his eldest son, dodi, was killed alongside princess diana in a car crash in paris, 26 years ago. india launches its first observation mission to the sun, just days after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the moon's south pole. the studies will help scientists understand solar activity. now on bbc news, women in beirut: hitting the mark. hello and welcome. i'm kim chakanetsa. and today i'm in beirut, the capital of lebanon, to meet two athletes who help promote women's participation in sports.

in 2012, ray bassil became the first arab woman to compete in trapshooting at the olympics. since then, she's taken part in two more olympic games and has won three world championships. and sarah eljizi is a basketball player who leads a series of sports programmes for right to play, an ngo promoting skills development and social cohesion among children living in refugee camps. welcome to you both. thank you. ray, why don't you start us off by explaining what tra pshooting is? trapshooting actually, it's an olympic sport, and it's defined by shooting clay targets. it's basically it's an outdoor shooting range where we have 15 machines. every machine sends a target, which is a random target with different angles, different degrees, whereby we have to call the target and we have to shoot it. so it's a very common sport, and especially in lebanon,

because we know in lebanon most of the people are hunters. so this sport, actually, i took it from my dad, my dad, he was also a lebanese champion in trapshooting, and he was the one who discovered the talent in me. so tell me about that introduction. do you remember the very first time your father showed you how to hold a gun? yeah, because it left very special moments, because, first of all, i used to go with him hunting when i was very young. so i was introduced to all kinds of shotguns and stuff because of, first of all, hunting. and then when i turned the 14 years old, my dad said, ok, let's go and try tra pshooting. and this is where they discovered that i like the sport and why not go further? and not long after that, you took part in your first international competition.

hejust dropped me in my first world competition. it was a world cup in cairo. i took seventh. i took a very high ranking. and this is where for my parents, it was like a turning point. so they said, ok, if you want to succeed in this, then we have to stop everything and just put the focus all on trapshooting. sarah eljizi how did you get into sports? when i was in school, i was maybe nine, nine years old. they had this activity or summer activities or the activities they do during the weekend. and my friends told me, let's try and play basketball. i said, i have nothing. i don't know how to play basketball. let's learn. come and try. you experience the game and you learn some skills and you see if you fit, you continue. so this is how we started. we used to spend all of our free time playing and this is how

i continued and i discovered that i love this game. what do you love about basketball? it's all about teamwork and you have to have leadership and it combines many skills together. these skills like this are life skills. now, we teach them to young children, like teamwork, collaboration, communication, leadership, decision making. these are all combined together to make a player. so, i used to be fast and i'm still fast. so i fit. were your family encouraging of you going out and playing basketball? not that encouraging because they were not aware. they did not have the awareness of the importance of sports on children. what encouraged me is that the my sister and i were playing on the same team, the school varsity team we used to play

all the time together. this is what kept me going. ok, ray, what are the key qualities that you need to excel as a trap shooter? well, i believe that, first of all, it's in the dna because every shooter, you ask him or ask her, they always come back to the history of the family. so everyone says, okay, because my dad was a shooter or my mother or my grandfather. so it's very rare to find like new entries, like new, new people entering this kind of sport. so basically, i believe that it has to be, first of all, in the blood, like you have to love the game. second of all, there is no team, so it's all based on you. you have to be comfortable. you have to be focused. you have to pull the trigger. so the opponent actually is the target, so it's not another athlete or someone in front of you. so that's the difference. everything is based on you. it's like the basketball,

the difference is like you have a support team with you. like if it's not your day and you're notjust throwing the ball and entering like you have a back—up, but if it's not my day and i'm not pulling the trigger and i'm not hitting the target, no one would do that for me. so that's the difference. well, sarah eljizi, let me come to you with that question. you know, basketball is a team sport. what are the qualities that you think make a good player? i see that to be a good player, you have to challenge yourself. as ray was saying, since her sport is more individual than basketball. but also you need to have that peace between you and your inner self and to be consistent, to have this courage and the empowerment between you, yourself and your surrounding, and to work on your mental health, mental health and physical health. right. you cannot be fit on court if you don't work on your mental health.

it's interesting that you both mentioned that. it'ss basically something today.... a lot of athletes are talking about mental health and the turning point of this is due for the covid. so the covid was a transition to all athletes and especially when they rescheduled the olympic games. so that was for me because i went to tokyo. that was really challenging because we've been preparing for the past four years and you are ready to go. and then suddenly they postponed it a year. so a year for an athlete is really something. so this is something... it's not any more a taboo. it's becoming a daily discussion because it is very important and an athlete, because we have a lot of common things, we have a lot of work to do.

