Those are your headlines. Now on bbc news, dateline london looks forward to the year ahead. Hello, and welcome to dateline london, the programme that brings together some of the uks leading columnists with the foreign correspondents who file their stories for the folks back home with the dateline london. It being a reflective time of the year, were looking back on 2019 when britain backed boris to get brexit done, when donald trump was impeached, when street protests felled one north african dictator and shook governments from western europe to hong kong. With me are david aaronovitch, columnist with the times, janet daley from the sunday telegraph, the russian broadcaster alexander nekrassov, and michael goldfarb, host of the podcast the first rough draft of history. Very good to have you all with us. With one electoral bound, he was free. Borisjohnson spent his first few months as uk Prime Minister at the mercy of a house of commons he could not command, making promises he couldnt an
Who doubles as a warrior knight. We meet chinas medieval combat champion. Police in texas have praised members of a Church Congregation who shot dead a gunman after he opened fire during a service. The attacker killed two people. The authorities in fort worth say theyre still trying to determine the attackers motives. Gareth barlow has the latest. Grief grips fort worth, texas. Two of their own killed when a gunman began shooting at west Freeway Church of christ, before parishioners returned fire. Today, evil walked boldly among us. But let me remind you good people raised up and stopped it before it got worse. Members of the congregation dived for cover as the gunman began shooting. In footage seen online, as the Church Service was streamed on youtube, three shots ring out. He entered the church and sat down with parishioners. He got up from that position, pulled out a shotgun, and fired it at a parishioner. That parishioner is deceased. There was a Security Team inside the church and
With the british Bloodhound Team hoping to smash the Current Record of 763 miles per hour. Andrew harding was given exclusive access to the team on the salt flats of the Northern Cape of south africa. Well, the thing about the land speed record is it is the last of the amateur corinthian sports. It is done purely for the love, the fascination of it. Some people argue, well, the old cars are no more, but forget it is a car, we are pushing the boundaries of engineering to its absolute limit. Every day i go, why are we doing this . It may be the last land speed record as we know it. This is a story about stubbornness and ingenuity, and yes, about speed, too. It is the story of a quest to design and build the worlds fastest car, and then to find a place flat enough, long enough, to actually drive it. There are not many spots on this particular planet suitable for racing faster than the speed of sound. You cant just pick a straight stretch of road. At 500, 700, 900 miles an hour, the wheels
We have a special report on how months of unrest have changed what was once one of latin americas most stable nations. The United Nations estimates that nearly a quarter of a Million People have fled syrias Idlib Province in the past three weeks. The government and Russian Forces are intensifying their attacks on what is the rebels last stronghold. The un says the Maaret Al Numan region in Southern Idlib is now almost empty, as the bbcs tim allman reports. Before the war, more than 50,000 people lived and worked and thrived here, but now it looks more like a ghost town. The streets almost empty, the houses deserted. Convoys of cars and vans and lorries snaking out of this town and others like it, as the people of idlib flee for their lives. From the end of april until the end of august, we had more than 400,000 people displaced, at that time. So the latest displacement figures comes on top of that, so what we have is one crisis compounding another. These are desperate times, people tak
Household names from the worlds of showbiz, sport and politics have been recognised in the new year honours list. The singer Olivia Newtonjohn, has been made a dame. Four members of englands world cup winning cricket team, including ben stokes, have been recognised, as has sir eltonjohn. Lizo mzimba reports. Youre the one i want Olivia Newton john says shes honoured and grateful to be made a dame for services to charity, Cancer Research and entertainment. A damehood, too, for Floella Benjamin for her life long work with childrens charities. Absolutely amazing to be recognised this way, for doing charity work. I realised that a childhood lasts a lifetime, and i had to give back to children. Because when i did play school, 43 years ago, i realised children didnt have a voice. There are knighthoods for two british film makers steve mcqueen, who directed the oscar winning 12 years a slave, and sam mendes, who directed bond films skyfall and spectre. In the world of sport, eoin morgan, who