this is bbc news. the headlines: american airlines has resumed us flights, after grounding all its aircraft briefly due to a technology issue. one of the worst starvation crises in modern times — a new report says famine in sudan has spread. a record—smashing "kiss of the sun", as nasa's solar probe makes history, with the closest ever approach to the star. and... pope francis is launching a specialjubilee year for roman catholics, in a christmas eve ceremony at the vatican. now on bbc news, mabu: saving the secret forest.

in a world where nature is under relentless attack, there are still places that have been left untouched. this is about as good as it gets, the forest is in excellent condition. the water is crystal clear. mount mabu is an isolated patch of rainforest, almost like an island. this isolation has meant that the animals that live here have evolved uniquely. inaccessible for decades, due to war, it's only now that scientists are discovering mount mabu's secrets. sh—sh—sh—sh—sh—sh. wow, that is amazing! this is a bicyclus butterfly. this is a nadzikambiai baylissi, which is only found on mount mabu. mabu forest is quite special for beetles. i collected ten species, half of them were new to science.

these ones could be a new species, we hope. it's amazing! will proving what lives here in this forest is unique be enough to secure mount mabu's protection? limbui, northern mozambique, familiar territory for professorjulian bayliss. it's nearly 20 years since he first came here, having worked out from satellite images that there could be a hidden rainforest on top of mount mabu. the relative size of the forest compared to what's left in southern africa, i think, was the discovery. not that it was never seen or known by humankind before, because obviously, the local people were here and they're hunting in it.

what was your reaction at that point? oh, my god, i mean, what have we discovered here? this is, this is phenomenal, that we found the largest rainforest in southern africa. since then, professor bayliss has been leading expeditions of scientists into mabu, trying to gather evidence to justify the forest�*s protection. there's only a limited amount of resources available to try and protect places, and somehow and some way, you've got to try and, unfortunately, rank them in terms of importance. the more new species we can find, the greater the justification to try and protect the places like mabu. this one. wait, wait. we were invited to join professor bayliss on one of his biggest and most ambitious expeditions yet. no scientists have ever been into the centre of this forest. we'd be the first group, 25 people strong, national and international scientists going into the centre of mabu forest. and we're going

to find new species. yeah, get that duct tape over there. getting there is quite an operation. once you drive into the village, the end of the road, if you like, and that's where the vehicles stop, everything gets unpacked from the vehicles. the villagers come out, we talk to the chiefs. they show us their traditional ceremony, where they call to the spirits of the forest, and they ask the spirits of the forest to grant us access, and also to grant us safe passage and look after us while we're in the forest. on this occasion, we had 64 porters. everything is being carried. everything is on top of their heads. everything is on foot. there is very little difference between what happens from those vehicles onwards to, you know, to what was happening 100 years ago or 150 years ago. even with our equipment being carried by porters, the walk in, straight up the side of the mountain to the centre of the forest,

is tough, as our cameraman quickly discovered. how is it, tony? yeah... any regrets? quite a few, actually! where do you want to start? it looks like we're probably not going to get to the camp until after dark. that's just the first step towards getting into the middle of this forest. day turned into night, and after eight hours of walking, we and the scientists staggered into the first base camp on the edge of the forest. oh, my lord. i was dying, my love. i know, i said all the time to everyone that i was - feeling sorry for you. laughter just a day in, and mount mabu was already showing her tough and special sides. i was just walking, and i spotted, it was like four metres up in, in a small vine.

it's a chameleon, which is only found on mount mabu. there is a couple of other species of the same genus, which are found on other neighbouring mountains. each mountain basically has its own, and this one has been named after julian bayliss. so it's called nadzikambia baylissi. it's a tree chameleon, so hence the long tail. the long tail, yeah. the next morning, the porters, the scientists, and us were on our way again to our final destination, 1,400 metres above sea level. welcome to the centre of mabu forest, welcome to the heart of mabu forest. this is about as good as it gets. the forest is in excellent condition, the water is crystal clear, beautiful for drinking and washing. this is going to be the base for the next ten days, something like that, where we're going to survey

the biology, the ecology, the plants, the animals. these are collectively known as "islands in the sky", and they're high—altitude mountains, with pockets of wet forest found at a high altitude near their summits. because they've been isolated and separated for a very long time, the plants and animals we found inside them have had plenty of time to speciate and become endemic, and become new and not found anywhere else in the world. amongst the group are a small team of bird experts. they've come here with a very specific mission. popping we're headed to the very highest parts of the mountain, looking for what is one of africa's rarest birds, and a bird whose very existence is threatened by climate change. its name, the namuli apalis. a yellow belly, a black breast,

