The former world footballer of the year, george weah, has won the liberian president ial election. Mr weah played for a string of football clubs, including ac milan, chelsea and manchester city. He entered politics after his retirement in 2002, and will succeed Ellen Johnson sirleaf africas first elected female president. From monrovia, umaru fofana reports. Hundreds of jubilant supporters hundreds ofjubilant supporters of george weah took to the streets minutes after the Electoral Commission announced the results. They charted, it was george weah we wa nted they charted, it was george weah we wanted an george weah we clocked. The capital reverberated with singing and deafening cough islands. It was never in doubt the former world footballer of the year would win. Election observers both domestic and foreign plays the conduct of the poll. This man was used a winning trophies but found it ha rd to used a winning trophies but found it hard to win this, the biggest award of his life. Liberia has stabilised after a decade of bloody civil war but its still suffering with abject poverty and corruption. Chris fomunyoh is part of the International Election observer delegation to liberia. Hes the senior associate and regional director of the central and west africa for the National Democratic institute. Hejoins me now from monrovia. First of all, just how historic is this handover . This is huge and its historic. Firstly, because its the first in seven decades that we are changing political power through the ballot box with a democratically elected president , handing over to another democratically elected president. And it shows African Youth that someone from very humble beginnings, through hard work and perseverance, is now beginnings, through hard work and perseverance, is now going to be the head of state of africas oldest country. It is a stirring moment of this country and the liberian people should be proud of what they have done. What is the mood like in monro vieux . In the capital . Done. What is the mood like in monro vieux . In the capital . The mood is tested. Especially after the announcement of the results. Observers issued a report today which which spoke of how peaceful process has been and some of the improvements that have undertaken the elections in october and they set the stage for the jubilation of supporters and the fact that supporters and the fact that supporters have been very peaceful as of now. How is the administration of the selection handles compared to backin of the selection handles compared to back in october . What were the improvements that were made . Of course, there were very noticeable improvements. Notably in the management of the killing and the polling places, more attention paid to training. Making sure there were signs with serial numbers so that people will know immediately which polling place they needed to go to vote. We did see significant improvement with the votes. Compare to what we saw in october and the Electoral Commission needs to be commended for that as well. And presumably, the local Political Parties have an Important Role to play in that. Thats correct. We noted in all of the polling centres we visited that the two parties that we re we visited that the two parties that were in competition had polling agents, representatives of the candidates and parties, watching the polls from beginning to end. All through the voting as well is during the tabulation of election results. That has contributed to the confidence that the people of liberia have seen thus far. Do you think the fact that the margin of victory is so large is helping how voters look at this vote . Yes, thats one of the factors but also the political leaders of liberia on both sides have come to the recognition that its important to them to send a clear message to their supporters that liberians want peace, librarians are committed to Peaceful Elections and it will never be on anybodys interest to disrupt what is clearly the chosen will of the liberian people. Liberians. What kind of message does this send out to other struggling democracies in africa . Certainly with west africa, the ecoas countries have been dashed ecowas countries have been dashed ecowas countries have been doing well and what is happening now in liberia is a testa m e nt to happening now in liberia is a testament to ecowas and its future trajectory for countries in the sub region. In the same time, it sends a strong message across africa that a Younger Generation of African Leaders is emerging that wants to derive legitimacy from their fellow citizens and its important that we hold peaceful and meaningful and Credible Elections that can set the foundations for countries to be better positioned to address other challenge is and this is a happy moment for liberia, for west africa and for africa as a hole. Thank you very much forjoining us. Its my pleasure, thank you. Lets take a look at some of the other stories making the news. In venezuela, hundreds of people have been protesting in the poorer parts of caracas against the shortage of promised pork a key ingredient for traditional christmas meals. President maduro has accused portugal of sabotaging deliveries. A Portuguese Company denied the claims and said venezuela still owed portuguese firms almost 50 million from pork deliveries made in 2016. Apple has published a letter to customers apologising for what it calls a misunderstanding around older iphones being slowed down. The Company Recently admitted that it was deliberately slowing down older phones in order to compensate for degrading batteries. Italys president Sergio Mattarella has dissolved parliament ahead of an election scheduled for march the 4th. Immigration is likely to be the key issue, with the anti Establishment Five Star Movement currently leading in opinion polls. Officials in alabama have formally certified Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the