from the square behind me. crowds are also gathering at the grand mosque of damascus. for friday prayers. another day of commemoration. i am martin cox. the other main story this hour. —— i'm martine croxall. the other main stories this hour: the uk economy shrank for the second month in a row in october, after official figures showed a 0.1% drop. the french president emmanuel macron is expected to name a new prime minister today, after the collapse of his government last week. scientists discover how neanderthals played a key role in the survival of early humans a8,000 year ago. welcome to damascus to our special coverage of the first friday since the toppling of 50 years of the assad family's oppressive rule. the day being

called victory day by the new authorities. it is a harkening back to the first months of the peaceful uprisings in 2011 when syrians first took to the streets calling for greater freedoms and democracy. and now just look at the square behind me, where syrians are gathering, crowds here and across the country growing bigger by the minute. as syrians gather right across syrians gather right across syria to celebrate the end of this regime of president bashar al—assad and the start of a new order. you can see the flags of the opposition, the green on the opposition, the green on the black with the three red stars. and this is the scene now live just outside the grand mosque of damascus. umayyad mosque. people in the city have been gathering here for friday prayers. the first friday prayers. the first friday prayers since the momentous events on sunday. the collapse

of the regime here in damascus, president bashar al—assad taking a plane out of the country and he is now in the russian capital, moscow. every day this week, we have seen scenes of celebration in many parts of the country, including celebratory gunfire. even yesterday, you could hear the crackle of it in the air. but today, the new leader, the leader of the group dominating the islamist authority, abu mohammed al—jolani, who is now using not his war name, but his own name, he heads the hts, hayat tahrir al—sham, a proscribed terrorist organisation. but he is the man in charge now and this was his message to syrians earlier today. translation: | would - like to congratulate the great syrian people for the victory, for the blessed revolution. i would like to invite them to public squares to express theirjoy,

but without gunfire and terrorising the people. and then let's move onwards towards building this country back. translation: | would - like to congratulate the great syrian people for the victory, for the blessed revolution. as we have said since the beginning, we shall be victorious. god willing. he describes himself as a military commander. he has been given thejob of military commander. he has been given the job of caretaker prime minister to the man who once headed the rebel administration in north—west syria, the state of idlib, mohammed al—bashir, who is heading up a caretaker cabinet in place until next march, they say, but it is entirely dominated by islamists. so how much hope is that the new leadership will make good of their promises that there will be a government, a governance for all syrians? we can now speak to anas joudeh, founder and president of the nation building movement. you were one of the only

opposition leaders who was basing yourself here in damascus with all of the risks. i must first ask you seeing umayyad square today, how does it feel? it is complicated. 0f it feel? it is complicated. of course we are happy. this is a dream that we didn't think would come true at all. 52 years of dictatorship, 62 years of bad unitary governing without allowing anybody to move on to talk. this is a dream come of this is syria, this is umayyad mosque of this is damascus. it counts emperors, they don't count by days or weeks, but by empires and dictators, and they can eat and dictators, and they can eat and swallow and take out. how easyis and swallow and take out. how easy is it going to be to move to a new order, to end the old ways of dictatorship? it is very difficult. _ ways of dictatorship? it is very difficult. it _ ways of dictatorship? it is very difficult. it is - very difficult. it is complicated and very difficult. of course we are happy today, of course we are happy today, but we have to look for the

future. we have to be ready for not repeating the evil again, as the people of the regime are put on the shrine of their victims, we will not allow the evil to become again at all. it is very difficult, it is complicated. the signs that are coming until now are mixed. some of them are good, some of them are bad. we need to move our self, we need for civil society, we need for opposition, we need for everybody no, it is not about oppositional parisian. it is about syrians who really want to build their nation and their state again. it is time for everybody, i am asking everybody, i am asking everybody, all the people who are interested or occupied or in the public sphere before, come back to sphere, come back to damascus now, we need everybody to come —— come back to syria. we need all the energy, all the powers to fill the space, the gap. because the future is for us if we manage to build it. but if we stay on