this beautiful, olive—green wing, and a inquisitive, rather, currently rather angry pale whitish eye. so this is the first—ever photo that was taken back in 1998. exactly, yes. and here is a painting done by my colleague, jess lund, of the same species, which really beautifully captures its slightly imperious nature. yeah, it looks quite a character. it is! that's perhaps why it's so hard to find. the namuli apalis lives only at high altitudes and right up in the canopy, so finding any trace of it from the ground is quite an effort. we've got pre—recorded calls of the bird from previous - expeditions from the namuli, and we're going to play- the male territorial- song, and even a male and female duet. and if there are any namuli apalis here, sometimes, they will respond. birdsong plays

sometimes, even when they're with the flock, they may- show some curiosity, they might give - a burst of calljust - to announce their presence. they may come have a look. so the hope is that the namuli apalis will hear what you're playing on your iphone and your bluetooth speaker. yes. and come and check it out, because they think it might be... exactly. ..a mate or something. exactly. birdsong did you hear what's happening there? l so one of its related species is probably. calling in response. because the calls sound a little bit similar, - and often, if they heari a similar sounding call, they'll often call back. but that's a black—headed - apalis calling, not the namuli. you can tell that just by listening? yeah, yeah. you've got a very trained ear! well, this is, yeah, - we've got a lot of experience with these species, so it takes a long time to get _ to that point. psh—psh—psh—psh—psh. so, i'm doing this noise - because a lot of birds find it — it almost sounds a bit like a bird alarm call, . it's a similar tonal range, and so birds often find it| interesting to come and look

at, or they think it's - another bird alarming. psh—psh—psh—psh—psh. with the namuli apalis only found on one other mountain, the fear is that a combination of deforestation and rising temperatures are pushing the apalis ever higher towards possible extinction. the climate change often has these effects that. are hard to predict. so, for example, birds that like cold habitats, like, - why do they like cold habitats? do they, do - they like to be cold? you know, does their. metabolism work better in a cooler climate? but there could be other. effects like, for example, we found in another study around cape town with i a threatened species, - where the warmer habitats actually seem to encourage snake activity, and those i snakes predate the nests, - so the birds seem to be faring really poorly in areas - where the climate seems to be warming. so, i might need to "de—ant" in a minute. as we hack our way through the forest, we come under attack by millions of red ants. i'm afraid i'm totally "anted" up.

so, just get rid of them quickly. ooh! yo, my word, millions! the only way to deal with it is to pull your trousers down and try to find them. no, we didn't stand out on a nest, they're hunting insects... argh! excuse me, we might have to edit that bit. but they... ..they're hunting insects, and they're moving in a big trail. and as the insects move ahead, they grab them like grasshoppers and crickets, and they eat them or take them back to the nest. not for the first time on this trip, the bird experts returned to camp with no sign of the namuli apalis. in the river by our tents, this mozambican scientist was having better luck. i'm erica tovela, a marine biologist. i'm fascinated by freshwater fishes. erica brought to mabu a collection of traps and nets. she says she's confident that one of the fish she caught hasn't been seen

by scientists before. so we have, like, the same genus, but probably for these ones, could be a new species, we hope. so we already took samples for genetics, and we will do morphometrics too, and try to compare to the other ones, describe it. what is it about the fish that you found that makes you think that it might be a new species? ok, the first thing is just the area, like, it's very, very high. when we're trying to follow the features, something was a little bit different, because for this area, we have two species, and some of them was really different from the two ones that we have. so you think it's a possibility it's different? yes, because i was sharing this information with one of the experts for this group, and they said, "ok, this is amphilius, for sure," but i think that it's something new for science, and i hope that we have a new

species for this area. it's very exciting. amazing! amazing, will be the first fish for me. will you get to choose what it's called? it should be something mabuensis, amphilius mabuensis, because you have many things... mabuensis is for mabu? for mabu, yeah, yeah. 0k. and it will be a very nice way of saying that we have at least one specific species that is from mabu. well, congratulations. thank you. that's brilliant. thank you. as well as leading the expedition, professor bayliss loves a flutter. butterflies is my passion. that's the first group that i started looking at, at the age of seven. i got two there. if you're a butterfly specialist, if you're a butterfly enthusiast, you go searching for special butterflies that may or may not be there, and that gives you that extra energy to go that one step further, and that one step further takes you into a

different world of exploration. you make it to the top of the peaks, you make it over the ridge, you make it into the valley bottoms, just to see what's there, and what you can find. and you've found quite a few new species here? yes, i have, yeah, yeah, i think we've got about 10, 12, 10 to 15, including subspecies. and some of them are around here now? yeah. that sounds like a charaxes in there. let's go and have a look. that is a charaxes. where's it going? it's looping. there it is, there it is. ok, wait. this is a female cymothoe butterfly, one of the new ones that we found a few years ago. it's a "montane glider", in common english. cymothoe poppyana, baylissi poppyana. and baylissi poppyana, it's not just your surname, is it? no, poppy is the name of my daughter. so this one is named after my daughter. it wasn't named by me. it was named by some other

