this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. hello and welcome to the travel show, coming to you this week from the historic university city of cambridge in the uk.

now, it's the beginning of term and students are coming back and like many generations before them, they'll be benefiting from some of the best educational resources in the world. and that includes valuable treasures looted from afar on colonial expeditions. but we're here because the university has recently announced it's actually returning some of those, specifically benin bronzes, to nigeria. and it's there in what was once known as the kingdom of benin that i want to start this story. for centuries, this street, igun eronwan, has been famous for one particular craft — bronze casting. its name literally translates to "the place "where bronze

works are made." just five minutes from the palace, traditionally, it was the royal family and dignitaries who'd commissioned pieces to mark historical events. this man spent 15 years mastering his craft. i've been into bronze casting from childhood. i was taught by my father, which my father was taught by the forefathers. and it has been a family business, family work. so we've grown into it, as a living. he's part of an exclusive guild of bronze casters which has 120 members that mostly work on this street... ..all practising a centuries old technique where wax models are used to create a detailed mould for the bronze to be cast in. it takes up to two weeks to make a piece, and it did

take up to a month, depending on the size of the job or the artwork. whenever tourists come to nigeria, they want to visit this place, through the buyer and the commission works. whilst the technique has remained the same, most are working off printed images with little access to their ancestors' original works. we have few ones that is still left, which is in ourfamily house this year, and we still have them in catalogues. yes, there are a few, not much. we don't have much access to it because much of them is stolen. ifeel bad and i'm not too happy because this is our treasure. it's what our forefathers laboured to do.

it's reckoned around 10,000 pieces were looted by the british when they sacked benin in 1897, burning down the city's palace in the process. the bronzes were then sold to institutions around the world. now there's no law in the uk which forces museums or other places to return stolen artefacts, but some institutions are doing it independently, like jesus college, cambridge. they were the first institution in the world to return a benin bronze in 2021. more recently, germany handed back 22 bronzes and agreed to release over 1,000 items from their collections. the horniman in london has also sent pieces back to nigeria, and soon cambridge university's museum of archaeology

and anthropology will follow suit. we've identified 116 objects that were taken during the punitive expedition of 1897, and those are the objects that we will be transferring ownership of. i think it's impossible to overstate just how severe an act of vandalism and cultural violence this was. the heads that we see before us here were several of the objects that graced ancestral altars throughout the palace and the purpose of those altars was very much to maintain the lineage, to maintain the kingdom. the plaques that were being removed from the walls throughout the city were visualisations of the benin kingdom's history and heritage, and those were all taken away in a wholesale export of this material, leaving very, very little behind. tell me, why are you now and only now returning some of the pieces?

i think it's the right time for these collections to go back. one might say it's long overdue. i think the main reason, the most recent reason is that there has been a request from the nigerian government, and i think fundamentally for us it's the right thing to do. these were stolen and these were looted. there are many, many different ways in which objects came to museums like this. there's such an awareness both within the uk and internationally of museums, colonial legacies, but also of the cultural heritage that is represented in museum collections. and we want the future retelling and care of these collections to be something that's really, really collaborative. now, this is not a sentiment shared by all. currently, the british museum in london has more than 900 items from the historic kingdom of benin, the largest collection of bronzes in the world, with no current

plans to return any. the british museum sent the travel show a statement where they say that the collections offer an important opportunity for audiences to understand the history of the british conquest of benin city and to reflect on the impact of that period of colonialism. they're in dialogue with the nigerian government about this, but also cite the british museum act of 1963 that it's their founding responsibility to care for the collection on behalf of the world. notjust the bronzes, but all the objects kept here. now, undoubtedly, that's not something that sits too well back in nigeria. the national museum in benin has the most accessible collection of bronzes for tourists to see, though a fraction of what it perhaps should be. the time is coming for the british, for london in particular, when they see neighbouring countries around

them bringing the objects, they will not have any other choice than to release what belongs to us. because the whole world knows they are stolen properties. there is no place like home. by the time this object comes home, it's going to do a lot of things. it will heal the wounds. it will create more jobs for our people. it will create more tourists to visit our museums. and on that note, plans are under way to build a brand new museum to house their returning heritage. the edo museum of west african arts is scheduled to open in 2026 and they're optimistic it'll be filled with their missing bronzes. fingers crossed the museum project goes smoothly.