the outside or behind our screens on facebook talking, we will not build everything. we will not build everything. we will leave it to the others to build it for us.— will leave it to the others to build it for us. you say there is aood build it for us. you say there is good and _ build it for us. you say there is good and bad, _ build it for us. you say there is good and bad, tell- build it for us. you say there is good and bad, tell me - build it for us. you say there | is good and bad, tell me first what the goodies. what signs have you seen that encourage you? have you seen that encourage ou? ., ., , ., have you seen that encourage ou? , ., , you? the good things of course for the first _ you? the good things of course for the first day, _ you? the good things of course for the first day, it _ you? the good things of course for the first day, it was - you? the good things of course for the first day, it was the - for the first day, it was the security in the markets. those are important. we have to be objective and we have to admit this. they managed to keep the security in the first day directly, the markets managed to go back again for the people, the services and institutions of the state, the buildings. we know in those times, things happened. until now, there is no serious revenge waves. there are some incidents here and there, but also, there are few incidents now. those are good signals. also the talks that we are here for everybody. but the shaping of the government, even if it

is a government from one colour, raises a flag. some talks we heard about the judiciary, about the woman judges, the christians and the others also raises a flag. even if i want to say not only from here, even the tone of antonio guterres said to protect the rights of minorities, 0k, we need the protection of the minorities, but we don't want to go for a lebanese style, showing power according to traditions. this is not what we fought for, we fought for a civil, independent, liberal —— liberal syria for everybody. we need to work for this, as i told you, we need to build our forces in order that syria will be for everybody, civil society and all the political parties, including the hardliners or from all sides only on one condition, that we don't, we are not allowing anybody to

kill the others were to take him out of the formula. it has been nearly a week. have any of the new members of the administration, the temporary administration, the temporary administration, they say, been in touch with you or your colleagues directly or indirectly? we have been in contact indirectly, they say they are working for a good transition, including everybody and all of this. they send some messages for this. but until now, no, there is no direct meeting. it is the first week and we are working for that. thank you very much forjoining us here in damascus and what is being called victory day. anasjoudeh. and we heard some of the gun fired that the leader of the hayat tahrir al—sham, the military commander of this new order, said they should not indulge in this today. it should be a peaceful day. but it is hard to come at the

emotions are running very, very high. we are going to keep an eye on all the developments from here. we are going to have coverage from damascus and other parts of the country. in fact, i think we can bring you before you leave you a sense of what is happening elsewhere. you can go to the coastline, the mediterranean, a former stronghold of president bashar al—assad's family. in the big square, the crossroad square, they are also gathering. it is just after friday prayers and we know the crowds will grow bigger. it is bigger by the minute here, as people want to be together. they want to mark this day together. so this is what we will see right across the country. we are in touch with our correspondent in other cities as well as we bring you our special coverage of syria, nearly one week on since rebels came into the capital and toppled the more than 50 year repressive rain of the assad

family. she two for now, thank you very much. lyse doucet in damascus. —— studio: thank you very much for now. judges in the hague have rejected a request to ban the dutch government from exporting weapons to israel. the case was brought by ten pro—palestinian ngos, who cited high civilian casualties in israel's war in the gaza strip. lawyers for the dutch state said that it was not up to a judge to dictate foreign policy. a request to ban trading with israeli settlements in occupied palestinian territories was also dismissed. our correspondent anna holligan is following developments from the hague. the palestinian ngos brought the case under the genocide convention 19118 convention, which obliges all countries all over the world to prevent and punish any acts of genocide. they have lost their case in its entirety. so i've just been digesting the judgement which has come down from the district court in the hague in the last 15 minutes. so kind of four main points here. first and foremost,

the court said it's up to the government itself, the state, in principle, to assess policy, and only in limited cases should courts, judges intervene. secondly, there are already measures in place to ensure the netherlands isn't supporting violations of international law. so it goes into a bit more detail here. the court finds that there is no reason to impose a total ban on the export of military and dual—use goods. the state has an obligation, under international law, to assess on a case—by—case basis. and essentially, the court found that that's already happening. the mechanisms, number three, are already in place. and the application for export has regularly been refused, on the basis of the checks and balances which are already in place from the dutch government. and then, number four, israel has a right to protect itself.

