welcome back to bbc news. i'm yalda hakim. officials in ukraine say at least three civilians have been killed, and more than 1a wounded, in the latest wave of russian missile and drone attacks. sudan's warring military factions are holding talks that many hope will bring about a ceasefire to allow aid in. two caribbean leaders tell the bbc they are reconsidering their relationship with the british monarchy. in iran, authorities have executed two men on charges of blasphemy. the iranian judiciary said the two were hanged after confessing

to desecrating the quran and insulting the prophet muhammad in 2021. rights groups report that iran has put more than 200 prisoners to death since the beginning of the year. and in a further crackdown on high profile figures — iran has charged two well—known actresses with violating its strict dress codes for women. the president of iran, ebrahim raisi, has ordered an inquiry into the widespread protests seen here triggered by the death in custody of a young woman, mahsa amini, last september. taraneh stone from bbc persian joined me earlier in studio. this wasn't related to a protest per se, but it's causing a lot of concern about the high number of executions that we're hearing here and there in the news lately. we have heard in the news about many executions, especially

the execution of minorities. and they're raising concerns over the imminent execution of some minorities, like arab minorities. now, we know that iran is notorious for executions, for death penalties. and when ebrahim raisi became president, a lot of people were concerned that the number of executions will rise, and this kind of came true. we know that president raisi has a nickname and that is the executioner of tehran. he was known to be quite hardline and sort of impose executions in the past. yes. and when he was the head ofjudiciary, he was pro—execution as well. and now after the protests, we are seeing a rise in the number of executions and death penalties. and people start to wonder that, is that a way of crackdown?

is it a way of causing fear? i mean, is there a sense that this sort of thing is working, that people are afraid now to go out and protest? because we did see the number of executions increase, especially going after protesters. well, for protesters, at least four protesters were executed because of their part in protests almost immediately after the protests were sparked in iran. we can't actually see a correlation. we can't say with absolute certainty that people are scared and that's why they're not coming to the streets. we can say that street protests are less frequent right now. but from what we hear on social media, the situation is far from normal. people are saying that this revolution, as they call it, this movement, is farfrom over.

people are expressing their dismay in any way you can on social media. and by chanting from the roof of their houses, by civil disobedience, we see a growing number of women coming to streets, coming to public without their compulsory hijab, despite the dire consequences. we are also seeing more young women go out onto the streets without their headscarves. i mean, something that was unthinkable before these demonstrations. exactly. i mean, i remember my time. it would be very scary. iwould... if i saw a policeman, i would immediately put my hijab on properly. but now we see the younger generation being fearless, being... walking past police officers without the compulsory hijab, posting pictures of themselves without compulsory hijab on social media. some of them are not even...

like, it's notjust a headscarf. some of them are going to streets with short sleeves, with short trousers or skirts, which is very, very brave, considering that they can be severely punished if arrested. i also spoke on the phone to maryam, who is a protestor in iran, about what life is like in the country right now. definitely we have protested here like the other cities is like what has happened in kurdish cities in north, the west and south. but as long as we know that the islamic republic has put all his authority and all his power in the capital city, we can actually shut down the protest much more easily with violence, it takes and with the huge... and with the execution that it has taken as it is, you know, it's doing as his own behaviour always. and this is the approach that he has always started to protest. so definitely here now the protests are much more silent than the other

cities still in some in some point of the cities, we can hear that at the 9:00, they are going to start saying slogans and like death, the dictatorship and the others. but as long as still we don't have that much, you know, confidence to come back to the street and to protest. are saying there's more... are you saying there's more fear at the moment and there is fear to come out onto the streets, especially in the capital? definitely. you know, the fear is getting more because we know that the authorities that they have, the power and the violence that they have, it's you know, it doesn't have any end. they can, you know, every time you use it in another way that it can definitely make fear in everyone. imagine that you want to protest for your, you know, the least things that we call it as the freedom. and then they shoot you in the head, they kill you, or if they arrest you, they will hang you up. but it is what i call it a revolution. my family is revolution.

