This is bbc world news. Im james reynolds. Our top stories Iranian State television says the countrys military did shoot down a ukrainian passengerjet, blaming human error. Polls open in taiwan for the countrys president ial election where relations with Mainland China have taken centre stage. The death has been announced of the sultan of oman, the longest serving ruler in the gulf. And, plants living the high life why vegetation is growing at higher altitudes in the himalayas. In the past hour, iran has admitted it did shoot down the ukrainian passenger plane that crashed near the iranian capital tehran on wednesday killing all 176 people on board. Irans foreign minister Mohammad Javad zarif wrote on twitter that preliminary investigations by the armed forces concluded it was human error at a time of crisis caused by us adventurism he went on to say our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations. Irans president has also taken to twitter offering his condolences for the accidental shooting. He called it a great tragedy and an unforgivable mistake. In new york for us now is michael bociurkiw, a Global Affairs analyst and a former spokesman for the organization for security and cooperation in europe, who worked at the crash site of the downed Malaysia Airlines mhi7 passengerjet in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. What do you make of irans admission . I am i must say i am surprised but pleasantly surprised. I think the iranians have done something the russians have never brought themselves to do and that is admitting to shooting down that boeing triple seven. This is a good move on the part of the iranians. It will bring a lot of plaudits to them from canada and other nations. Grieving nations. They were probably boxed in with todays technology. That airliner before it crashed was sending signals to the operator so they probably felt boxed in, that they probably felt boxed in, that they cant hide what happened and better to come out and admit to it. The really, really good news i think from this is it will open the way to more transparent and really comprehensive investigation that people can now come in and say lets find out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. What was the state of the investigation prior to this announcement . And how will this announcement . And how will this announcement change this investigation . Absolutely terrible. There were reports today from foreign correspondence on the ground that they are actually bulldozing the site, clearing out evidence, and thatis the site, clearing out evidence, and that is the last thing you want to do ata that is the last thing you want to do at a crash site. I know there are probably relatives of the victims watching but when you do Something Like that, bulldozer site, watching but when you do Something Like that, bulldozersite, human remains get destroyed, buried and so on. But every piece of soil, every piece of human remains, every piece of views alleged, as a important piece of evidence in it. Views allege. Macro three. Fuselage. Listening to Prime Minister trudeau today, they are waiting for visas to beissued today, they are waiting for visas to be issued very urgently, so the team can go from ankara to iran as soon as possible and take part in the investigation. How many countries might take part in this investigation . What typically happens is the grieving nations, those that lost victims, but also the United States, crucially, it was aus the United States, crucially, it was a us made aircraft so boeing needs to be involved. Crucially, the canadian Transportation Safety board because they do have very good expertise and things like analysing the black boxes. I should also add quickly if i made that something very odd came from the iranians government yesterday or today, they wa nted government yesterday or today, they wanted to invite the russians into investigate or analyse the black box and given that it is probably a Russian Missile that brought down the aircraft, that would be a bit odd, i think. Iran says it is military that shot down the plane. Will foreign investigators including canadian investigators including canadian investigators want to have access to that decide whether missile was fired . Will that that decide whether missile was fired . Will that be that decide whether missile was fired . Will that be crucial to an investigation . That is a very good point. In the case of mh i7, investigation . That is a very good point. In the case of mh 17, the russians to this day have not turned over primary radar data which will give a lot of clues as to what actually happened. I think in this case, it behoves them to turn over radar data of their own. I noticed in their statement, they tried they trod a fine line, and said ok it was a missile that went up but it was due to, their phrase was, us military adventurism. So they are still trying to blame this on the United States so we will see where this goes. Joining me now, negar mortazavi an iranian american journalist and media analyst based in washington. I dont know if you are able to hear oui i dont know if you are able to hear our previous guest that i want to redo the tweets from the iranians foreign minister, Mohammad Javad zarif. He says it was human error caused by us adventurism. He puts a lot of the blame for this on the United States and what do you make of that . I think the Foreign Ministers tweet, i just of that . I think the Foreign Ministers tweet, ijust read it before i came on, it was adjust from a longer statement that came from the Armed Services of the military and that statement i think gave some very interesting detail on how the country was on highest alert when it came to air defence and they saw some hostile air traffic around the country and some strategic centres which were believed to have been the targets. Some stuff showed up on their radar. All of that pointed to their radar. All of that pointed to the fact, i am not military or aviation expert, but the question that many iranians i have talked to, why such a High Sensitivity time, that you are expecting some retaliation or response . Why did a civilian flight leave the airport, the most important airport, over the capital of the country . It is the countrys most