so the court said that the state cannot be obliged to announce a full embargo on the export of military goods. israel has the right to protect its own territory. so there is every reason to distinguish between the supply of military goods, which can be used in attacks on the palestinian people, and goods which can be used exclusively for the defence of israel's own territory. so that's the kind of breakdown of this lengthyjudgement from the district court here in the hague. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news.

the uk economy shrunk for the second month in a row in october, after official figures showed a 0.1% drop. the economy had been expected to return to growth following a fall during september. however, the office for national statistics said that activity had stalled or declined, with pubs, restaurants and retail among

sectors reporting "weak months". the chancellor, rachel reeves, said the figure was "disappointing". the numbers on gdp are disappointing, but it is not possible to turn around more than a decade of poor economic growth and stagnant living standards in just a few months. but you will see from the plans we have been announcing whether thatis we have been announcing whether that is the energy reforms we have been publishing today, the reforms to build 1.5 million homes that we published yesterday, the pensions reforms, the creation of a national wealth fund, this government are getting on with thejob in improving economic growth and driving up living standards.— growth and driving up living standards. , ., . standards. the people watching this, then when _ standards. the people watching this, then when can _ standards. the people watching this, then when can we - standards. the people watching this, then when can we expect. this, then when can we expect to get back to growth?- this, then when can we expect to get back to growth? great is the number-one _ to get back to growth? great is the number-one mission - to get back to growth? great is the number-one mission of. to get back to growth? great is| the number-one mission of this the number—one mission of this government. economic growth results in families feeling better, with more money in their pockets —— growth. and we are driving economic growth and we hope that those numbers will start to improve because of the policies that we are pursuing in the months ahead.

in the meantime, the shadow chancellor, mel stride, said: "this fall in growth shows the stark impact of the chancellor's decisions and continually talking down the economy." our correspondent ben boulos has more. the economy shrank by 0.1% in october. now, that doesn't sound like much, but it had been expected to grow. and even the chancellor admits this figure is disappointing. the figures suggest that a lot of that was down to a drop in people going out to spend in the shops and people not going out to eat and drink in pubs, bars and restaurants as much, perhaps due to the wet weather, and also a degree of uncertainty ahead of the budget, with people holding back on their spending. businesses and shoppers perhaps waiting until they knew what was going to be revealed in the chancellor's tax and spending plans. remember, this figure, gdp, tells us how much economic activity is going on in the uk — how much we're making, growing, building, buying and selling. if there's more of that going on, it generally means

people are better off, it means there's more money going round, morejobs available, easier to get a pay rise and so on. and there was some of that over the summer. in the three months from july to september, the economy grew — albeit very slightly — by 0.1%. but a shrinking economy, which is what we saw in october, tends to mean the opposite — less money around, fewerjobs, harder to get a pay rise. and in october, all sections, all parts of the economy failed to grow. there was no increase in activity in services like retail and leisure. meanwhile, production, manufacturing and construction — so, house—building, for example — all declined. the government has made it a priority to get the economy growing, and the chancellor has said in response to these figures, "we have put in place policies to deliver long—term economic growth". the french president, emmanuel macron, is expected to name a new prime minister today, following the collapse of his government last week.

mr macron is under pressure to select a leader who can satisfy the demands of a broad coalition and pass a budget for next year. france has been in political turmoil since the president called a snap parliamentary election injuly. charlotte minvielle is a french parliamentary candidate for the new popular front and co—chair of the french green party. she told me who she would like to see appointed as the new french prime minister. well, we need someone from the left, from the nouveau front populaire, this new popular front alliance, because actually, when you look at the result of this snap election that the president decided to call, the biggest number of mps comes from this left coalition. so it would be the democratic thing to do to respect the will of the people and to nominate someone that comes from this political camp, and to be able to implement some of the social, environmental policies that french people are really after. one of the leading names in this race is the centrist francois bayrou.