States Senate race. This was despite attempts by his defeated republican rival, roy moore, to stop his certification going ahead. Mr moore filed a last minute lawsuit to challenge the result, alleging voterfraud, but a judge denied the request. Roy moore, Whose Campaign had been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct, lost narrowly. His lawyers said thered been a higher than expected turnout. But state officials were emphatic that they found no evidence of fraud. I dont think there is any doubt on the minds of anybody in this room or anyone hearing the sound of my voice that if there was never a question about whether or not the state of alabama conducts honest and fair and safe and secure a elections, that question has been eliminated from anyones thought and mind, period. A suicide bombing in the Afghan Capital, kabul, has claimed the lives of at least a0 people and injured more than 80 others, with women and children among the casualties. The Islamic State group says it carried out the attack, which targeted a Cultural Organisation and news agency in the west of the capital. In recent months, so called Islamic State has attacked many shia muslim targets in this area of kabul, where the majority of the citys shia population lives. Our correspondent in kabul, zia shahreya, has sent this report. The force of the explosion is clear to see. Among the rubble, relatives desperately search for their loved ones. But there was little left behind. The bomb went off inside this building, a Cultural Centre and also home to an afghan news agency. Students had been marking the 38th anniversary of the soviet invasion of afghanistan. The suicide bomber apparently has entered through that way, inside this hall, where the seminar was happening, and the hall was full of people, students, female students, male students, from different universities in kabul. Translation i saw many dead in the area, i was looking for my cousin but i could not find his body. Im not sure what happened to him. The number of dead people has increased. After the explosion, ambulances took the injured to the hospitals nearby. This man, one of dozens badly hurt in the explosion. Some of the wounded were taken in for surgery. Translation a total of 35 dead were registered here and 20 others wounded. There are men, women, and children among the injured. For some waiting outside for news, it was all too much. Back in the area, to the west of the capital, where the bomb went off, armed guards patrol. The initial blast was followed by two other explosions, but no one was hurt in those. So who was behind the attack . So called Islamic State has claimed responsibility, saying it targeted the centre with a suicide bomber and other bombs. Its been behind a number of other attacks on shia targets across the country in recent months. The president s spokesman called the attack an unpardonable crime against humanity and pledged to destroy terrorist groups. Turkey and the us are to resume issuing visas to each others citizens. Theyd been suspended after a bitter row, when turkey arrested a local embassy employee in october. But in statements earlier, the Turkish Embassy in washington, and the us embassy in ankara said the issue had been resolved. With me is seref isler from our turkish service. First of all, how did this disagreement start . Back in october, the turkish authorities wanted to detain some Us Embassy Staff over what they claimed to be links to the coup attempt of 2016. After the coup attempt of last year, turkey launched a very large operation to find the perpetrators and they claim it was masterminded by a cleric living in the us so in the turkish authorities wanted to detain these Us Embassy Staff members, they stopped Visa Services to turkish citizens in turkey in turn stopped these services for us citizens. The last day, some resolution to this but slightly messy . Precisely. The us is stating they received security assurances from turkey and that why they were able to resume Visa Services but turkey is saying they are resuming the Visa Services but note security assurances are made and we dont know what happened behind closed doors but its highly inconceivable that two countries would, by chance, start issuing visas again. Some chat should have taken place. We just visas again. Some chat should have taken place. Wejust dont visas again. Some chat should have taken place. We just dont know any details. Arrests aside, other issues have made it difficult . The us and turkey are staunch nato allies. I remember a time when turkey sided with the us in the first gulf war against iraq, for example. The two countries have disagreed, such as with syria. Turkey is of the uss opinion but is talking to russia and turkey has reacted angrily when the us recognised the capital of israel asjerusalem us recognised the capital of israel as jerusalem and other us recognised the capital of israel asjerusalem and other problems in the region where they might have been some disagreements but donald trump has a tower in istanbul so this is a messy situation. To put it mildly. Always good to get your analysis. Seref isler about. Stay with us on bbc world news. Still to come the pub, the pay packet and the power of social media. How one man was reunited with his missing money. The most ambitious financial and political change ever attempted has gotten under way with the introduction of the euro. Tomorrow in holland, we will use money we picked up in belgium today and we will use the same money in france. It has just got to be the way to go. George harrison, the former beatle is recovering in hospital after being stabbed at his oxfordshire home. A 33 year old man from liverpool is being interviewed by police on suspicion of attempted murder. I think it was good. You. Just good . No, fantastic thats better. Welcome back. This is bbc world news. The latest headlines. Former footballer george weah has won liberias president ial election, in the countrys first democratic handover in decades. Afg hanistans president has condemned kabuls suicide bomb attack as a crime against humanity. The blast left more than a0 dead. Bitter cold continues to blanket the Northern United States and canada, as forecasters warn the deep freeze will continue into the start of 2018. New record lows have been set, including 36. 