this is bbc news — the headlines... russia is claiming a rare victory in what's become a war of attrition in ukraine. it says it's captured the eastern salt—mining town of soledar — though ukraine says fighting is continuing. the town had been pumelled for weeks — in one of the most intense battles of the war. more than 30 tornados have struck the southern united states — killing at least seven people in alabama and georgia. officials are searching for bodies in ruined buildings — and the full extent of the damage is being assessed. states of emergency have been declared in alabama and georgia. the manchester city footballer benjamin mendy has been found not guilty of raping four women. the jury was unable to reach

a verdict in the cases of two other women he was alleged to have attacked, so he will face a retrial later this year. now on bbc news — reporting iran: inside bbc persian. here we go in ten, nine, eight, seven, six... -

hi — right, so you want me to... up sound next, up sound. woman sobbing

phone line cuts off give me a thumbs—up that you can hear. - phone line cuts off thank you very much, everybody, thank you. lovely, good stuff.

that was the toughest interview of my entire career. we didn't know that we were going to get him. i had no idea that we might get him. so just literally five seconds before the interview, the producer shouted in my ear, saying that we have mahsa's father on the line. i just didn't know what to tell him. what do you tell someone who spent all his life, raising his daughter to the age of 22, and now she's gone? just over, for nothing.

right, so we need to choreograph a bit. so we are getting ready for our live at 12.30, which on normal days, i go downstairs to bbc studio. but today, because it's iran special, we're going to do it from our fifth floor to show how the persian service is working. but it would be good to do a quick rehearsal. it's exactly four weeks ago today, mahsa amini died. so the bbc is doing an iran special and every day, there is a live page on the website, and all the tv bulletins are covering it. radio is having a special programme, as well. and that means we've started from 6.30am this morning, so it's going to be a long day. so nobody here has any problems...?

the harassment that our iranian colleagues and theirfamilies in iran have had to deal with in the last few years. that line, don't want to be seen. so it's completely voluntary for colleagues who wish to be on screen, and who do not. ok, so when we're live, we can ask them to get out of the shot for ten minutes. ok, shall we rehearse it? yes. whether they'll go ahead with the iran special programme or not, i don't know. it's really, really, really annoying. we just heard that the chancellor of the exchequer, kwasi kwarteng, is gone — sacked. and now, the whole iran special could be up in the air. and it's so frustrating because it's our story. so we're now worried that they might not come to us, they might... this is a bigger story. yeah, the country is in

a crisis, i understand it. but as an iranian who feels so close to the story, it's awful. awful. but we will keep fighting. the story is not going away. there are times that the staff are pushing for more coverage, and the staff wants to do more and stay on it. and they say no, or maybe it's not important enough. so there's, no, we don't always get it right, of course we don't. who does? and because i'm just a presenter, i'm not a decision—maker, ifind it so frustrating. i mean, judging by what she said said there, it's still a goer. and in theirfight, they're ready to sacrifice their lives — and that's the difference between what we're seeing on the streets now, and what we saw in previous protests.

thank you, are you done with us? how are you feeling now? it's big for the bbc to dedicate an entire hourto iran. it's big — and they're finally in tune with the gravity of the story, and how my colleagues in the persian service were the force behind it. from the moment it started, we just went to english editors, and we showed them on our phone, saying that this is important. and they said, "we're going to put it on air." and eventually for them, four weeks after the protest, to dedicate an entire hour to the story — it's a very important moment. thank you very much. i think we are done. thank you so much for today. no, thank you.

we had a fish in our pond, so we have to remove the pond. we realised, "oh, my gosh, how many fishes did we have?" it was three. oh! i think that bird with the long legs ate them. yeah. this is a beautiful, beautiful park, and we used to come with my wife a lot. yeah. on phone: ..assault - on the iranian parliament. many of the gunmen were airmen and soldiers who'd broken - their oath of allegiance | to the shah and formed up underthe banner- of the ayatollah khomeini. i was very young when the revolution happened. i vividly remember when ayatollah khomeini actually consolidated his power.

he imposed islamic rule and he wanted to have an islamic state. and women have to cover — my sisters has to cover up and go to school, something unseen before. my daughter asked me a lot of time, "can you go home?" i think, like many iranians, i really hope iran become a place, an environment created in the country which i can go home. i can go home and show... my parents never had a chance to see my daughter. i used to go to front line in syria, in iraq. i would stay for months. but, you know, my wife got cancer and she passed away. and from the day she got cancer, i realised i was hit. "oh, my gosh, if something happened to my wife and if something happened to me, my daughter wouldn't have anyone. " so i have to reduce my assignment to a conflict zone. that's why, if i go to berlin, if i go to other places and come back by the end

of the day or the next day, maximum, or a few days. sometimes we underestimate our children understanding. on the radio she heard, they said, "there was a mass crowd." i said, "yeah, this is the 40th day of mahsa jina amini. and he said, "baba, how about nika? why don't they have a 40th day for nika?" nika was another girl, she was killed, she was age 16. you know, some of those stress and pressure indirectly, i'm afraid, is transferred to our children, as well. and it's very painful, actually, to see how much they are being affected.