guest city, most populated. Many strategic or political centres or targets are centred in tehran so why were these civilian flights flying over the airspace in tehran that could then lead to such a human error that is obvious when you are in a high alert as the statement said and it such a sensitive time, you are expected to be targeted. I would say that would be targeted. I would say that would be the secondary human error but the question i hear many iranians asking is that primarily primary question. Why were civilian flights moving out of tehran at this time . That is a fascinating point and that will be part of a public enquiry. Will there be a kind of public enquiry where those kind of questions get to be put in public to officials who have to be held accountable . The statements seem very unprecedented. Up until this moment, many people predicted that such a statement or admission would never come and that they would drag this stop there was so much rumour, misinformation and conspiracies just flying in iranians media and social media. The country was very polarised and some completely went with the line from the government officials and some were believing very weird conspiracies. I think this statement, it is a very long and comprehensive statement. Best of all, it put an end to the rumour. The first step to the transparency, are responsible statement and then they apologised to the families for they apologised to the families for the human error and asks for an investigation to find those responsible, to ensure, to prevent future errors and then asked officials, sorry the officials going on national tv and an explaining details to iranians people. All of this is unprecedented, unexpected, but adds to this image of a more transparent and basically Good Government after and basically Good Government after a week of this confusion and tragedy ofa human a week of this confusion and tragedy of a human error that probably could have been preventable if those aeroplanes were not flying over the capital. Voting is now under way in taiwans general election with control of both the presidency and the parliament up for grabs. The main divide between the parties is over how to manage relations with china. Supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party tend to favour moves towards outright independence whereas supporters of the kuo min tang generally prefer closer relations with beijing. Cindy sui is in taipei for us i asked her how voting was going. About two hours when the polling station opened. The crowd has thinned out a little bit. People are still very eagerly coming into polling stations like this one throughout taiwan and patiently waiting for their chance to vote. They brought their id cards and are turning in their mobile phones and going into rooms like this one classrooms, actually, in this middle school to cast their ballot. They have a very, very tough decision to make. They have to decide whether they believe in tsai ing wens message that china is a threat and taiwan should keep a distance from Mainland China, or mayor han kuo yu message that taiwan needs china and needs it economically, and to ensure peace between the two sides. They have to make this very tough decision. Ive covered many elections in taiwan and no other election has made china such a central issue. Part of the reason is that because of the hong kong process. The month long protests have actually unnerved a lot of taiwanese people especially young people. I just spoke to one voter who cast his ballot and he said he was quite worried, watching scenes of Police Firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters, and he believes that president tsai ing wen is the best person to safeguard taiwans democratic way of life. At the same time, i also spoke to voters who support han kuo yu, including a woman whose father fled to taiwan at the end of the chinese civil war. She said that they understand the pain and suffering of war and she does not want to vote for tsai ing wen because she believes that she is taking a taiwan down a dangerous path. She prefers han kuo yu because she believes he will build better relationships with beijing and this will ensure peace between the two sides. Im looking behind you and there are no queue jumpers with the barrel incredibly disciplined. Whoever wins the election, will they pick up the phone to to the chinese president in beijing and negotiate, or are the two sides wanting completely Different Things from the relationships . President tsai has no way of negotiating with beijing because they refuse to talk to her because she does not accept the so called one china principle, that the two sides are part of one country. If han kuo yu was elected, definitely he will reach out to beijing and beijing will be willing to work with him because he accepts the principle that there is only one china, but each side can define what that china is and his party would define it simply as the republic of china which is taiwans official name. That is his way of getting around this very difficult and sensitive issue of taiwans sovereignty and working towards a better solution for both sides. Oman has declared three days of National Mourning following the death of Sultan Qaboos bin said al said. The sultan, the longest serving ruler in the gulf, was 79 years old. He had ruled oman since 1970, when he deposed his father in a bloodless coup, with the help of the former colonial power, britain. Bill hayton reports. When he pushed his father, a man was desperately poor. He started a National Development programme, sort ofa National Development programme, sort of a communist back rebellion and steer the country to through turbulent times. The Islamic Revolution in iran, the iran iraq warand to revolution in iran, the iran iraq war and to two gulf wars. He courted both sides while trying to remain independent. He followed a relatively liberal path, granting rights to women and creating a consultative assembly. The sultan remained an absolute ruler. He was also the countrys Prime Minister, finance minister and foreign minister. There were elections last year the human Rights Groups complained about restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly. They we re freedom of speech and assembly. They