so physically we get tired, mentally we get tired putting all the time challenges in front of us. it's something really requires a lot of calmness and dedication. and so it's not easy because when you when we win, people see the end result, but they don't know exactly what's behind the stage. sarah, did you think when you were growing up that a career in sports was possible? here in lebanon? here in lebanon. there's no way. no way. very hard. no way. so that was so you had to have a plan b? was that exactly? i focused on my career now at my work, not not as a basketball. as a career on basketball. i played in the first division. i'm still playing, but i don't look for it as a career. i take it as a hobby. and just so i understand, the reason why you didn't look to it as a possible career was because it's just not possible? the lack of sponsorship, finance and the lack of the support of the government, the federation,

we do not unfortunately have in lebanon a vision in sports because basically the people who are over it are not people educated much or they have a sports background to set a plan and a vision to develop sports in lebanon. so basically the lack of the finances and the lack of the mental and the support of the sport system in lebanon, we do not have it. so it's something that we have to do it on our own with the supports of the families and friends. work. and you pay for it from your savings. like if you want to be an athlete, you have to train. well, uh, like a strengthening and gym in the morning, let's say, and basketball at night. you have to schedule your trainings and you have to pay for your personal trainer

if you want to train at the gym because you cannot train whatever you like to prevent injuries and so on. while if we want to talk about male athletes, they have their trainers, they have their nutritionists, you have to schedule your meals. this is not available for all women athletes here in lebanon. so, it's a completely different situation for male athletes. i think the basketball... the men's basketball team is more supported by the government and the federation than women, you know, so now you can see a little bit of transition of supporting the women because i think now they're competing in the asian cup. asian. yes. so you see, like there is a little bit of support, but in teamwork they focus more on on the men. they focus more on the men.

and this is something for me it's not acceptable because as men can do without women, they can do results as well and better. and today, the ioc, they they actually insisted to have a gender equality between men and women. if we want to go back to the past olympic games, you can see there was like 60% men, 70% men, 30% women until today in tokyo, you find like 45% women and the rest men. so we're becoming equal and they introduced the mixed team events. so just to give the right for the men and women to be together and to prove that gender equality in sports, it's something very important. right. so you're both saying that what is holding women back is a lack of support, a lack of sponsorship, you know, the infrastructure. so how have you made it? how have you managed

to overcome those hurdles? well, first of all, i had the support of my parents. they invested a lot of a lot on me. they invested time. they invested money. they invest because they believed in me. and then i had to work as well to to and my salary was used to go to pay my trainings, my expenses, everything. and my main goal was to do a result because in lebanon they wait for you to do results. like, you do not get the support before getting the result, which actually the support you needed before getting the results. so they wait for you to do a result and then if someone comes over to help you and support you, you're lucky enough to do so. i was lucky, but i paid my work paid off at the end of the day after ten i was lucky, but i paid... my work paid off at the end of the day after ten years, like i got sponsors and everything. but i have done i've won eight world championship medals. i've done three olympic games, i won asian championships, our championship. so ok, now let's talk. but where have you been in the past years?

so this helped me to find sponsors and the support definitely today. it's not like before because due to the economic situation in lebanon and the banks are not available any more and they took our money. so it's harder today to find the financial support and sponsors in lebanon. they even do not stream, uh, women's games on tv only they stream all of the men games. but and even for individual sports, they do not stream them at all. it's like, luckily, you know, when, when we watch the news and you go to the sport sector, they start talking about the results or like, for example, when chester united won, like, ok, but why don't you start from lebanon? now, lebanon is the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita. it's estimated that 1.5 million syrians are currently living here.