butterfly enthusiasts. generally, when new species are found, they're named after the place, or often people. so we have quite a few mabuensis, like in a new leaf—nosed bat that we discovered, called rhinolophus mabuensis. on this occasion, this new butterfly was named after my daughter, poppy — poppyana. though the forest itself has changed very little over the years, unfortunately, the same can't be said for the animals that live in it. should we put one trap or two traps on this tree? two, maybe. no, please don't feel like tarzan. we need you alive. so there was a whole community of large mammals in the region, in and around mount mabu, probably all the way up until the civil war in the �*70s. the lions, rhinos, buffalo, antelope of all kinds, predators.

mouse in bag... mouse in bag. ..is 41. 41 grams. large mammals were heavily harvested during the war forfood and, as a result, the large mammal populations crashed throughout the country everywhere. there are some mammals that are unique to mount mabu? well, there's one mammal in particular, there's a species of horseshoe bat that goes by the scientific name of rhinolophus mabuensis. we've discovered also a new species of shrew from mount mabu that we recorded a couple of years ago. we're still busy analysing it, and we will eventually describe it, it will be a new species of mammal. so, from a biodiversity point of view, mount mabu is very important, because wejust don't get those species anywhere else in the world.

laughter you've frightened her, julian. i'm not surprised. laughter as we walk through mabu, we see evidence of how the local villagers still use the forest. we just come across what's known as a gin trap. this is used by local hunters, and the idea behind it is that these extremely sharp teeth snap onto the legs of an animal, when it walks through the trap. the basic idea is that this catches the animal, holds it in place, keeps it alive — in excruciating pain — until the hunters come round, maybe several days later, to collect it. we go with professor bayliss to retrieve a camera trap he left strapped to a tree on his last trip to mabu.

duiker, that'll be a nice one of the duiker. day time. ah—ha — there they are! there they are. now, i've got sound on this as well. these are the hunters and they've seen the camera trap. they'll try and open it next. i knew i'd catch them. are there lots of hunters here? not in the middle of this forest, no, it's... ..they don't need to come so deep, because they can get all of the animals they need in the forest edge, so this centre area here is not that well hunted. it's rare. why spend the effort in coming deep into the forest when you can get all your food on the edge? though frowned on by some, hunting is clearly still an important source of food for communities that live near the forest.

we head out in the morning with an expert in setting traps of a rather different sort. this is fresh, right? very fresh. 0h! oh, my... that's good. dr gimo daniel is a dung beetle researcher... you guys, are you sure you don't want to...? ..and to find new species

of them, you need bait... hold on, hold on, i want to put on my gloves. ..and a stern constitution. first of all, we need to dig a hole, right? so we can bury a yoghurt container, right? after that, we put soil to soil level. and then we need to be as neat as possible, because dung beetles are full of nonsense. they want a neat pit for the trap! they're fussy? they're very fussy. laughter after that, we use this plastic cup. we call it a magic container. and this is a magic spoon that we use the spoon to scoop. so you have to be careful with me if you come and, "gimo, — can i borrow your spoon?" i'm not borrowing your spoon! there's no way i'm borrowing your spoon, gimo! working as a dung beetle researcher, you have to be very productive, in terms of dung. so, you will be useless in case you go to the field, you won't be able to produce

your own dung. it's like going to work to your office without your tools for work. so it's pointless. so that's why i produce my own dung to do research here. so, yourfaeces are being used to bait the traps? basically, yeah, i'm using my faeces as a bait to attract dung beetles here in the forest. and is it fresh? it's a fresh one, fresh one, yeah, that's correct. all right. today, we're going to be setting up about 25 traps. it's a lot of traps and it needs a lot of dung. well, it's a good job we had curry last night in the camp — you must have a lot! that's correct! that's correct. they can smell up to 30 to 50 metres. so they come as fast as they can. otherwise, if they're late, they won't get the fresh one. and then there's a lot of competition in forests or nature. so all over this part of the forest, there are probably dung beetles smelling your poo, thinking... that's correct! ..it's lunchtime!

that's correct! no, i think this time around, maybe, it's brunch! laughter as it turns out, gimo's bait is particularly good at attracting beetles. he tells me he's already found 15 new species here, and has two more possibles lined up from this trip. mabu forest is quite special for dung beetles. and remember, this is my second time to come to mabu, right, and in 2022, i did, i led the first expedition to explore dung beetles in mabu forest. then i collected ten species, half of them were new to science. wow! yeah, that's fantastic. back in camp, well, there's some friendly rivalry in the quest for new discoveries. he's very good at discovering new species of beetles. but, to be fair, there are so many beetles to be discovered, right, gimo? it doesn't take much to discover a new species.

