The number of companies in the uk planning mass redundancies in june was five times higher than during the same period last year, according to figures obtained by the bbc. Airbus, royal mail and hsbc were among nearly 1,800 firms which announced job cuts in june. Heres our Business Correspondent katy austin. In late may, liz received the news she had been dreading, work had dropped off at the mailing firm she had worked and she was being made redundant from her adminjob. I feel like iamon from her adminjob. I feel like i am on the scrapheap if im honest with you. Its a massive impact. Initially, sheer panic, how i gotta get through this, how i gotta get through this, how are going to cope . Even with support like the fellow scheme, the crisis has hit thousands of businesses hard. Among the Larger Companies that announced redundancy plans in june were airbus centrica and the restaurant group, the owner of ben jerrys. The restaurant group, the owner of ben jerrys. There are fears of further losses when the fellow scheme ends in 0ctober. Firms plenty to make 20 or more staff redundant have to notify the government. Data obtained by the bbc through a freedom of information request shows a steep rise in the number of positions being considered for redundancy but queen march and june this year. Injune, the queen march and june this year. In june, the government queen march and june this year. Injune, the government was notified of plans to cut over what hundred 39,000 jobs in england, wales and scotland. Though, information from 79 firms wasnt available when the numbers were compiled. Injune last year, the number was 24,000 last year, the number was 2a,000 planned job cuts and far fewer em ployers 2a,000 planned job cuts and far fewer employers planned them. There are a number of industries that have been directly affected by the crisis where demand wont be returning about our starting to lay people. Thus particularly the case in hospitality and transport. And then, i think this is also shown those industries that are having to restructure now because underlying changes have been accelerated and particularly in retail, moved to Online Shopping and move away from high street shopping is striving significant restructuring of retailers. The figures giving insight into the surge of redundancies and now since the coronavirus of the uk, although employers often end up making fewer redundancies that the number they and originally notify. Anna ramsey process takes time at which helps to explain why figures gathered by the office of National Statistics dont yet show a significant rise. In response to the bbcs findings, the department for work and pensions that the governments plan forjobs pensions that the governments plan for jobs would pensions that the governments plan forjobs would give businesses the confidence to recruit and retain workers and thats new subsidised jobs for young people would be created through the kickstart scheme. Now on bbc news witness history brings you five Amazing Stories form the world of art. Hello and welcome to a special edition of witness history with me, razia iqbal, here at the British Academy in london as we present five Amazing Stories from the world of art. Coming up, how the acclaimed british sculptor henry moore changed modern art. We speak to the man who wrapped the reichstag in 1995 and a nigerian artist inspired by the Oil Pollution of her homeland. Plus the pioneer who photographed tsarist russia in colour. But first, we go to china, where in 1974 an accidental discovery revealed one of the wonders of the world. A vast Terracotta Army which lay buried beneath the earth for more than 2,000 years. Archaeologist li xiuzhen worked on the astonishing find. Newsreel it is a vast pottery army that is slowly being unearthed from the tomb where it has lain for more than 2,000 years. Archaeologist li xiuzhen. Now to something more modern. The british artist henry moore revolutionised the world of sculpture during the 20th century, changing the way we see the human body and setting his work in a natural landscape. His daughter, mary moore, talks to us now about her memories of her father and the ideas that inspired him. Newsreel the work of henry moore has been seen in almost every country in the world. He has made a staggering total of Something Like 900 sculptures, many of them immense, as well as thousands of drawings and nearly a thousand graphics. I mean, i cant believe. Because his work seems so comfortable that you cant believe there was a feeling that it was dangerous, that it was outrageous and that it would defile youth. His first exhibition was in 1928. Already his work was causing controversy. The art schools that he was studying in called his work ugly and disgusting and that hed fed on a cesspit. What took people aback was a manner of expression that emphasised the sexual nature of his subjects and rejected the realistic treatment of the human figure. It was considered to be primitive, decadent and savage and in a way, it was. He wanted to arouse in us the deepest forces and instincts. Henry moore a great deal can still be done with 3 dimensional forms as a means of expressing what people feel about themselves and about nature and about the world around them. My father and his generation looked rather to ethnographic works, what they called primitive works. My belief is that no matter what advances we make in technology, and in the controlling of nature, the real basis of life is human relationships. It is through them that we are happy or unhappy. In 1950, his daughter mary, who had been born during the war, was now four years old and a great source of pride. Our home and his studios were kind of interchangeable. He had a few basic subjects that he could not help from returning to again and again. One of them was the reclining figure. What is the particular significance of that . It may be that it connects the human figure with landscape more easily than what a standing figure could. And landscape is one of my great obsessions. Another one was the mother and child. I have done many mother and child structures and most of them have been this idea of the larger form, in relationship with the smaller form in a protective sense and a sense of a gentleness and tenderness. Moore remains a countryman at heart. His studios are surrounded by fields, hedges and woods. He is happiest seeing his sculptures in the open air. There was an exhibition in florence in 1972, which was a remarkable exhibition and it was a first in many, many ways. Moore assembled in the fort and the