now, i can say that maybe we're going in the second phase, that we are trying to not obeying the rule. like i as a woman here, i do not wear hijab and the scarf any more. i'm wearing like, for example, like a dress, which is, it was never in our dreams again with, you know, with being of islamic republic here as a regime, we can do these things. we are going inside another faith, which is still we have definitely the fear. i myself have it whenever i see, like, i hear a motorcycle or i see someone who looks like a basiji. i take that fear with myself, but, you know, i talk with myself that, 0k, be brave. be brave. you're going to... you're going to win this. you're going to win this. definitely. and is that the sentiment in general for women that you speak to? you sort of take the risk every time you walk out of your house, when you leave without your hijab, when you dress in a way that they see as being inappropriate. exactly. we're taking this risk. it's like, you know,

when islamic republic is here, when these mullahs are here, death is always close to you as your breath. because even if you don't do anything that you say, okay, i haven't done anything i was here for like i was my son. i'm you know, living my life over the islamic republic can kill you in a minute. and you know, that doesn't take its disadvantages any more. so here, when you're living with this regime and with mullahs, you're taking this risks. but we are trying to break this shell and come out of it. and i have a vision that maybe it takes a lot of time, but it will really end to what we want it, because this time we really cannot tolerate this regime any more. that was a protester inside around speaking to us. that was a protester inside around speaking to us. to sudan now, where fighting between two rival generals continues. fighterjets have been heard flying over 0mdurman near khartoum, and residents have heard anti aircraft fire

from rsf positions. at the same time, talks in saudi arabia about a temporary humanitarian ceasefire. the talks began in jeddah on saturday. both sides said they would take part so civilians can get supplies and humanitarian aid can be given out. but they have not yet committed to ending the war through dialogue. the un agency for refugees says since fighting began last month, more than 40,000 people have fled into neighbouring south sudan. earlier i spoke to former un coordinator for sudan, mukesh kapila. i began by asking him if a permanent ceasefire could be put on the table. in time, that'll have to happen. but with the dynamics as they are now, it is unlikely in the near future because the conflict is not ripe for solving. there's enough energy momentum in the conflict and both sides are evenly matched and they don't have any incentive to stop the fighting.

so i'm afraid more displacement, more suffering is very much on the cards, at least for the time being. that's why these talks are important, but they don't seem to be going anywhere at the present time. when you look at the situation in sudan, are you surprised that it came as a surprise to the rest of the world? well, i'm not surprised. many people who have been observing sudan were not surprised and enough warnings were made. documents written, policy analysts were busy on the case. but, you know, sometimes uncomfortable truths are, in fact, are not heard in capitals around the world. and there was a lot of wishful thinking to think that cobbling together some shabby agreement between two generals, many of them having been war criminals and even committed crimes against humanity in the past, would somehow allow the situation, the world, sudan,

to muddle through. and unfortunately, with civilians totally excluded, including now from thejeddah talks, it the chickens have come home to roost, if i can put it that way, which is basically a continuation of the conflict which never went away from when the darfur genocide happened 20 years ago. and the idea that throughout all of the violent history of sudan's past, khartoum was sort of never destroyed in the way that it has been over the last three weeks. absolutely. it's amazing, isn't it? thatjust showed the elitist nature of the divisions within sudan. so traditional conflicts like in darfur or in the nuba mountains or from where your correspondent was speaking, an area that is very familiar to me from having been there. these were the periphery of sudan.

things went on there in the shadows while people in khartoum went about their normal lives. a rich city, a very developed city, advanced even more compared to when i was there. and now this has come home to roost, partly because, of course, there is much more economically at stake. and the economics, of course, are there in relation to where the riches are, which are, which is in cities, hence the urbanised nature of the conflict and the special nature of the suffering in khartoum. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. putting their skills to the test. it was all about accuracy for this weekend's hopefuls at bicester in a discipline called auto solo.

