this is bbc news. the headlines: russia has launched missile strikes across ukraine. one hit an apartment block, in the city of dnipro — killing at least 12 people. a number of other cities, including kyiv, kharkiv and odesa, were also hit. a further five classified documents have been found at the delaware home of us presidentjoe biden. a special counsel is investigating mr biden�*s handling of the files. in the uk, a 7—year—old girl is in a critical condition in hospital, following a shooting in central london. four women and a 12—year—old girl were also injured in the attack. iran has executed british—iranian dual national alireza akbari, on charges of "spying for the uk" — which he'd denied.

rishi sunak called the execution a "callous and cowardly act." now on bbc news, extreme conservation: the maldives. i'm michaela strachan, a wildlife presenter with a passion for conservation. for the past 35 years, my work has taken me all over the world. and in that time, i've seen huge changes, many due to climate change. in extreme conservation, we travel to different countries, meeting inspirational people... hello! ..with new ideas. this time, i'm in the maldives. this seems like paradise, but behind all the beauty and the luxury lodges lies a very real and looming threat,

and that's climate change, which is literally washing these stunning coral islands off the map. as soon as they realise i'm from the maldives, they're like, "oh, when is it sinking? "i've got to get there before it sinks." the maldives needs solutions, and it needs them fast. our islands are eroding at an alarming rate. we depend solely on our coral reefs for income, for protection, and for our survival, as well. i travel across the islands to meet some inspirational people with exciting ideas. seeing the radical new ways to bring coral reefs back to life, and a completely new, sustainable way of reclaiming much—needed land. this is extreme conservation... ..the maldives. the maldives is located about 500km south of india,

in the pacific ocean. it's made up of almost 1,200 islands that sit within these circular formations called atolls. and it's these low—lying islands that the maldives has become famous for. seaplanes are the fastest way to get around. but for most visitors and locals... ..boats are used to island—hop. these islands may be beautiful, but they're precariously close to disappearing into the ocean. most of these islands have been affected by erosion.

and the prediction is that by 2050, 80% of them could become uninhabitable. without coral reefs to protect them, the maldivian islands are in danger of being washed into the ocean. my first stop is fulhadoo, an island only 6km long and just 250 metres wide. seeing this sandbag barrier on arrival, you start to understand the battle these islanders are facing. coral and coral reefs are what makes these islands, but they are facing huge challenges. so the first person i'm going to meet is someone who's made it their life's passion to protect and nurture corals. this island has a population of a few hundred people. it's so thin, any erosion can have a dramatic effect on their lives.

hello! i'm going on a fieldtrip with aya naseem and her team. aya is a marine biologist at the maldives coral institute. she's taking me to see one of their coral projects that they hope may offer a solution in maintaining the health of these lifegiving reefs. so for the maldives, all our islands are protected by coral. if you can see, like, where the waves are breaking, sometimes, you'll get really big waves coming in. but it all gets dissipated by that whole layer of coral that you see there. by the time it reaches the shore, it's really low impact, and it's not going to erode the beach so much. so, the coral reef is an important natural barrier to stop the erosion of the beaches? that's right. it's our first line of defence. so, what's damaging the coral reefs? unsustainable development,

that's a big problem. climate change issues with, um...coral bleaching. a bleaching event is when the coral dies en masse due to unusually—warm sea temperatures. one of the biggest ones was the first one in 1998, which affected about more than 90% of our coral. and we did get a lot of recovery, but then, er...these events are getting more and more frequent. so we had one in 2010 and then we had another one 2015—16, and now we're bracing ourselves for another event. but amid this bleaching onslaught, the team has made an important and unexpected discovery. some of the corals in fulhadoo have managed to survive. they show high thermal resilience because they've been surviving in...in these conditions and in really shallow waters that leave them

exposed at low tide. so they're now planting more of these resilient corals. growing coral is a bit like underwater gardening. small, fallen—off fragments are collected and attached to these sand—coated steel structures. from there, with a bit of luck, they grow and flourish. it looks stunning! i mean, already, in six months, it's looking beautiful. how long do you think it will be before that is a full coral reef? i mean, how many years down the line are we looking? two or three years, we're hoping. because already, they've grown so much. yeah. so around two to three years, you won't be able to see the frames any more. so looking forward to that. you can see from the colours, the blues and the purples, that this is really working. this is what coral should look like. and if they can be kept alive,