6 degrees celsius in new hampshires mount washington. Officials say parts of canada are colder than the north pole or mars. Further disruption is expected in many parts of the uk with ice and heavy snow forcecast. The aa said conditions for many drivers on thursday were appalling, while passengers who were stuck at Londons Stansted airport last night have complained about the airports response to the weather. Anisa kadri reports. Hanging around for a flight longer than you expected. Its not much fun, especially when the queues are just getting longer and you find out your flights now not just delayed, its cancelled. More than 12 hours after sarahs flight to stockholm was meant to take off from stansted, sarah was still here, and will now fly tomorrow. I only found out literally, i think it was three hours after my flight was supposed to leave, that it was cancelled. And there was no boards to tell us that it was delayed or anything, so it was just literally, like going backwards and forwards between the one person that was there, kind of thing. Ijust ended up lining up for like ten hours to try and get a new flight. Did you get any sleep at all . No. I think ive been awake 25 hours now. You only need to head to social media to get an idea of the frustration some people here felt last night. One person tweeted it was a shambles, another posted a picture of people sleeping on seats. Stansted airport says its cleared the backlog of stranded passengers and things are returning to normal. But they say there still could be delays because of the weather. And the weathers been causing problems elsewhere, too. In the cairngorms, three climbers had to be rescued after getting lost in blizzard conditions. The rescue took five hours. The wintry weather is not going away, as we are being told to make sure our vehicles are safe for the road. Check your tyres, make sure youve got some good tread and theyre well inflated, that should keep you safe on the road, they keep you gripped to the road, after all. And pack accordingly, so have your own winter breakdown kit with plenty of spare warm and dry clothing, a flask, some snacks, a shovel, and certainly a fully charged mobile phone. Today in inverness, people were enjoying the snow, but theres more on the way for scotland and the met office is warning that tonight could be the coldest night of the year. A woman who was found dead in an outbuilding in finsbury park, in north london, has been named by police. Officers say 22 year old Iuliana Tudos died as a result of a stab wound and a head injury. Its thought she was killed on christmas eve. A Murder Investigation has been started. The iconic miss america beauty pageant is in turmoil, over an e mail scandal thats forced its most senior Board Members to step down. The Huffington Post has published e mails, which allegedly show pageant officials making vulgar comments on contestants weight, sex lives, intellect even wishing one was dead. Miss America Executive director sam haskell has resigned, as well as president josh randle, and some other Board Members. An online petition with tens of thousands of signatures is gaining traction. Its calling for everyone on the board to be sacked. Every second, the world drinks 35,000 cups of coffee, so its Little Wonder that its a 200 billion industry. Now, new figures show how more and more of that money is finding its way back to coffee farmers, thanks to ethically sourced and sustainable coffee. Jonathan josephs reports. Theres never been more choice. Were all drinking more coffee, and were prepared to pay more for it, but in return, we want to know more about where it is from and how it got to our cup. This coffee shop in a trendy part of east london is typical. They roast their own beans, which are carefully selected for the benefits they bring farmers. For example, we have a ugandan coffee. Weve managed to find a farmer there that is producing some really good coffee, and we talk to our customers about the impact that makes in that area, because there was a lot of warfare in uganda. Telling the story of how those beans made their way from the farm to the cup is an essential part of the growing branding and marketing effort involved in making coffee about the wider experience, as well as the drinking. It means more profits throughout the supply chain, as new figures from the uns World Intellectual Property Organisation show. For a pound of coffee beans that end up in the instant sold in supermarkets, the roaster can get over 4, but the export price is just £1. 09. The farmer gets most of that, but if the same beans end up in a large western coffee chain, the roaster can get 8. 50, but the farmer and their Community Also do better, getting 2. 89. But when the new wave of socially aware customer pays a premium for higher standards, the roaster can get over 17. 45. But the export price also rises to 5. 