auto solos can be done in a road car. it's something that you can do on tarmac or on grass, and it's car control. so driving around a course with cones, different challenges against the clock, against competitors. 12 drivers took part in the event at bicester heritage. the prize? two places up for grabs to race all season for free. motorsport uk moved to 0xfordshire in 2020 and is hoping events like this can show how accessible driving can be. great to see that there's this stuff going on for disabled people, getting people out, getting people involved and showing them that they can get back into competitive sports. you're watching bbc news. the government in serbia has launched a gun amnesty. people who hold weapons and ammunition without permits

will be able to leave them at police stations with no questions asked. the move to take guns out of circulation follows two mass shootings in the past week. 0ne drive—by style shooting left eight people dead. the gun amnesty lasts for 30 days. 0ur correspondent guy delauney says the serbian leader wants to get serbia's guns off the streets. he's announced that he wants to make an effective disarmament of serbia, as he puts it. and that certainly needs to be done, because if you look at one of the surveys from about five years ago, the small arms survey, which was made by an organisation in switzerland, they reckon there's about 39 guns for every 100 people who live in serbia. and president vucic says, frankly, we need to get rid of those. and so this amnesty has been announced. people will be able, as you said, to take guns and ammunition to police stations, drop them off, and no questions will be asked. however, beyond this 30 day amnesty period, the authorities are saying that you'll be in deep trouble.

president vucic was talking about extremely harsh measures for anybody who hasn't handed in their illegally held weapons by that time, although he didn't quite say how that would be controlled. guy, just remind our audiences of the events of the last week or so, which has led to this. well, the events were truly shocking. i've never known anything like it in my more than ten years of covering the region, five of which were spent living in belgrade. and the idea of a school shooting in belgrade just hadn't been heard of by anybody. this was something that happened in other places that they heard about on the news. it didn't happen in the capital of serbia. and on wednesday, what occurred was that a pupil at the vladislav rabbinical school in belgrade went in, shot eight of his classmates and one school staff member. they all died. numerous other people were also in hospital. now, he was apprehended. he called the police himself.

so he's in custody. but less than 48 hours later, on thursday evening in and around mladenov, which is about 50 kilometres south of belgrade, there was another incident involving a young man and an automatic weapon and a drive—by shooting in this instance, or at least a drive—by in several different locations, people just utterly stunned by these turns of events. yeah, indeed. i mean, i was speaking to community members. i was speaking to localjournalists who were saying they were left completely bewildered, shocked, devastated by what was happening to their city, their country. and given serbia's... we often associate serbia with a violent past and history, but never something like this, never mass shootings. indeed not. and i spent the weekend in belgrade talking to all sorts of different people. i've got a lot of friends who are still there. and it is, i'm afraid to say,

unsurprising, because i've covered a lot of bad things that have happened over the years. you find that people are very close to these disasters. they may be only, if they're not directly involved they know somebody who is. and this is what i was hearing over and over, the personal involvement in this. the opposition parties have been holding a protest in belgrade this evening and they're accusing media outlets which are close to the government of promoting a culture of violence with the kind of programmes that they put out and the disinformation that they put on air. that's their take on it, at any rate. now to the democratic republic of congo, where a day of mourning has been triggered after nearly 400 bodies have been recovered after landslides triggered by flash floods hit two villages close to the shore of lake kivu, in the country's eastern region. flags across the country, like here on parliament square in the capital kinshasa, have been put at half mast to pay

respect to the victims. flood waters swept away homes and infrastructure last week. people have been digging through the mud with their hands in search of missing relatives. let's get some of the day's other news now. the jury hearing the civil lawsuit which accuses donald trump of rape and defamation is to hear closing arguments later. the jurors have listened to seven days of testimony, including three by the accuser jean carroll herself. they will retire to consider whether they believe her account of the alleged sexual assault at a new york department store. the european union has cancelled its europe day diplomatic reception in tel aviv. it came after the far—right israeli minister itamar ben gvir insisted on addressing the ceremony. the eu had repeatedly called on the israeli government to send a different representative to the event. syria is back in the influential arab league, twelve years after being kicked out. it had be excluded for its repression of pro—democracy protests during the arab spring.