even as the sea levels rise, they can keep pace, grow upwards and protect these islands. but as warm—weather bleaching events become more frequent, the corals get very little time to recover, let alone grow. and bleaching isn't the only threat they face. it's easy to forget that a coral reef is a living thing. and just like us, to stay healthy, it needs to eat well. now, we all know the stories of the damage that plastic does to other marine life, but believe it or not, it can also damage a coral reef, because it ingests this stuff in the form of microplastics. and obviously, that does it no good at all. thanks. tourism in the maldives has been expanding rapidly since the 1970s. it went from only 60 beds to 60,000. and plastic waste has become an enormous problem. but ground—breaking ways to deal with it are emerging.

i'm off to soneva fushi, an exclusive destination for the super rich. but despite all the luxury, this resort is surprisingly a pioneer for ecotourism. where did the vision come from? because it started 25 years ago for you? yes, yeah. so, um...| met my wife when i was still at university at oxford. she'd been to the maldives on a modelling shoot in the early '805. so we came for the first time. it was a very simple destination in those days, and nothing was sustainable, because they had a very, very tight budget. so we decided we could do something a bit more unique and different. and so they did. rubbish from the surrounding islands is collected and processed here. they try and use every part of a natural resource, like a coconut, and then, as much rubbish as possible is either reused, recycled or upcycled. and guests are invited to take part if they want to. the aluminium cans

from drinks become ornaments or door handles. ok, let's see how this has come out. oh, wow, look at that! and how many resorts do you know that have their own glass—blowing studio where you can turn a wine bottle into a glass and beer bottles into a platter? i think this is what you call high—end artistic upcycling. what they've done here is really impressive, it's inspiring. but you have to remember that this is a luxury resort, there's a lot of finances in this place. and you have to wonder, could this be upscaled to use as a production line in other parts of the maldives? the country is making strides, trying to modernise how it manages its waste. but the reality is, even for a luxury resort, what to do with plastic is dwarfed by the threat from the sea. so the maldives has been sinking for thousands of years, and it's the live coral that's been keeping us alive.

so even if sea levels don't rise, but if the coral dies, eventually, the core of the islands will continue to sink. so our goal is to keep the coral alive. sonu tells me he's started his own marine research institute on the resort. i've come to meet the scientists who are trying a different approach to nurturing the corals back to life. this is one of the largest coral nurseries in the world. thousands of colonies saved from a nearby site have been planted here. aki allahgholi, a former banker turned coral specialist is leading the project. the goal is to produce, - basically, 50,000 corals every year to be outplanted into the environment| where they are needed. over the next eight years, j until 2030, we try to bring

back the...the...the diversity and the coral cover we used i to have about 25 years ago. to speed up the growth, a very low—voltage electrical current is run through the frames. the technology that we apply here is called the mineral- accretion technology. it helps the corals to grow faster, they become more resilient and the survival rates are better. - the technology has been around for years, and is proven. but the challenge now is in applying it on a massive scale. many nurseries use these steel frames to grow corals. thank you very much! bye— bye! take care. but my next destination is experimenting with an alternative approach. i'm on nearby summer island to join the island's dive master, arjan sierink. hi! good to meet you! pleasure! i've heard so much about you!

and this is what i've come to see — the world's largest 3d printed reef. it was made in australia by reef—design labs using a ceramic material, and then shipped in small sections to be constructed underwater. took a little while for corals to get used to the material. they grow slower than the corals. but the corals are very, very strong. a living reef is the most effective natural defence barrier for protecting the islands from erosion. 3d printing allows for rapid testing of new designs to find the best structure for growing corals. the team behind this is looking to use similar techniques to create other reefs in other parts of the world. as for summer island, this is one of the many different shapes arjan�*s experimenting with. and it's incredible how quickly the wildlife has claimed it as its home.

his recreated coral oasis was literally swimming with fish species. we're still pioneering, and there are many, many islands, many projects all over the world, to find out how we can make the corals more resilient. the biggest challenge will be to get the people to realise that something big needs to be done. we have to work together. governments, scientists, and all this together, could be the perfect solution. so far, i've been looking at why corals are vital to these islands, and i've been looking at some truly inspirational projects that could restore the reefs. i'm continuing myjourney through the maldives, and i'm leaving the idyllic islands behind to travel to the capital, mali.