14. That third wave is a clear incentive forfarmers to invest, in turning their beans into a coffee with superior standards when it comes to sustainability and fair trade. A farmer can be roughly three and a half times better off by taking advantage of the third wave, and selling into the third wave context. Now, that obviously is a huge difference, and it brings with it many, many benefits for the farmer, obviously a higher standard of income. Also looking to cash in are the two companies that sell the world more coffee than anyone else. Nestle and jab have been spending billions buying smaller rivals like californias bluebottle coffee. The trend started in the us west coast and has definitely been expanding into other parts of the world and some of the larger roasting Companies Like jab and nestle, they want to start enjoying some of that profitability, so we have started to see a lot of acquisations with larger an increasing amount of the coffee we are drinking is of the expensive type that millennials like to post on social media. That is stimulating profits throughout the industry. The immense power of social media was once again in evidence at christmas, when a welder from london left his christmas wage packet in a local pub in wimbledon. More than a Million People responded to an appeal on twitter and facebook and identified mariusz so that the pay packet could be returned six days after he lost it. Our correspondent Chi Chi Izundu takes up the story. This is the story of a welder, a pub and a lost wage packet. Last thursday, after a few hundred people had been here at the alexandra pub celebrating their christmas parties, at the end of the night, a small brown envelope stuffed with cash was spotted on the floor. The only reason i realised it was a wage packet was because i used to get paid in similar packets when i first moved to this country. All they had was the name mariusz and £600. The landlord and his wife posted a picture on social media which was retweeted by authorjk rowling and then hundreds of thousands around the world joined in the search. We did not find him straightaway and a couple of celebrities retweeted it and it went bonkers. My phone was like a fridge. Buzzing all the time we were getting messages from all over the world, so much interest trying to find this guy, people contacting asking if we found them . From canada and america and australia, everywhere. All over the world. And then what happened . Lo and behold, yesterday, he walked in the door and said hello, im mariusz and i believe youve got my money it was like the biggest anti climax in history, he just wandered in and he said, i think youve got my money. Mariusz explained he took out his phone to take pictures of his christmas party, and thats probably when his wage slip fell from his pocket and under this chair, and he didnt notice until about a day later. Mariusz had not seen the social media posts, it was his son who alerted him to them and he may have kept the loss quiet from his wife to have, as he called it, a stress free christmas. He came in yesterday and got it. In a show of gratitude, he gave nobby a generous tip. And that is a nice, positive way to finish this half hour. There are plenty more news updates and analysis on our website and you can get hold of me on twitter. Im duncangolestani. Do stay with us here on bbc news. Hello. Friday starts with a number of wintry weather warnings from the met office covering many parts of the british isles. We have very specific concerns about the amount of snow that is likely to fall across the Higher Ground of england. Into an already cool atmosphere, it will eventually bring quite a bit of moisture from the atlantic. And as that moisture falls into a pretty chilly atmosphere, so there will be a ready conversion of some of the rain into significant snowfall. Here we see the extent of it, around about seven oclock in the morning on friday. And anywhere really from the central belt of scotland down towards the Higher Ground of northern england, we will see lying snow accumulating. Ahead of it, some of the lighter rain will be falling onto pretty treacherous surfaces. So, there are warnings about ice. But over the high ground of the pennines, we may find up to 15 centimetres of snow. Further south, it is one of those mornings. That rain will again be falling onto some pretty cold surfaces. A risk of ice even across the southern counties of england. As the morning wears on, we will find the bulk of that moisture moving out into the north sea. But following on behind, just the northern portion of that front lingering for a time, just enhancing the snowfall across the Southern Uplands of scotland and the top end of the pennines. As that system moves away, so it makes room for another set of weather fronts to work its way in, particularly across the southern half of the british isles, as we get into the first part of saturday. A wet and windy combination gradually clearing the way. You will notice the northern portion of the weather front eventually pushes up across the heart of scotland, with yet more snow to come. Chilly here, as you can well imagine. Further south, the temperatures rebounding. The sort of values we have seen of late. Even as far ahead as new years eve, there is another combination from another little system of some wet and windy weather. There is a great deal of mobility. Nothing hanging around for any great length of time. If you happen to have plans for seeing in the new year, it will be a chilly start to the new year, no doubt about it. Further south, passing showers, perhaps. Given the strength of the wind we are showing eight degrees, but it may feel cooler than that. So, what news for the start of the new year . Well, i suspect you have already guessed. More weather fronts coming in from the atlantic, more wet and windy weather to come. This is bbc news. The headlines the former footballer george weah has won a convincing victory in liberias president ial election. His win paves the way for the first democratic transfer of power in the west african nation since 1944. His supporters have been celebrating on the streets of the capital monrovia. So called Islamic State group has said it was behind a Suicide Attack on a shia Cultural Centre in the Afghan Capital kabul. Many of the forty People Killed were students attending a conference. The afghan president has called the bombing a crime against humanity. Any emails published on the Miss American board scandal, criticisms of past winners were shown