the redmission of syria has been criticised by washington. the syrian civil war is still ongoing after more than 12 years. now to news here in the uk. we've had several days of celebrations following the coronation of king charles. the "big help out" is urging britons to take on volunteering roles and members of the royal family have been dropping in on some of the projects. charlotte gallagher reports. three, two, one! after the glitz and glamour of the coronation concert, today's celebrations come down to earth. scouts and their volunteer leaders are just some of the thousands of people taking part in the big help 0ut. and a famous face is getting involved too. it makes us all a better person when we get involved.

we extend our network, and meet new people and develop new friendships. we feel like we are doing something positive. and i love that. members of the royal family are at some of the events, including the prince and princess of wales and their children. they've been in slough, helping the scouts with a bit of building work, with prince louis keeping up with his older brother, getting behind the controls of a digger. the duke and duchess of edinburgh have been meeting some guide dogs at a taster session for volunteers. while the princess royal is at gloucester cathedral for a service to thank people helping their communities. i think i'll help out with the strawberries. and the prime minister rishi sunak and his wife akshata murthy are being put to work in a kitchen in hertfordshire. the big help out is about bringing people together, something the prince of wales

said was incredibly important to his dad. my father has always understood that people of all faiths, all backgrounds and all communities deserve to be celebrated and supported. today marks the end of the coronation spectacular. where royalty, world leaders, superstars and even kermit came together to celebrate. charlotte gallagher, bbc news. now, we are just one day away from the first semi—final of the eurovision song contest. liverpool is hosting the event on behalf of last year's winners, ukraine. on sunday, this year's eurovision song contest hopefuls assembled at st george's hall in liverpool, showing off their style and moves on a turquoise, rather than red, carpet.

0ur eurovision reporter, daniel rosney, is in liverpool and says the atmosphere is building with each passing day. i have never known her to feel as exciting as it has right now. the first run through of tomorrow's semifinal is about to begin. i've covered international conferences before but this is a conference centre for a conference centre for music competition. you can see some of the flags in the distance, france, danwei, normalway on of the flags in the distance, france, danwei, normal way on top of that, thousands of fans are here. tens of thousands are expected to watch and the fans on the suite, whether it bakes green to watch the event. if you don't have a ticket inside the arena there is plenty to see into across the city. fine inside the arena there is plenty to see into across the city.— see into across the city. one day away from _ see into across the city. one day away from the — see into across the city. one day away from the semifinal, - see into across the city. one day away from the semifinal, take i see into across the city. one dayj away from the semifinal, take us through how the day unfolds for

those of us who don't know the ins and outs. ., ., , ., , and outs. there are two semi finals this week- — and outs. there are two semi finals this week. one _ and outs. there are two semi finals this week. one tomorrow _ and outs. there are two semi finals this week. one tomorrow and - and outs. there are two semi finals this week. one tomorrow and one i and outs. there are two semi finals i this week. one tomorrow and one on thursday. the acts will be whittled down to 20 from those semifinalists. they willjoin six countries to automatically qualify for the final on saturday. so there are plenty of rehearsals throughout the week for the participating countries. so the way it has been working for the past couple weeks, the artist perfecting on stage have been perfecting their choreography. they been choosing outfits and practice hitting those notes. 160 million are expected to watch around the world. figs 160 million are expected to watch around the world.— around the world. as you say, tickets are — around the world. as you say, tickets are really _ around the world. as you say, tickets are really hard - around the world. as you say, tickets are really hard to - around the world. as you say, tickets are really hard to get l around the world. as you say, j tickets are really hard to get a hold of. and across the city, people are reallyjoining in. there is a fantastic atmosphere, isn't there