we still didn't make sure the pictures were correct, so we asked them to again contact the aunt and ask her, "is this video exactly of nika, or not?" her aunt, before she was arrested, she told me . that she had seen a video of her — that she was- on a dumpster, and she was burning her headscarf- on keshavarz boulevard, in tehran _ but still, because it's - from the back, we cannot be 100% sure that this is the same person. i

this is a video that theyjust published, isn't it? yeah, it is. this is really difficult. because you don't see much of her face. the clothes she's wearing... she called one of her friends and said that she was being i chased by the security police. but in here, you see that it's as if she's taking - a stroll on the street, - and she looks pretty relaxed. she's not even running away from anything. but i feel that there i are still some concerns for security reasons. but i'm trying to find - the mother, because i think that is the most reliable source, and trying - to contact her.

today, most likely, it will be the largest gathering of iranian diaspora. because so many people from different walks of life — different political divides, different ethnicities, regional — all gather together in one voice, supposed to support iran protests. but we have been under attack from so many different directions. and i, for one, i have no fear of anything. you saw, we just entered the airport, people come greet me and they want to take a picture. but in a large crowd and riot, normally you just need one person to throw a punch, and there will be many following.

many people, i think, are students. they go back to iran, they don't want to be seen on camera.

look, there was a ukrainian flight shot down by the iranian revolutionary guard. so he was saying, "your report has a humanity in it. we love you, you are one of the" — anyway, sorry, i don't have to say what he says, but it's more of a gratitude because at the time i produced that report, my own wife was on the verge of death. actually, as a matter of fact, a day later she died. but i think at that moment, i could feel their pain. i knew what it means to lose a loved one. i think it came across, and we say it in all saying in persian — it says, "whatever comes from heart lands on the heart." so i think so many people are like that, they know if there's any sincerity with it.

we verified this place. so we have three people confirming the action. i irib, iranian state tv, - published a video of her going inside into a building. then later on, when i talked to the family — i managed i to talk to the mother, - she confirmed that this footage was the correct one. so this is nika — and the other footage, she was like, - "i'm extremely doubtful. i think that's not nika at all. they faked it, or it mighti have been someone else, it might've been an actress." phone chimes so her aunt is right now- detained, and i obtained this from another source close to the family, and it's- addressing a cemetery. where she was supposed to be buried. and in this letter, it mentions

the reason for nika's death — i it says, "severe blows of hard object to her body." - so ijust called tehran's . cemetery, and the person who picked up the phone. confirmed that this person works there and this - is his title — he's in charge of this department i in tehran cemetery. so we can be sure that this is quite accurate. - it's like a pieces of puzzles we have to put together to have a correct picture. so under verification, sometimes it's not possible — people covering their faces, the quality is bad — that's why sometimes bbc persian publishes news later than other outlets, because we have to completely make sure editorially that

what we publishing is correct. singing in iranian she's singing here, you can see. singing continues

i've cut my bereavement leave short to come back and do some shifts, as we're short of staff after what happened to rana. i'm not really feeling myself, and i'm not feeling well. but this is what we do, we have to cover for each other. because at the moment, we can't really stop. this is the most important period since we started. what do you think. happened to rana? the tape was just put together in a way to ruin rana. that's the only way that i can interpret that. and she worked for 15 years in front of the camera, and she said, whatever she said in front of the camera — and people are just

cancelled all those years. being in that position is always very difficult, and i can really feel for rana. and that really saddens me. thank you, we'll be coming back to you again shortly. myself, i was targeted with this kind of things for years and years. if i can go through the headlines, tha'll be nice. like, they brought my writings of, like, 25 years ago. and i explained about it, but it went kind of viral, and they kind of tried to ruin me, as well. working for the bbc, you can't be just one person. you are part of a very bigger picture than your own face. and your face belongs to bbc. me, rana — we are made with the bbc�*s brand. that's why we can't really talk about it, and just let the bbc take charge.

and that's what we're trying to do. hello there. we hold on to a number of flood warnings up and down the country — particularly towards the south and the west of the uk, because it's been so wet since the 1st of january. if you have any concerns where you live, head online to check out all the latest flood warnings there. now, the good news is through this weekend, the rain will ease the way, things will turn a bit dry

and brighter, but it's set to a much colder from sunday onwards. now, this area of low pressure is what's responsible for bringing the wet and windy weather, certainly for the first half of saturday. some atrocious road conditions around through saturday morning, localised flooding too. but eventually it will clear away, and it brightens up with quite a bit of sunshine around. plenty of showers, though, across the northern half of the country, and these will be wintry over the high ground of scotland. it'll be turning colder, staying quite windy in the north and the west, the last of the milder air across the south east. but by sunday, it's colder for all. there will be quite a bit of sunshine around — this weather front will bring a line of cloud and showers in northern ireland, through northwest england. snow showers will be affecting northern coastal parts of scotland, where it'll be cold. but a cold day to come for all areas.

this is bbc news. i'm vishala sri—pathma. our top stories: russia claims a strategic victory in ukraine, saying its troops have captured the eastern town of soledar. brazil's supreme court says former presidentjair bolsonaro former president jair bolsonaro should former presidentjair bolsonaro should be investigated for the storming of congress. premier league footballer benjamin mendy is found not guilty of rape and sexual assault, but he faces a retrial on two counts. and sportswear giant adidas loses a court case to stop a fashion designer from using a four—stripe design.