ramparts, nearly 200 sculptures and 100 drawings. The big sculptures in the open air, each one sited by moore himself, were what made the exhibition unique. One would have to travel the world to see so much at any othertime. My father was very worried. He thought that people wouldnt go. Tourism back in the 1970s was not quite such a big deal and getting to places was much harder. But in the end it was a fantastic success. Something like 400,000 visitors. I think they need to be set outside. I always want to go up and touch them. But you can go up to them and run your hand around them. He wanted sculpture to be part of everybodys life and experience and enrich their lives. And we should go on fighting that fight. Henry moores daughter, mary. Certainly the power of sculpture lives on in our next story. Sokari douglas camp is an acclaimed artist based in london, but the inspiration for her work comes from her homeland of the niger delta in nigeria, a world of rivers and creeks that has been devastated by decades of pollution from the oil industry. I like metal because it has tensile strength that is fantastic. Something very small can hold up something gigantic. I love the fact that you can stretch it in the most incredible way, make things that look like fabric and look soft. My childhood started off in independent nigeria and i was sent to boarding school in england so i had one foot in nigeria and one foot in england. My people, the kalabari, live on 22 islands in the niger delta and our transport was by boat. Dugout canoes that women could take out and they would gather periwinkles on the mudflats and make the most incredible stew. You had oysters growing on the roots of mangroves, dangling in the water. Nature was full. Gradually these things have been dying out because of pollution. Because of the way that oil is being extracted there. Newsreel oil was discovered in the niger delta in 1956 and now nigeria is one of the Largest Oil Producing Countries in the world. Newsreel the ogoni people say their homeland has been ruined by oil. We are going to demand our rights peacefully, non violently and we shall win. Ken saro wiwa, poet, environmentalist, and leader of the ogoni people. The Nigerian Government says he is a murderer and has sentenced him to death. Ken saro wiwa tried to get the Oil Companies to behave differently by talking. There was no violence involved. Nigerias military leaders provoked a storm of International Outrage today when they went ahead with the executions of nine human rights activists, including the playwright and activist Ken Saro Wiwa. No one could believe it, no one could believe it. Pure, pure sadness, yeah. Kens memorial was extremely important to me, to make sure people remembered him. This is a mini version of the real bus, the real bus is life size. The memorial had kens name on a banner at the front, and then on top of the bus were barrels with the names of the other eight that were killed at the same time. On it, it had words that Ken Saro Wiwa said in one of his last interviews, before he was executed. The battle bus had quite an adventure. The environmentalists from nigeria decided that they would like the memorial to travel to nigeria, and when it got to lagos port it was arrested by nigerian customs. Because it was believed that it would cause havoc. Its still locked away. Its still arrested. Our problem is global. Our clothing, toilet seats, lipstick, everything has this crude oil element to it. Its an incredible product. Its a magic product. And yet it is killing us. So it keeps on turning up in my work. The wonderful Sokari Douglas camp. Remember, you can watch witness history every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all our films, along with more than 1,000 radio programmes, in our online archive. Just search for bbc witness history. Our next story takes us to germany, where in 1995 a public art project was seen by millions. It became a symbol for berlins renewal after the fall of the wall and the collapse of communism. Its the story of the couple who wrapped the reichstag. Newsreel its an eccentric dream, but one that a husband and wife team have cherished for nearly a quarter of a century, and this weekend the bulgarian born artist christo and his wife Jeanne Claude began wrapping the German Parliament building in silver fabric. It is very difficult to explain if you dont see it. No drawings, no sketch, no scale model can match the complexity of the project. The fabric is actually, its not completely touching the stone, the surface of the structure. The project started in 1972. The cold war is still in full speed, you know, the berlin wall was built. Permission to wrap the reichstag was refused three times. If the wall were not fell down, probably wed never do the reichstag. For more than two decades, the artist christo and his wife Jeanne Claude have wanted to work with the building that, for them, symbolised the cold war. You know, i was born in bulgaria in 1935. Highly soviet ic, communist country. And i escaped to the west alone, speaking only russian and bulgarian. Coming from a communist country, i tried to do something involving the east west relations. Its been bombed and set on fire, seen war and revolution. But never before has the reichstag been wrapped in silverfabric. We never can believe what is the project until we see it for real. Christo himself is paying for the project, helped su bsta ntially by sales of his sketches and other work. The reichstag cost us 12 million in 1995. Which is probably today about 20 million or 25 million. This project, we need to build an entire structure of engineers, specialists, lawyers, services. Very much like building a highway or a bridge or an airport. It was wrapped by nearly 100 rock climbers. They came down, installing all this 100,000 square metres of fabric and matter for one week. Jeanne claude and myself, we are both together artist. And this, i miss so much Jeanne Claude today. We were partners, we lived together, we would fight together. It was like an adventure that you cannot repeat it. Newsreel this novel treatment is, they say, in the classic tradition of art. The reichstag was a victorian building with lots of ornaments, decoration. Suddenly it was changed, like a sketch. Like what is essential, of the height, the width, the forms, they are all hidden by this fragile material that moved with the wind. It was in constant motion. Newsreel the building took on a shrine like nature and was treated with something approaching reverence. It is very special and it always changes with the