this is a city of 250,000 people crammed into a space more densely populated than manhattan. and it's completely hectic. it's so packed, it's hard to get a sense of how developed it is until you get a little bit of distance. there's not an inch of space left. so much so that they built another island just to house all the people. this is hulhumale, built to cope with an ever—growing population just 15 years ago. but how do you build an island? to find out, i went on a brand—new one. so, we're standing on an artificial island? exactly. two—and—a—half years ago, - this was a very small sandbank which has been artificially- reclaimed into an island now. and you've reclaimed it by dredging sand from the ocean? we've dredged sand - from the nearby lagoon. and right now, this is the size of eight football fields. - how much sand do you need to do that? we have put in almost the equivalent of 100 i

olympic swimming pools. this will soon be a luxury resort. but the trouble with building this way is it massively damages the environment. disturbed sand sediments can smother the very corals that the maldives relies on for protection. the more you dredge, the worse the erosion becomes. to see the effects this is having on the local population, i'm travelling to the island of dhiffushi. there are no resorts here, just simple guesthouses. wow, look at this! you can clearly see that the beach is eroded. the beach shouldn't fall off like that. and apparently, that buoy is where the beach used to be. so they've lost at least 15 metres of beach. that's severe. without the beach, the island

has become yet more vulnerable to flooding. so, what do you do when you know your island is going to flood once a year? well, these islanders have got the sandbags out and they've tried to make their own defence barrier. aminat houdar is someone who's lived here all her life and witnessed first—hand the effects erosion is having. this is dhiffushi school. you can see it's right near the beach. but because of the erosion, it's now flooding. and in fact, last year, the water came right the way through to the other side and came up to about there. and apparently, every year, it's getting worse.

so, is there a better way to create new islands and protect established ones? well, perhaps turning to nature will give us the answer. here in the maldives, sandbanks like this appear and disappear. they constantly change size and shape according to the seasons and the ocean's forces. and that really influences the way that the people live and adapt. in fact, you can see that the locals have really made the most of this particular idyllic paradise. so we have two seasons predominantly in the maldives. one is the southeast and the northwest monsoons. and, you know, literally, during these seasons, we say we see sand shifting and we see sand eroding from one end and then building up on another end. and as a physicist, i thought, you know, can we use this? sarah dole is sri lankan,

but has been living in the maldives for over a decade, and has dedicated herself to studying this natural shift of sand to find a way to create islands sustainably. so first of all, you know, we had to study the fundamentals. so at mit, they are studying the fundamental physics and engineering of it. so, like, trying to understand, how does a sandbank actually form? and that, we've done through satellite imagery and drone footage and, you know, talking to other locals around here, trying to understand the historical data of how sandbanks appear and disappear. five years ago, sarah partnered up with the scientists from the self—assembly lab at mit, the massachusetts institute of technology in the us. the growing islands project is about naturally accumulating sand in the ocean without sculpting or pumping

sand, but letting the ocean accumulate it on its own and guiding it, or collaborating with the ocean to promote the accumulation in certain areas where you want it or need it. skylar tibbits and his team simulate the conditions of the pacific ocean and the movement of the sand. they place different—shaped objects in the environment to see which is the best at sand—gathering. our hypothesis is that the reason sand accumulates in certain areas and not others is due to the relationship of the geometry underwater and the force of the oceans. and so, what we do is we design different geometries, we test them in the lab, we see which geometries accumulate more sand, and then we implement those at full scale in the maldives. this is the beginnings of

a new island built on sandbags. and you can see where the sand has accumulated using the forces of nature. it's been here for about two years. it's 20 metres long, it's about four metres wide and about 1.5 metres above the sea bed. another half—metre and it should pop up above the surface and hopefully just keep growing. each time we go, we try different materials, different construction techniques. the reason for that is because we want to try to make it as scalable as possible. because this is a global problem, it's not only focused on the maldives. so if you really want to have a solution, you need to make it fast, scalable, cheap. and if it works, this sort of deliverable, sustainable solution could be used not only to save the maldives, but many other island nations or coastlines that are also suffering the effects of climate change.

