helped foil a terror attack. russian agents raided a flat allegedly used as a base to plan an attack on the kazan cathedral in st petersburg. the officers seized explosives and weapons. seven people were detained on charges of being members of so—called islamic state. the suspects were reportedly planning to carry out a suicide attack at the kazan cathedral in st petersburg on saturday. president putin has thanked the us for its help. the bbc‘s david willis has more from washington. he says this isn't the only recent call between the leaders. it appears to be a telephone conversation, the second between these two leaders in the space ofjust three days, in which vladimir putin thanked donald trump and asked him to convey russia's thanks to the cia and to its intelligence officials for the information that was needed to foil this attempted attack, or alleged attempted attack, on st petersburg, on the cathedral there, an iconic cathedral, and other parts of the city which are known to be of prime interest to tourists from around the world. what's interesting about this is that the two leaders themselves really do appear to be very chummy with each other. i mentioned just last week there was a conversation between them as well. that followed vladimir putin's annual press conference, in which he heaped praise on donald trump's handling of the us economy. and they've chosen to make the fact that they've had this conversation very public? yes, and all this comes at a time when there is a special prosecutor looking into allegations... well, they're not allegations, the claims, the agreed claims of the us intelligence agencies that russia meddled in the outcome of last year's presidential election here in the united states. the special counsel also looking into the prospect that the trump campaign may have colluded with russia, as far as that is concerned, yet we have a situation where donald trump and vladimir putin seemed to be getting on like a house on fire. in stark contrast, i might add, to the relationship that president trump has had lately with traditional american allies, britain, for example. he's been critical of theresa may and, indeed, germany's angela merkel as well. david willis there talking to me earlier and mentioning special counsel robert mueller, who is investigating alleged links between donald trump's election campaign and the russian government. well a spokesman for mr mueller has been defending the investigation, saying the appropriate criminal process is being followed in all of the probe‘s dealings. lawyers representing the trump presidential transition team accused mr mueller of unauthorised access to tens of thousands of emails. turkey's president recep tayyip erdogan has announced that he wants to open an embassy for palestinians in eastjerusalem. the turkish leader has been one of the most vocal opponents of donald trump's decision to recognise jerusalem as the capital of israel and last week led calls for it to be recognised as the capital of a palestinian state. here's president erdogan at a rally earlier. translation: since jerusalem is currently under occupation, we can't go there and open our embassy. but oui’ go there and open our embassy. but our consulate general is represented by an ambassador. god willing, the day is close when officially, with god's permission, we will open up oui’ god's permission, we will open up our embassy there. joining me as a nonresident policy analyst in washington. why do you think he has spoken out like this? there are a couple of reasons. this would be a significant, symbolic step. we know that turkey has lost its clout over the last few weeks. trump's blunder onjerusalem provided iran an opportunity to redress turkey's relations with the arab world. at least it would make a boosting image for erdogan and the turkish government. they see this meeting and stumble, with 57 members, as a success and stumble, with 57 members, as a success story. he is trying to assert himself as a global defender of sunni muslim interests? well, there are many issues here. we need to look at the relationship between turkey and the united states specifically. in this meeting, erdogan used strong words against the trump administration. it may be usual to hear from erdogan the trump administration. it may be usual to hearfrom erdogan slamming the united states, but not necessarily the trump administration, because we know that initially there was a major hope from ankara, from the administration. lately, there is major frustration, especially with the case in new york, the court case, which is also holding turkish banks accountable for invading iran sanctions two years ago. there is a major frustration. sanctions two years ago. there is a majorfrustration. erdogan sanctions two years ago. there is a major frustration. erdogan comer claiming it is politically motivated. wyatt is related, the question aboutjerusalem, and other issues, it is very, i think, important to understand the relationship. now erdogan‘s domestic and international constituency would see an outcome of the new york case as politically motivated, perhaps. we haven't got much time. one last question, do you think this is just rhetoric, just symbolism, or are we going to see them take any concrete steps to do something about it? there might be concrete steps, but, at the end, in terms of the relations in general, turkey and israel relations have ups and downs, especially strained and turbulent in the last few years, there would not bea the last few years, there would not be a major difference in terms of the palestinian issue. there might be some outcome in terms of the ankara and washington relations, especially erdogan‘s relations with the trump administration. thank you very much. at least eight people have been killed and dozens of others injured after a suicide bomb attack on a methodist church in pakistan. it happened in the city of quetta, which has been the scene of a number of attacks in the past year. tom burridge has more a celebration ahead of christmas, targeted by extremists. pakistan's police and army, firing shots in the aftermath as they surrounded the church. earlier, the attackers‘ efforts to get in and kill as many as they could captured on cctv. watch the man in brown, who suddenly reveals a machine gun and starts to try to access the church compound. his accomplice, behind him in white, falls over. it takes them a long time to climb the gate, but it is chilling to watch, as the men wearing suicide vests exchange shots with security guards, imagine the panic in the church nearby. officials say one of the attackers was shot dead at the entrance to the compound. a second man detonated his vest near the church door. the bodies of those killed, brought to the local mortuary. too much for relatives, their loved ones killed a week before christmas. at local hospitals, those injured spoke of their fear as the attackers did all they could to get inside the church. translation: we were all in the church and when we heard gunfire we closed the doors. the firing continued for a while. then there was an explosion by the church door. the group that calls itself islamic state claimed responsibility for the attack, which pakistan's president described as cowardly. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. a british government worker has been murdered in the lebanese capital beirut. the body of rebecca dykes was found by the side of a road in the city on saturday. she had been working sincejanuary as a programme managerfor the department for international development, based at the british embassy. her family say they are devastated by her loss. police in ukraine have clashed with suporters of the opposition leader mikhail saakashvili. they fired tear—gas at a crowd which tried to get into the october palace in kiev, after a rally against president petro poroshenko. no serious injuries have been reported. polls have closed in the final round of chile's residential election. the conservative former president won the first round, but pollsters say his only challenger this time has narrowed the gap in second—round campaigning. in south africa, delegates from the ruling anc have started voting to elect a successor to president jacob zuma as party leader. we now know that the new leader will be one of two people: deputy president cyril ramaphosa or former foreign minister nkosazana dlamini—zuma, who is one of the president's former wives. the victor is likely to become the country's next president after elections in 2019. the bbc‘s milton nkosi, who's outside the anc conference in johannesburg, says it will be a close—fought contest. the infighting has been as better —— and bitter as they get. the infighting had been worse than anybody thought the anc would be suffering in posta pa rtheid anybody thought the anc would be suffering in postapartheid south africa. everyone i have spoken to, the experts, the delegates, the spin doctors, they are telling me it is going to be a photo finish. i also think that the margin will be so tight that it is hard to predict who will now, as we speak, be the next president of the african national congress. therefore, potentially, the next president of south africa. jacob zuma's time as president of south africa has taken its toll on the anc. what challenges will his successoi’ the anc. what challenges will his successor face? well, president jacob zuma will have his or her work cut out for them. the challenges that south africans are facing on a day—to—day basis are immense. there is high unemployment, hovering around 28%. you have poverty and inequality. those are the difficulties that any president will have to try to clear up before they can say they are getting a hold on running south africa. austria's new government is due to be sworn in on monday, after the far—right freedom party agreed tojoin a coalition government. it'll be the junior partner, alongside the conservative people's party, taking charge of the foreign, interior and defence ministries. so what does the freedom party stand for and has it influenced european politics? bethany bell has more from vienna. a campaign video for the far right freedom party. a couple wakes up to discover their home has been overrun by strangers. the video avoids xenophobic images, but the message is clear. austria, for the austrians. support for the freedom party soared during the migrant crisis of 2015. then strip's conservative party, and a sebastian kurz, also moved to the right. but 110w kurz, also moved to the right. but now he has formed a coalition with the far right. it is controversial. the party, a majorforce in politics, was founded by former nazis in the 1950s. observers say their policies have helped set the agenda, not only in austria but across europe. of course the freedom party is traditionally a far right party. however, what you have seen in the last years is that many other parties in europe and austria have taken over their issue positions. in that sense, i think they set a certain tone all over europe. this mayor is from the freedom party. he says it is not an extreme right movement and people should not be scared. translation: we are a right—wing party, it is true. we are also a homeland party. but we stand by european values. we stand for democracy and human rights, and i can't understand where this fear comes from. the past still troubles the party. this recently published photo shows a freedom party politician apparently giving a hitler salute. he denied the charge, but also did not take up his seat in the upper house of parliament. in the upper house of parliament. in the year 2000 there were huge protests against the freedom party when itjoined a previous government. back then, the eu even imposed limited diplomatic sanctions on austria. there was an outcry in austria and across europe. today, eu sanctions are very unlikely. austria's new leader, sebastian kurz, has pledged to form a pro—eu government. austria has changed, europe has changed and now some people are wondering if the freedom party has also changed. stay with us. coming up, as the pentagon admits to investigating ufos, we will ask an expert what they might be looking for and why. after eight months on the run, saddam hussein has been tracked down and captured by american forces. saddam hussein is finished. because he killed our people, our women, our children. the signatures took only a few minutes, but they brought a formal end to three and a half years of conflict, conflict that has claimed more than 200,000 lives. before an audience of world leaders, the presidents of bosnia, serbia and croatia put their names to the peace agreement. the romanian border was sealed and silent today. romania has cut itself off from the outside world in order to prevent the details of the presumed massacre in timisoara from leaking out. from sex at the white house to a trial for his political life. the lewinsky affair tonight guaranteed bill clinton his race in history