sarah, you work with the ngo, right to play and you run programmes for kids living in refugee camps. who are the kids you work with and what is the situation the camps like for them? i didn't know that such places exist like 5 minutes away from my home in beirut. the first time i entered a refugee camp, i was really surprised and shocked by this. what were you seeing? like the streets are full of dust and water. all the electric cables are... how do we say it? tangled together and the water's dropping on electric cables. the situation is really horrible. horrible. now, the programmes that you run are to promote social cohesion and also to teach skills. so just tell me about that work. how do you do that? on all our projects,

we use the play based learning methodology and during the sessions we integrate life skills with the game, with the technical skill, and they realise after playing like if you want, if you are playing football, let's say, and your team lost, has lost the game. then after the discussion, we reflect on this. what do you think was the reason you lost the game? so they give answers and then they figure out that there was no teamwork between the players. so if we emphasise about this skill, like you have to communicate before passing, you have to have eye contact, make sure that your team—mate is looking at you or maybe to give him a sign for him to receive the ball. so we focus on these skills to help them improve in the game. now, you served as a un youth and goodwill ambassador

for four years. how did you use your personal experience to promote gender equality? starting with my sports and the experience i had at the beginning of my career, seeing how women in lebanon are being really... far from getting their rights and especially when it comes to sports. and this is where actually i went also to campus, like a lot of campuses in south and north of lebanon. and the main goal was actually to introduce a sport in a way or another that a woman, she can. and ifigure it out, not only the community is not helping, but really that the girl was not allowed even to hold a ball or to go play basketball or football. so it was for me, it was i was really shocked. i thought that today, after all these years, like sports is becoming more common. women have more rights,

but basically, no. so this is why one of my missions is to develop sports in lebanon, where we create a lot of courts like basketball courts and football courts and being present with the kids and tell them about my story and how i started and how difficult it is actually to pass through all this negativity and bullying and that we have to overcome them all being a role model for them to help them to start to think in a different way. sarah, you're working in a very challenging environment. how do you stay positive? ok on a personal level, because after what you see in the refugee camps or in the areas i work with you, you have an emotional intelligence like you feel with people and so on.

also, it all reflects on yourself and it affects me. so i try to take care of my mental health through i do meditation, breathing exercises, i train and this helps me a lot. so sports also helps you with that. yeah. 0k. now, sarah, sport is notjust a way to empower kids in refugee camps. it's also been a way to provide job and career opportunities for female coaches. so tell me about that. yeah. so, uh, our mission or our vision on our programmes is to work on a sustainable, sustainable level. like if one day the project ends, what would these coaches, what will they do? so what we did is that we gave them training with the certification like now— on the kids athletics project, they have certificates that allows them to work as an athletics coach,

but on a beginner level. so this gives opportunities to coaches, to a job, opportunities to coaches. on the football project, the coaches took the level d and level c certificate from the football association, lebanese football association, and also on one of our football projects, they have had training. most of the coaches reached the most advanced level and they took the icc international coaching clinic, and they have their certificates and they, many of them opened up their academies or they have a job now as a coach. fantastic. seeing direct results there. yeah. now, ray, you're a coach. you help run yourfamily�*s business as well. you have your own line of ammunition. what is harder, training for the olympics or being an entrepreneur

in lebanon now? training for the olympics to tell you the truth, and training because it requires a lot of hard work. like i train 9 hours, 10 hours a day. it requires a lot of dedication and patience and keep on fighting towards a goal to make everyone proud. to make your country proud. no, it's it's hard. and because any business, like at any time, you can shut down or you can excel or there is nothing because you do it for yourself, you know. but when you are on a mission, on a national mission, it's different. the responsibilities are bigger, a division is wider, the targets are bigger. so i believe, yeah, training for the olympics is way, way harder because there is a lot of sacrifices. you have to do a lot of sacrifices like on your routine, daily routine, on your towards your family, towards your friends. no, it's hard work. it's just really hard work.

sarah, when you introduced these initiatives to help women play a greater role in the matches and the camps, how did people receive it? i can tell you a story that happened when we started implementing the football project in a refugee camp in the north, the communities there are a bit strict and they have this strict mindset and they are religious. so they did not welcome or accept that female coaches first to train football because it's a men's game, it's not made for girls and they did not even accept for girls to be trained in public. like, if the court is open to the public.

they did not welcome this idea. we face few challenges. we faced a few challenges regarding this, and they started to talk about this, the religious figures and the mosque. and during the friday prayers, they even took away their the teams, the players from their coaches and assigned a male instead of the female coaches. so, was the solution to find a secluded location where the girls could play without being seen. exactly. this was the solution back then because as i told you, they were not allowed to be seen to the public. we were lucky that the centre we worked with had a space in the back yard and it is covered. so what we did is we rehabilitated this space into a mini football pitch and it was covered for the girls to have the chance to play. this helped us to to move forward like step by step and to gain back the teams we lost.

