—wise, next few hours, risk of some icy stretches in scotland. could see a few centimetres of snow building in over the hills here in places. further southwards, we've got this area of rain around across england and wales. but look at these temperatures as we head into the early morning on new year's eve — 10, 11, 12 degrees celsius.

very, very mild indeed. and through the rest of saturday, it's going to stay mild across england and wales. there will be more rain coming and going. now, the grounds saturated across the south of england and wales, and this rain could actually lead to some areas of localised surface water flooding. very mild — 12 to 1a degrees in places through the afternoon. but the colder air in scotland, where there will be some places that struggle to see temperatures much above freezing. now, running closer to those new year celebrations at midnight — hogmanay, of course — we've got this area of rain extending across northern ireland and northern england. showers following to the south where it stays quite breezy and mild. now, as this rain band starts to move into the colder air in scotland, we might actually start to see it turn to snow. there is quite a bit of uncertainty about this one, but we could see some heavy snow not just affecting some of the hillier areas, but maybe also getting down to some lower levels. as i say, there is a degree of uncertainty in that kind of forecast, but stay in touch with the weather if you live in scotland and you're worried about

those snowy conditions heading into new year's day. new year's day itself, it stays quite cold in scotland. any snow will slowly begin to fizzle in intensity. further southwards, we've got the mild air with us again. still a few showers around, but those temperatures, 12, 13 degrees celsius — that's still around 5 celsius above the december average. now, beyond that, generally those south—westerly winds will continue to blow across much of the uk well into the start of the new year. so it's going to be quite cloudy at times with outbreaks of rain, quite breezy. but on the whole, staying on the mild side. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the uk hasjoined a growing list of countries imposing new covid restrictions on arrivals from china in response to a surge in infections. england will require a negative pre—departure test from next week. the american journalist barbara walters has died aged 93. during a career which spanned more than five decades, she became the first female co—presenter of a major network tv news programme in the us. cristiano ronaldo has signed to play for the saudi arabian side al—nassr. it is thought his contract is worth $200 million a year, making it the biggest ever signed by a footballer. six years of donald trump's tax returns that he had refused to make public have been released in the us. they confirm that the former president paid no tax in 2020.