how likely is it that your party would join a government with him as prime minister? it's completely unlikely that our party would join a coalition government because, as you said, he's from the centre—right and we have seen what the policies have been, basically, the methods, also, that this government has employed of using the 49.3 article of the constitution, which basically means forcefully putting through the budget, which was an austerity budget. and there is no chance that a government that is led by francois bayrou will be able to implement the policies that we're after. we could look at seeing, would there be methods that they would employ to not using the 49.3 article and have these parliamentary discussions? butjoining a government with the centre—right is not on the cards for the left, it is not the respect of the democracy. just to explain, article 49.3

allows a government to force through legislation. but wouldn't this be an opportunity for your party and others to the left to negotiate with the incoming prime minister and say, "look, if you want us to support you, this is what we need to see"? so you could have the prime minister of mr macron's choosing, but you could have influence. so, i think there could be discussions about non—censorship, which basically is not voting no confidence of this government, and that would be if there is a strong commitment on a certain number of propositions. so, for example, the green party has laid out 11 propositions that include, for example, not putting in place the pension reform, increasing the minimum wage, having a strong environmental programme and a plan, for example. if they were to say, "ok, we are committing to these 11 propositions, also committing on a method of not putting in place measures through parliament forcefully," that could

open up discussion. but it is very unlikely they will decide to go that way, unfortunately. and we have seen the brutality with which they have not respected the vote of the people. and the french president, again and again... he could choose to lean more to the left and he has chosen over the past few years to lean more and more towards the right, and that is what we are seeing again today. charlotte minvielle. president biden has issued a raft of pardons and sentence commutations — the biggest single day act of clemency in modern us history. 1,500 people saw their sentences downgraded. nearly 40 non—violent criminals had theirs written off. the decision to grant mass clemency follows a backlash over the pardon the outgoing president gave to his son, hunter, for gun and tax offences. here's our north america correspondent david willis. not sincejimmy carter, on his first full day in office, granted a blanket pardon to those found guilty of evading the vietnam war draft, have so many people been

granted clemency on the same day. the 39 people pardoned by president biden were all found guilty of individual offences, all non—violent, and in many cases, marijuana—related. and a white house statement quoted president biden as saying that america was built, as he put it, "on the promise of second chances", adding that all those who have been granted clemency had been successfully rehabilitated and had proven that they were deserving of a second chance. all of this comes, of course, just over a week after president biden issued an unconditional pardon to his son, hunter, who'd been found guilty of tax evasion and gun charges — a move that sparked condemnation from even several in his own party, as well, of course, as the republicans. now, the white house has said

it is, in its words, continuing to review claims for clemency, the suggestion being that more pardons could be issued in the five or so weeks thatjoe biden has left in the white house. the man who will be taking overfrom him, president—elect donald trump, has said that he intends to pardon many of those who were involved in the insurrection at the us capitol building on the 6th of january 2021 within hours of taking office. mr trump has taken to calling them thej6 hostages and has said that he believes that many of them do not deserve to be injail. david willis. scientists say they've discovered that inter—breeding between neanderthals and early humans was critical to the success of our species. a study suggests that the genes

we inherited from neanderthals, we inherited from neanderthals may have helped our ancestors adapt to life away from africa. our science correspondent pallab ghosh reports. our kind evolved into various different types of human, but why were we the only ones to survive? the answer lies in the dna scientists extracted from ancient fossil remains. they show that our species, modern humans, died out several times. so often, we are seeing ourselves, modern humans, as a big story of success coming out of africa 50,000 years ago, moving all over the world, expanding into all kinds of ecosystems and really being the kind of most successful mammal on the planet. but that actually shows that at that time, we were not. so we go extinct multiple times in different ecosystems or areas, continents like europe that we moved into. our species, homo sapiens, evolved in africa around 200,000 years ago.