no, not really, not really! later that evening, after a night spent out on a high ridge, the bird experts were back, and they brought with them some good news about the extremely rare namuli apalis. we literallyjust drove back, two minutes ago, found - the apalis, we found the apalis, we found a fantastic new site. | a fantastic new site. | the territory where the apalis the territory where the apalis is in is a beautiful site, - is in is a beautiful site, - it's a magnificent hilltop . it's a magnificent hilltop . that, like, overlooks, like, that, like, overlooks, like, half of central mozambique. half of central mozambique. so it must be a real relief so it must be a real relief to know the bird is still here? to know the bird is still here? it is, hugely, hugely. it is, hugely, hugely. so we managed to get a sound so we managed to get a sound recording of it, as well, - recording of it, as well, - but we never managed to get but we never managed to get a photo, but got the sounds. | would remain this way. a photo, but got the sounds. | that's good enough, you know that's good enough, you know that it's still here? that it's still here? good enough, so it's confirmed. 0k. 0k. it's exciting. it's exciting. we wish we'd found more, actually, it's a little bit- concerning, to be honest. concerning, to be honest. so we're going to have so we're going to have to look towards otherl to look towards otherl conservation areas as well conservation areas as well to protect this bird. - but, yeah, it's great i to protect this bird. - to know it's still here. with the trip nearing its end, with the trip nearing its end, thoughts began turning thoughts began turning to how long mabu forest to how long mabu forest

would remain this way. these forests in mozambique desperately need protection — some form of management, at least. professor bayliss certainly feels that his two decades of expeditions, and all the new species, have brought progress.

it's very difficult to find - a balance where we protect the forests for the long—term good of humanity, but also, i to ensure that in the short - term, communities don't suffer from the resources being taken away from them. l to come to mabu is not an easy process. so access to mabu is very difficult, but, hopefully, if this forest is protected, and it turns into a community park, or reserve, hopefully, there's a lot of tourism, and with tourism, we can improve our roads and eventually, we'll have a lot of scientists coming here and explore more about mabu forest.

the mozambique authorities confirmed to the bbc that formal proposals to protect formal proposals to protect mabu and have the local community manage it are now, mabu and have the local thanks to the scientists, about to be introduced. about to be introduced. this is a rare good news this is a rare good news story for conservation. story for conservation. this is a conservation success story, yes. this is a conservation success story, yes. it's nice to have one? it's nice to have one? yes, it is. yes, it is. all right? yeah. success! success! we did it! we did it! we made it to the other side. we made it to the other side. exactly! exactly! laughter laughter

hello there. it's been a quiet start to christmas eve. for those of you up and off first thing this morning, you were probably greeted to scenes like this. a lot of low, grey cloud, thick enough for some drizzle, some misty conditions out there. this is going to be the story for the next couple of days,

a blanket of cloud will prevent those temperatures from falling too far. so those early—risers on christmas morning, it will be an incredibly mild start. so, christmas day, this is what's in store. a lot of cloud around, but a quiet theme set to continue. there will be some heavier bursts of rain into the western isles and the northern isles, and maybe just to the north—west of the great glen. here, it will stay windy. the cloud elsewhere will break up and lift, and we should see some glimpses of brightness from time to time. it will stay mild, not perhaps quite as warm as today, but 11 to 13 degrees as an afternoon high. it's almost a case of spot the difference as we go into boxing day. that weak weather front sinks its way down into northern england, but weakens all the time. again, quite a cloudy day. some brief glimpses of blue sky, and highs around 11 to 13 degrees. it's likely that we could

start to see the first signs of a change, though, as we move out of friday into the start of the weekend. this weather front will sink south. the wind direction changes once again to a north—westerly, and that will slowly start to introduce colder air, certainly across scotland. and it means that as we head into the new year, there's a potentialfor some of the showers to turn wintry.

live from london. this is bbc news. american airlines has resumed us flights, after grounding all its aircrafts briefly due to a vendor technology issue. trump vows to pursue death penalty for violent criminals after biden commutes 37 federal death sentences. one of the worst starvation crises in modern times — a new report says famine in sudan has expanded to five areas and likely to spread further next year. the syrian armed group that toppled assad's regime absorbs different factions into the country's defence forces. air fryer—exclusive christmas feast — we speak to cookery writer beverley jarvis who'll ditch the traditional oven and cook her entire dinner using airfryers alone. hello, i'm maryam moshiri.