because mark fantastic atmosphere, isn't there because marl— because mark absolutely is. everywhere _ because mark absolutely is. everywhere you _ because mark absolutely is. everywhere you go - because mark absolutely is. everywhere you go in - because mark absolutely is. everywhere you go in the i because mark absolutely is. i everywhere you go in the city, because mark absolutely is. - everywhere you go in the city, there are signs, united by music on coasters and bars, the blue and yellow flag of ukraine is flying on different buildings. there are t—shirts that say you will never dance alone, you will never sin alone. that play on words of you will never walk alone. the iconic song that is associated with liverpool football club which people around the world sing. this feels like something huge. and in years to come i think people will be talking about little pools european song contest as the one to beat. daniel, who in your — contest as the one to beat. daniel, who in your opinion _ contest as the one to beat. daniel, who in your opinion on _ contest as the one to beat. daniel, who in your opinion on the - contest as the one to beat. daniel, who in your opinion on the front i who in your opinion on the front runners, who were the ones to be? if i was a betting man, i would say that currently the favourite would be sweden, france, finland, spain. anything can happen between now and the grand final on saturday. the uk has chosen an act called mae miller who will be performing at the end of the final. she is the closing act,

song number 26 on saturday, we are obviously posting this on behalf of last years winners, ukraine. their duo was chosen on the tv singing competition in ukraine. it was say bomb shelter that was turned into his tv studio in september. i was speaking to them yesterday and they are really excited. they are here and representing their country again. but it anyone game, i would say, for this week's eurovision song contest. ., , say, for this week's eurovision song contest. . , , contest. that is daniel crossley re ortin . contest. that is daniel crossley reporting there. _ i want to leave you with some unusual pictures of weather in australia. large parts have been plunged into freezing conditions. strong winds to flights in sydney. 0ther strong winds to flights in sydney. other parts of the country saw hail and snow fall. that is it for me and the team. goodbye for now. now here's the weather with susan powell. hello. we're going to see some warm sunshine in the next couple of days.

but don't leave home without a mac or a brolly, because what the sunshine will do in the next few days is inject energy in to quite an unstable atmosphere, and we're going to see clouds like these scuttling across our skies, and some pretty heavy showers eventually developing with hail and thunder at times. low pressure basically keeping the weather across the uk unsettled. as we go through the majority of this week, we've got a band of pretty heavy rain which will gradually pull clear of eastern england through the early part of tuesday, but following on from the west, some pretty intense showers out of northern ireland into northern england overnight, some heavier ones for the north—east of scotland. it is a very mild night to come — temperatures largely in double figures. we are sitting in some pretty warm air, but that's all part of the reason why things will become so thundery. we start the day with that rain across eastern counties of england. out of the way, i think mid—morning. then comes the sunshine. should feel pleasantly warm, just light winds. but by the afternoon we'll start to see the showers developing, in some areas they'll cluster

together into longer spells of rain. some areas may stay dry altogether, but where the downpours do develop, they are likely to be pretty intense. 17—18 degrees as highs, but obviously cooler if you are caught in the showers. low pressure sets the tone for our weather throughout the majority of the week ahead. and occasionally we'll see showers coming across in these more organised bands. and what that will mean is for some areas, the spells of rain will be more relentless, more prolonged. some areas may well experience that relatively dry story. but i think by wednesday afternoon, there is a chance of seeing a shower just about anywhere, and some pretty heavy rain in a short space of time. definitely not to be ruled out. so obviously that can bring quite a lot of surface water and spray if you're travelling around. and it's a little cooler for wednesday, highs of 15 to 17 degrees. and there it is, low pressure still with us across the uk wednesday into thursday, it starts to become a slightly weaker affair, but actually, if anything, all lighter winds do is mean the showers don't move through quite so quickly. so if anything, perhaps on thursday,

if you do find yourself in a downpour, you could be stuck with it for a slightly longer period of time. friday, it looks like we mayjust see a little ridge of high pressure heading our way and something drier to end the week.

hello, i'm christian fraser. you're watching the context on bbc news. after the uk's street parties and a weekend of coronation celebrations, today it was time to give back. the palace leads the way on a national day of volunteering. looting in khartoum as the two warring parties continue to breach the ceasefire. we will speak tonight to the aid agencies who are trying to prevent a humanitarian disaster. and the cost of war in ukraine, google releases new satellite images that reveal the before and after in cities

around the country. and overnight, more drone attacks, on the capital kyiv.