light. First time in history probably that this building is nice and makes people happy. I came to germany especially to see this project, and i think it is great. For two weeks, the area has witnessed one continuous party, with scenes reminiscent of when the berlin wall came down six years ago. Everybody who comes to see the project, and there were 5 Million People in two weeks in the reichstag, they know that they were seeing something that would never happen again. Newsreel last night was the final and the biggest party, with 100,000 people swarming around the building well into the early hours. Today the dismantling work began and germanys former and future Parliament Building came blinking into the summer sunshine. After two weeks its gone forever. Cannot be repeated. Something happened, it will stay forever in that particular unique moment. The world Famous Artist christo. And for our final story we go back more than 100 years to a time when the tsar still ruled russia. While the world was using black and white film, a pioneering russian photographer, sergey prokudin gorsky, developed a new method of colour photography and used to document life in russia before the revolution. The results, as youll see now, were stunning. My grandfather, sergey mikhaylovich prokudin gorsky, was one of the pioneers of colour photography. It is a unique example of this quality of colour. This is close to a 100 year old production. At that time, you have to realise, that the only photographs in colour were taken indoors. And he was probably the first to do a lot of work outside. This is a very nice picture on the mariinsky canal, where he had done a lot of shots. You really feel you are seeing something natural. You can really feel that this guy was very so pleased, probably, to be taken. And at the same time, the composition of the picture is great. He was able to travel anywhere in the empire. He got permission from the tsar to travel everywhere, even the part which was very difficult to access. Bukhara is today in uzbekistan, but at the time it was turkestan, which is really in the south east of the empire, bordering iran, afghanistan and china. My grandfather was somebody who was extremely open minded. He was really a renaissance man. In his work he tried to show the different category of people in terms of religion, origin. This is a Jewish School with, i would say, the teacher and some pupils. At the origin, the images were obtained by projecting the free negative on glass in black and white, through a colour lens for the projection, creating the colour. This is the original lab book of my grandfather with a lot of technical description, and the more you learn, the more you find this person extremely attractive, quite fascinating. The grandson of pioneering photographer sergey prokudin gorsky. Thats all from witness history this month at the British Academy. We will be back next month with more first hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history. But for now, from me and the rest of the witness history team, goodbye. Hello there. This heatwave continued across southeastern parts of the uk on sunday. The highest temperature was recorded in herstmonceaux in east sussex, 34 degrees, closely followed by 33 in farnborough in hampshire. More comfortable temperatures, more comfortable humidity through bedford and prestwick. It is going to be southeastern areas that continue to see the extreme temperatures over the next few days. But even here, temperatures will drop a bit by the end of the week. Together with the heat and humidity, theres an increasing risk of catching some torrential rain with some heavy and thundery downpours. Although, pinning down the detail is going to be rather difficult. As we head into the morning, we start with a fair bit of cloud around. Maybe some showers or rain developing, particularly across wales in the southwest. These could turn heavy and thundery, drift their way northwards through the irish sea, threatening northwest england, Northern Ireland and heading into southern scotland. There could be the odd sharp shower further east, but there will be a lot of sunshine around as well. Its going to heat up very quickly in england and wales, may well be a hotter day through the midlands 29, or even 30 degrees here. It gets more humid as well overnight across england and wales, temperatures perhaps dropping no lower than 17 19 degrees. Also be a bit warmer in scotland, and probably feeling a bit more humid here, i think, on tuesday. There may well be some further heavy and thundery rain to clear away from overnight, moving northwards, but the details have changed already for tuesday again with a scattering of showers developing further south, but also many areas still dry with some very warm sunshine. Those temperatures peaking at 34 35 across the southeast of england. And probably a little bit higher across yorkshire and lincolnshire on tuesday. As we head into the middle part of the week, we are going to find a weather front developing across the uk. Were also finding falling pressure coming up from biscay heading across northern france. So every likelihood that there will be some further heavy and thundery rain, giving the risk of some flash flooding. One area of rain pushing across scotland, northern england, then we will see a scattering of heavy thundery downpours developing more widely later in the day probably for england and wales. Still 33 degrees perhaps in the southeast. Seven days in a row with temperatures above 30 celsius. It will be cooler, fresher across scotland and Northern Ireland. So, the threat of some very heavy rain and a lot of thunder and lightning over the next few days. Gradually, the temperatures will get back to near normal by the end of the week and continue that way into the weekend. This is bbc news. Im James Reynolds with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Anger on the streets of beirut protesters call for reform as donors pledge 300 million to rebuild the lebanese capital. For years, lebanon has been buffeted by political corruption and mismanagement. But its this catastrophe that has brought the country to its knees. Aides of the Hong Kong Media tycoonjimmy lai say hes ben arrested for suspected collusion with foreign forces. Australias victoria state reports 19 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours the countrys deadliest day of the pandemic so far. Clashes in belarus after pro government exit polls suggest another landslide win for president lukashenko. Hundreds of volunteers in mauritius are frantically