a large wave began to leave the continent around 60,000 years ago, running into the neanderthals on the way, and began to spread across the globe. the new research shows that around 48,000 years ago, those leaving africa interbred with the neanderthals, who lived in the middle east and europe, and their offspring also migrated. the scientists found that those who arrived before the interbreeding went extinct. you can see straight away, the shape of the skull is different. the results, which have been in the journals nature and science, have surprised independent experts. perhaps getting neanderthal dna was even part of the success, because it gave us better adaptive capabilities outside of africa, because we had evolved in africa in an african environment. these other populations like neanderthals had evolved outside of africa, and they had, for example, immune defences to the local diseases and pathogens. by interbreeding with the neanderthals, we got a quick fix to our immune systems.

the analysis of ancient dna has lifted a veil on the mysterious story about evolution. that story has today been rewritten. pallab ghosh, bbc news. you quickly to syria and in particular damascus, where we are seeing one of the many mass rallies taking place, where the rebels who overthrew the assad regime have encouraged people to come out on the streets to celebrate the end of five decades of authoritarian rule. you're watching bbc news. hello. at long last, we will see the return of sunshine more widely through tomorrow. you have got them, you are one of the lucky few because for most, it's that grey, looming cloud

overhead once again. fairly damp day as well, with rain or drizzle here and there. things will change, though, in the next 24 hours, from this weather front. through the rest of today, that is going to start bring a bit more rain to the northern isles, the western isles, also across the highlands. but you'll notice just to the north—west of it, sunshine will come through. so you mayjust get a glimpse of the sunset before it disappears in the western isles. elsewhere, though, we stick with plenty of cloud, something a little bit wetter towards the south—west at times as well through this afternoon. but as i said, one or two breaks possible. another cool day, with temperatures in single figures. into tonight, though, that weather front starts to push its way southwards. you can see clearing skies, wintry over the very tops of the scottish mountains. an area from north wales, northern england, northwards, the temperature chart shows some blues, indicating there could be some frost, even a bit of ice around for tomorrow morning. in the south, though, not as cold, but it will still be a chilly start. and if you are waking up to grey and gloomy conditions first thing, stay with it, because this is the weather front which will push away that cloud during the first part of tomorrow morning. so brightening skies

across the south, turning drierfor a time. there will be a few showers in the west, through the morning especially. but for the west of scotland, northern ireland, make the most of the morning sunshine because through the afternoon, the cloud returns here and we will see some outbreaks of rain, especially in the western highlands. another cool day, though, by and large, but the offset is a bit more sunshine, it will probably actually feel a little bit more pleasant than it has done so far this week. then as we go through into saturday night, well, actually, temperatures rise through the night for all of us. south—westerly winds will be pushing in, making it a much milder day for everyone into sunday. but the cloud will return as a consequence of that, unfortunately — milder weather at this time of year usually means cloudier conditions. but it won't be the gloom we've had of recent days. too much breeze for that. and there will be some breaks in the cloud, so there will be some brightness at times, but it's in western scotland where the cloud will bring some outbreaks of rain on and off throughout the day and they will mount up as we go into next week. but here is the big change. temperatures for all, double figures, if not the low teens, so it will feel much milder, even though there will be more of a breeze.

and we will continue with the milder theme into next week. breezy at times, there will be outbreaks of rain coming and going, too, with the odd brighter spell in—between. see you soon.

the uk's postal service, the royal mail, is fined £10.5 million for missing delivery targets.

clean power by 2030 — the uk government reveals how it plans to massively ramp up zero carbon energy over the next six years. also, india is considering a temporary tax on imported steel, to counter cheap chinese import. cheap chinese imports. hello and welcome to business today — i'm lukwesa burak. britain's delivery service, the royal mail, has been fined £10.5 million by the regulator for failing to meet delivery targets for first and second class mail. it is the second year in a row the company has been fined by ofcom for poor delivery performance. the regulator said royal mail's poor service was �*now eroding public trust in one of the uk's oldest institutions'. let's get more now from our business correspondent, theo leggett. what's the background to this fine?