were large scale freedom of speech and assembly. They were la rge scale protests freedom of speech and assembly. They were large scale protests in 2011 and again two years ago. It is not clear who will replace the sultan. He had no children and never publicly appointed a successor. He brought half a century of increasing prosperity and tolerance to a man but within limits. Oman because of there are reportedly 80 candidates to take over, all men. Whoever he is, he will have to work ha rd to whoever he is, he will have to work hard to meet his countrys rising aspirations in the next half century. Stay with us on bbc news. Still to come. As cold as ice. Well tell you about the concert thats cool literally. Day one of Operation Desert Storm to force the iraqis out of kuwait has seen the most intense air attacks since the second world war. Tobacco is americas oldest industry, and its one of its biggest but the industry is nervous of this report. This may tend to make people want to stop smoking cigarettes. There is not a street that is unaffected. Huge parts of kobe were simply demolished, as buildings crashed into one another. This woman said shed been given no help and no advice by the authorities. She stood outside the ruins of her business. Tens of thousands of black children in south africa have taken advantage of laws passed by the countrys new multiracial government and enrolled at formerly white schools. Tonight sees the 9,610th performance of her long running play the mousetrap. When they heard of her death today, the management considered whether to cancel tonights performance, but Agatha Christie would have been the last person to want such a thing. This is bbc news, the latest headlines Iranian State television says the countrys military did shoot down a ukrainian passenger jet, blaming human error. Sultan qaboos bin said al said of oman, the arab worlds longest serving ruler, has died aged 79. In mexico, a schoolboy thought to be 11 years old has shot and killed a teacher and injured at least six other people at a school in the Northern City of terreon, before killing himself. Gail maclellan has the story. You might find some parts of this report disturbing. Tragedy struck this school early in the morning. At the very start of the school day, a boy many considered to be a good student started killing his classmates, sending parents and pupils into panic. Police and soldiers quickly surrounded the school. It happened in mexicos Northern State of coahuila, at the Colegio Cervantes private school. Parents gathered outside, many not knowing if their children were affected. State officials said shortly after arriving at school, he asked permission to go to the bathroom. Translation after 15 minutes, he still had not returned so the teacher went to look for him. She found him walking out, carrying two guns, shooting. He had also changed out of his School Uniform and into a t shirt bearing the logo of a video game the same video game referenced by one of the gunmen at Columbine High School in america, where two students murdered 13 schoolmates in 1999. Despite mexicos reputation for violence, School Shootings are rare. Officials say this pupil gave no cause for concern. Translation he was a student who was not problematic. He had good behaviour, but today, he told some of his classmates that today was the day. Police say they are still trying to understand a motive for this unexpected act of violence. Lets get some of the days other news. The Us State Department has described the british governments request for the extradition of amme sacoolas as highly inappropriate. Mrs sacoolas, whos the wife of an american diploma was driving a car involved in a fatal accident in the uk. 19 year old motorcyclist harry dunn died in the collision outside an raf base in august. She returned to the us after the crash, claiming diplomatic immunity. Sweden has seen a drop in air passengers for the first year in a decade. The number of people flying fell by 4 in 2019, a rare drop in recent years in a European Union country. The state owned airport operator says concern about climate change, and increases in aviation tax are among the possible causes. More plant life is growing at high altitudes in the Himalayan Mountain range, according to new research. Using satellite data covering more than 20 years scientists have found that vegetation is expanding at heights beyond where trees are able to grow. Elizabeth byers is a Senior Scientist and vegetation ecologist. She told me why the plants are moving further up the moutains. The planet is warming and vegetation is limited by cold in the himalayas at the upper levels, and so what were seeing, is as the temperatures warm, the zones where plants can actually live is actually getting higher and higher. Its kind of an interesting process because we have known for a long time in mountains around the world that the treeline is moving slowly up, but this study that Karen Anderson and her colleagues did is the first time we have seen in the himalayas what is happening above the treeline, and so i was really excited to read this study. It confirms what myself and a lot of field scientists have been observing over the years and in my case many decades in the himalayas, which is that these harsh environments, way above the treeline, getting up right near the permanent snow and ice are, in fact, being colonised by plants. When did you first notice this phenomenon . Well, so i first went to the himalayas in 1980. And at that point, i went to climb, but i was also studying ecology and then itjust drew me back again and again. At that point, i was walking on clean ice glaciers in many cases. This glaciers have basically crumbled under my feet over the decades and now many of them are lakes and some of them have turned into piles of rubble as the ice melts and these huge boulders and tiny cobbles and bits of silt that had been trapped in the ice since millennia are now being exposed to the air for the first time. The miraculous thing that i have seen is that as soon as these boulders and cobbles are exposed, life finds a way. Mosses and lichens move in and pretty soon, you start to see wild flowers. And these plants, they are in an environment where there is essentially no soil, there is ice right underneath