but if you can't wait that long, here are some alternatives from around the world that you could consider. starting in asia, the national museum of cambodia in phnom penh is filled with reclaimed stolen statues. a lot of the items here were looted from temples across the country, including from the famous angkor wat. the team is constantly working on tracing and bringing back their antiquities from museums and private collectors around the world. over in canada, the winnipeg art gallery has recently opened a centre showcasing the world's largest collection of inuit art. it's called qaumajuq, which means, "it is bright, "it is lit," with the building very much inspired by being in the arctic landscape. more than 27,000 artworks are on display, including a large portion which is on loan from the northern communities.

travelling south into the us, why not check out the first american national museum designed and run by indigenous peoples? it's part of the smithsonian institution group, this one based in washington. the building is made out of materials closely connected to the native communities across the continent. inside, you'll find more than 800,000 objects, along with regular workshops and talks. over to morocco next, where you may remember we sent adi to the newly opened modern african art museum in marrakesh. there, you'll find lots of artworks from around the country. its whole thing is about making art accessible, and the first sunday of every month, you pay whatever you want or can afford to enter. finally, to papua new guinea, where its national museum in port moresby, has the task of protecting and preserving the country's cultural, military, and natural heritage. some locals see it as

a spiritual home due to its heritage inside. alongside its archaeological objects, it also has natural history specimens and contemporary local artworks. well, that's it for this time. but don't forget, you can watch loads more content and the longer version of this show on the bbc iplayer. but until next week from me, rajan datar, and the rest of the travel show team here in cambridge, it's goodbye. hello, there. recent weather days have been dominated by high pressure, but with light winds at this time of year, that's brought an issue with frost and fog. the high pressure still with us

for england and wales, more to come, but plenty of isobars further north and west, the arrival of this weather front as we go through wednesday. so that means, with more wind around, and certainly increasing cloud, not quite as cold as the start here. the fog may well be slow to linger in places across england and wales. early morning frost will melt away, we'll see some sunshine coming through into the afternoon, but the winds continue to strengthen, particularly in the far north—west. gale force, perhaps severe gales at times, gusts in excess of 70 mph. that's strong enough to cause some disruption, and there will be some rain by the end of the day. temperatures ranging from seven to ten degrees. now, that weather front will continue to sink its way steadily southwards, but as it bumps into that area of high pressure, it loses its intensity. by thursday morning, it'll be a band of cloud, just clearing away from the south—east, and then behind it, more sunshine returns. a north—westerly wind driving in a few showers into the far north of scotland, some of these turning increasingly wintry to higher ground. top temperatures on thursday between seven and nine celsius. the high still with us across england and wales. weather fronts trying to push in across the top of that high.

the wind direction changes somewhat, as we move into friday, to more of a south—westerly or a westerly, a milder source, the air coming in off the atlantic. more cloud around, still outbreaks of rain to the north, but with the cloud in scotland, northern ireland, northern england and wales, here those temperatures perhaps up as high as 12 or 13 degrees. further south with the sunshine, nine or ten. still, that high pressure across central europe still dominating the story for england and wales. we do see more isobars continuing in the far north, but as we head into the weekend, once again, it could be an issue with some mist and fog first thing for england and wales, somewhat warmer, but sunnier conditions, but windier to the far north. will this weather pattern change? well, it looks likely, as we head into next week. we could see more weather fronts pushing in off the atlantic, which means an increase to more wet and windy weather, perhaps the driest in the south, but it will turn just that little bit milder.

hello. i am hello. iam laura hello. i am laura trevelyan here in washington, dc. welcome to bbc news and our special coverage of president biden�*s state of the union address. the story of america astoria progress and resilience, that is what we are expecting mr biden to say in his remarks tonight. we know he'll also talk about moving on from the covid pandemic — he'll tout the millions ofjobs that have been created under his watch. and he'll cite the benefits of working across the aisle with his republican

rivals in congress. we