fixing it won't be easy. we need to try out new ideas and work together. small is beautiful, and that's how you scale it up. - come here, please. test your innovations, - test your energy solutions, coastal protection and - adaptation measures here, because we welcome it. at my last stop, i'm meeting local children whose futures here in the maldives are very much at stake. what about a triggerfish? zuna is one of the first female diving instructors here. she teaches children about the sea and the marine wildlife to inspire them to protect it. fishes keep the corals alive, actually. if the coral reefs get damaged and we lose the corals, - it's a loss for the nextl generation and the fish won't be alive. the importance of acting now is not lost on these youngsters. on myjourney this week throughout the maldives, i've met some truly inspirational people. creative minds that

are thinking out of the box. and i've seen some ambitious, pioneering projects. but if they're going to make a difference, they need upscaling. they need a collaborative effort, financial backing and political will. and without that, then life in the maldives for the next generation, for these kids, could be very different. but you know what? i'm excited by what i've seen, and i'm hopeful that at least some of these ideas are going to make a difference, and they're going to help the maldives to draw a line in the sand. hello.

so far this january, rain has played a big part in our forecast. for some parts of the uk we've seen nearly a month and a half's worth of rainfall and we're not even halfway through january. certainly that's the case for the likes of cardiff. on a positive note, it is looking drier in the days ahead, but we still have numerous flood warnings in force across the uk. details can be found on our website, but in terms of what we're going to be talking about in the days ahead. much colder weather with the possibility of some snow. we have got a lot of cold air to the far north of the uk. it's been turning colder across the uk through saturday, the colder air trickling south. but late sunday into monday we start to really pull in proper arctic air and then our temperatures will nosedive. a frost free start for england and wales on sunday. some patchy cloud around. some showers of rain here.

for scotland, some showers of snow, particularly across the highest ground, but perhaps down to lower levels for a time as well. and for many in scotland, the temperatures won't get above freezing through sunday. closer to the coast, as you can see, a little milder, england and wales, sixes and sevens as the highs. what we have at the moment is a powerfuljet stream to the west of the uk, diving a long way south and within thatjet it's not all the same speed. there's little pockets where things go faster, things move around. and as that happens, in the midst of a big area of low pressure sitting to the northeast of the uk, we see little weather features developing. so there's the big low drifting towards scandinavia. but at the moment it looks like we could see some development to the south of the uk overnight sunday into monday. and bear in mind we are then seeing the arctic air really starting to dig down from the north. so some indicators that there could be some snow sunday night into monday across the pennines, the peaks into snowdonia, perhaps a little bit of a difficult mixture further south, running across the downs towards the weald of kent towards the end of the night. and ice also a possibility, obviously, with those falling temperatures and a lot

of moisture still on the ground. some hang back potentially of that rain into the southeast on monday. for many, though, monday, a bright and fine day. some more snow showers coming into scotland, but lighter winds than we'll have had through the weekend. but it will feel cold, subzero temperatures for scotland, for many parts of northern england close to freezing — similar in northern ireland as well. the towns and cities always a couple of degrees higher of course. again monday night into tuesday, yet in a similar position, potentially a similar scenario, a little feature developing to the south of the uk. don't take this too literally. it really is just an indicator. but we could see a difficult mixture of rain, sleet and snow running into the south of the uk through tuesday. exactly how far north that will get is still open to questions. so do bear that in mind

and keep up to date with your forecast day on day. but it's looking cold across the board on tuesday. further snow showers to the northwest later on into our forecast. we keep thatjet, yes, through the middle of the week and on into thursday, again, with that chance of some variable snow showers showing up in the mix. but as you see, by the time we got to friday, some indicators of the jet shifting eastwards and allowing some milder air to start to return from further south, from the atlantic, getting rid of that arctic influence. but certainly for this week, at the moment, it's very much about the colder conditions, frost and ice. and as you saw, the risk of some snow showers, the detail will become much clearer as we get closer to the time day on day. so please bear with us and stay tuned.

this is bbc news. i'm anjana gadgil. our top stories: russia launches missile strikes across ukraine with one in the city of dnipro killing at least 12 people in an apartment block. a further five classified documents have been found at the delaware home of us presidentjoe biden. four women and two girls have been injured after a drive—by shooting near a church in central london. china reports 60,000 covid—related deaths in just over a month. greta thunberg joins demonstrators in western germany to rally against a new coal mine. carbon are still here. the

village is still there.