them, the substrate is shifting, so you can imagine and honestly, looking for these plants is terrifying because you are walking across a shifting glacier that feels at any time it can open and then you come upon these flowers that are just extraordinary. They are not surviving them. They are thriving, and sometimes extravagantly thriving in this harsh environment. But there arent many of them because they have to be dealing with unbelievable stresses in terms of cold and lack of soil, lack of nutrients. They tend to have a lot of special adaptations. Lets head to italy now, where an unusual cultural event is taking place. An ice Music Festival is happening in the alps. 5a concerts will be performed in a 300 seater igloo, made especially for the occasion. Even the instruments are a little sub zero, as the bbcs tim allman explains. As concerts go, this is pretty cool literally. More than 10,000 cubic metres of snow were used to build a rather chilly auditorium. Violin, drums, double bass all are made of ice. This isntjust about the music, its about the location a glacier that has lost a third of its volume in less than three decades. Translation our business is based on the snow, on the cold weather. But if the climate changes, we will not be able to live this kind of experience. So the message we want to send out is for us all to look after our environment and climate. Playing instruments made of ice is hard enough. Making them is another story. It took careful precision to hit the right notes. B flat. Its difficult to build the different instruments for different reasons. Each instrument has its own difficulty. Maybe its so fine and delicate and easy to break or hard to get inside the small places, or its so big and heavy, its hard to pick up and move around. There will be two concerts a week until the of the end of march. Music that may stir the soul and chill the spine at the same time. Tim allman, bbc news. Neil peart the drummer and lyricist from canadian rock band rush has died. He was 67. The musician, seen as one of the best rock drummers in history, died on tuesday after a 3. 5 year battle with brain cancer. Rush were one of the most successful rock groups of the late 1970s and 80s, and sold more than a0 million albums worldwide. A reminder of our top story. Iran has admitted it did shoot down the ukrainian passenger plane that crashed near the iranian capital tehran on wednesday, killing all 176 people on board. Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad zarif, wrote on twitter that preliminary investigations by the armed forces concluded it was human error at a time of crisis caused by us adventurism. He went on to say our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has also taken to twitter offering his condolences for the accidental shooting. He called it a great tragedy and an unforgivable mistake. We will bring you more on that story as it develops over the next few hours. Please stay with bbc news. Hello there. There was a good view of the wolf moon for many parts of the country early on in the night that was before all this cloud rolled in. A lot of it is quite high cloud. The zone of thickest cloud thats stretching across scotland and Northern Ireland is on that weather front there. That is continuing to bring some outbreaks of rain. Ahead of it, the winds are going to be howling. We are drawing in the milder winds from a long way south, so after a cold start, temperatures are continuing to rise to these sort of numbers by the end of the night. Nine, ten, maybe 11 degrees. Still on the chillier side across east anglia, mind you. Weve still got the rain coming into scotland and Northern Ireland. Heavy over the hills. A little trickle this way, very slowly southwards. Some quite wet weather over the cumbrian fells and later into snowdonia. Eventually, the rain turns more showery in scotland, through the afternoon. The winds will start to ease a bit, but it stays very windy across england and wales strong to Gale Force Winds here. But, as weve seen, its mild air so for many parts of the country, weve got double figure temperatures perhaps as high as 12 or 13 degrees. The weather front bringing that band of rain will sweep its way down toward south eastern areas overnight on saturday night and then leaving behind that, we are going to find showers coming in on a cooler air stream from off the atlantic. Weve still got some rain to clear away first thing across the south east of england. Once that goes, we will see a batch of showers coming in across wales through the midlands. Those could be rather heavy in the morning before easing off during the afternoon. Further north, some sunshine and some showers most of them in the north west of scotland, where it will be wintry over the hills. Were back in to cooler air on sunday, particularly across the northern half of the uk. Still double figures for a while in the south east. It wont be as windy. But only briefly, because look what is coming in from the atlantic a storm is brewing. Thats going to be racing our way, probably heading to the north west of scotland. After a reasonably quiet start with some sunshine around, it probably will stay dry across eastern areas, but the winds will continue to strengthen particularly out towards the west, where well see this rain moving in, and thats going to be quite heavy. This is bbc news, the headlines Iranian State media has reported the countrys military as saying that a ukrainian airliner was unintentionally shot down because of human error. 176 people died in the crash on wednesday, including more than 50 canadian nationals. Officials in the iranian capital tehran had previously denied any responsibility. The polls have opened in taiwans president ial and parliamentary elections. Incumbent president tsai ing wen is going up against han kuo yu who favours closer ties with beijing. The pro democracy protests taking place in hong kong have cast a long shadow over the Taiwan Election campaign. The death has been announced of Sultan Qaboos bin said al said of oman the longest serving ruler in the gulf. The sultan, who was 79, had ruled since 1970 when he deposed his father in a bloodless coup. Three days of National Mourning have been declared. Now on bbc news, the travel show. The government