and this encouraged more participation. even the parents started to attend the sessions to watch their girls play football. and now it's becoming better and better. ray, you have your eyes on paris 2024, which will be your fourth consecutive olympics, which is amazing. how are you feeling about paris? so excited, so positive. ifeel this time i'm much more ready than any other time because the experience is playing a huge role and in the preparation towards the olympic games. but let's talk first about the qualification, which is more important, and i'm starting now in august. it's our first qualifications for the olympic games, and then i have the asian championship end of the year in october and hopefully

you will see me in paris. yeah, fingers crossed. so female athletes in the middle east are a growing group. what message would you have for young women who are looking to take up the sport? i tell them especially, young girls. do not stop. always keep going. be passionate about the sports you do. and take care about your mental health, your physical health and your nutrition. right. what advice would you have? well, a lot of advice... let's hear them. basically. i believe that sport is the future and we as women with all the capacities we have, because it's in the genes, you know, it's genetic, we are multifunctional people and we have a lot of potentials.

and we have a lot of potential. we are more responsible, we are more persistent in what we do. we would like to reach goals in our life and especially when it comes to different sectors. and as we can see today, women, they are being implemented everywhere, like in all the sectors. so my message to her is, is not only keep going, but keep growing and always believe in yourself and love yourself because this is what matters. if you're not strong enough to believe and love yourself, you will never, ever be able to reach her goal. so keep it up and just be consistent in what you do. ray and sarah, thank you. thank you. thank you so much.

hello there. we started off this morning with a bit of patchy mist and fog, but much of that is starting to clear away, and for many of us, we're looking at some warm, sunny spells into the afternoon. that was the scene this morning in gwynedd, a lovely calm start to the day there across the sea. now, this is the satellite image. you can see we've got quite a bank of clouds to the far northwest of the uk, but generally speaking, across the uk, this is where we've got the clearer skies, the finer weather as we go through this weekend. so, still a bit of cloud across some central areas continuing to clear away, and we could catch just the odd shower across the far south of england and across wales. but really, for most of us, it's going to be a dry day

with those warm, sunny spells, temperatures getting up to about 21 to 2a degrees celsius quite widely, about 15 to 18 degrees further north and west across scotland where the cloud will thicken later in the day. tonight, there'll be some patches of mist and fog developing mainly across southern areas of england, the midlands, towards east anglia as well, that cloud thickening in the far north and west of scotland. some outbreaks of rain here, but a milder night to come across scotland compared to last night. temperatures last night down close to freezing in the northeast but tonight 13 to 15 degrees. throughout sunday then, still that cloud and that rain across the far northwest, any of that mist and fog across southern areas clearing away and lots of sunshine expected during sunday. and with light winds across england and wales, that's going to feel really quite warm, breezier across scotland and the far northwest, really, with that cloud, that rain, that brings temperatures to probably more like about 15 to 17 celsius, but towards eastern scotland, 23 degrees celsius there in aberdeen,

2a, 25 degrees, the further south we come. on through next week, high pressure will move its way a bit further eastward. but what it does, it keeps things relatively settled. and with that, a southeasterly wind will bring in much warmer conditions. so, this is the air mass picture. there's a lot of orange here in the map and that's just showing us that we've got this warm air coming in from the south east. temperatures will rise throughout the week, particularly for england and wales, 25 to 28, perhaps 30 degrees on wednesday or thursday with that sunshine. temperatures even across scotland, northern ireland in the low—to—mid 20s. it will start to break down a little bit though by the end of next week. bye— bye.

live from london. this is bbc news, concerns in england over the presence of lightweight concrete in schools and hospitals, labour calls for urgent checks on all public buildings. blasting off to study the sun, india launches its first solar mission to learn more about the star closest to earth.

the flamboyant businessman, mohamed al fayed the former owner of harrods whose son was killed alongside princess diana in a car crash in paris has died. hello, i'm nancy kacungira. every public building in england should be checked for structural problems caused by the lightweight concrete, raac. that's the call from the opposition labour party after more than a hundred schools were ordered to close classrooms until they can be re—enforced. to close classrooms there are warnings that many more public buildings, such as hospitals and prisons, could be affected. with the latest details, here's harry farley. more schools are expected to close next week. parents are facing an anxious wait to know whether it is safe for their children to return to the classroom. fin safe for their children to return to the classroom.— safe for their children to return to the classroom. on one skill i have ten rooms — the classroom. on one skill i have ten rooms and _

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