as only the second president ever to be impeached. this is bbc world news today. president putin says that russia has foiled a terror attack and he has thanked donald trump for cia information which helped. turkey's president recep tayyip erdogan says he wants to open a turkish embassy for palestinians in eastjerusalem. breaking news coming from the bbc. sirmo farah has breaking news coming from the bbc. sir mo farah has just breaking news coming from the bbc. sir mo farah hasjust won breaking news coming from the bbc. sir mo farah has just won the 2017 sports personality of the year award. he saw offjonathan ray and johnnie peacock, who came in second and third place. talking from london, he said he was delighted to have won. i am sure london, he said he was delighted to have won. i am sure we london, he said he was delighted to have won. i am sure we will hear from him in due course. the us defence department has acknowledged running a secret multi—million dollar program to investigate ufos. the new york times says the program was launched ten years ago at the request of former democratic senator harry reid. the program is reported to have cost the department of defense more than $20 million. let's speak to sarah spellman, from the association of phenomena. are you surprised to hear of a programme at this run by the us governed ? hear of a programme at this run by the us governed? it is an interesting revelation we are finding out about this now. i am not entirely surprised. at the same time, it is new information. it is really a n time, it is new information. it is really an interesting announcement to have come out. some might say that this is using government money to fuel conspiracy theories. what do you think about the necessity or otherwise of a programme like this? that is one take on it. sure, from the government's perspective, they are always go to be looking at defence threats. security threats, things of that nature. what we have to look at when we are getting information from them as members of the public is what were their objectives and what can we find out about it from our perspective. yes, it was over $22 million that was spent on the programme. what we don't know is the outcomes of that yet. it has been mentioned about remains of physical craft, alloys that were studied, different metal. physical data coming out would be really interesting to find out eventually. u nfortu nately we really interesting to find out eventually. unfortunately we don't have that at this point. do we know anything about what they were investigating precisely? yes, they we re investigating precisely? yes, they were investigating sightings of unidentified flying objects. so, ufos. saying ufo does not mean it is necessarily from outside of our solar system or anything we cannot explain. at the time, it was not explainable. so, strange things in the sky. they also spoke to people that claimed to have been in the proximity of what they thought to be non—earthly ships or aircraft. they examined some of the physical symptoms those people have. there we re symptoms those people have. there were also given, by the government, a subcontractor programme, it was run by bigelow aerospace and the pentagon allegedly gave them certain materials to analyse. unfortunately, we haven't got data to look at. materials to analyse. unfortunately, we haven't got data to look atm they had found something tangible, would they have necessarily revealed that two us, the public? yes, that is the question. until the news came out quite recently we were not aware of the multi—million dollar programme running from the pentagon from 2007 until 2012. it does pose the question, if it was happening then, what is happening now that we are not aware of? it doesn't mean there is anything, itjust means that we cannot say one way or another. we are out of time, thank you very much. now the sport. jose mourinho has vowed that his manchester united side would "fight until the last match" after they moved back to within 11 points of premier league leaders manchester city courtesy of a 2—1 victory at west brom. romelu lukaku opened the scoring for his second goal in as many games beforejesse lingard doubled united's lead before the break. the visitors appeared to be heading for a comfortable win until albion substitute gareth barry poked home from close range with 13 minutes left. united though holding on for the win to go 3 points clear of 3rd placed chelsea. they are really strong, they are really aggressive, they can put teams under pressure. we didn't have problems because we had so much of the ball and we had so much control by having the ball. but we knew that at any by having the ball. but we knew that atany time by having the ball. but we knew that at any time a situation could arise. it was that situation that woke of the stadium, gave them the belief that they didn't have until that moment and put us a little bit under pressure. but i think the performance was really good. liverpool moved back into the top four after hammering bournemouth 4—0. there were goals for philippe coutinho, dejan lovran before mo salah got his 11th goal in 11 games, his 20th of the season to end the tie as a meaningful contest after only 44 minutes. roberto firmino then adding a 4th. liverpool extending their unbeaten run in all competitions to 12 matches it is very important, of course, two draws in the last few games. both games we should have won and we didn't. we have to accept that. you need to show why you really are part of this fantastic league. of course, we are liverpool, so we have to show that we have to at least try with everything to win. over in spain, we're halfway through the second half as barcelona welcome deportivo la coruna to the camp nou. the catalan giants on their way to going 6 points clear of second placed atletico madrid. two luis suarez goals. barcelona cruising to victory. real madrid not in action this weekend of course after winning the fifa club world cup. their next match will the hotly anticipated clasico on the 23rd. justin rose continues his wonderful run of form winning the indonesian masters injakarta by 8 strokes. the world number six sealing his third tournament victory in seven weeks. rose played 30 holes on his final day, after stormy weather continued to disrupt the tournament. he ended up carding a 72—hole total of 29—under. phachara khongwatmai, the 18—year—old from thailand, hit 65 to finish second but rose picking up his first asian tour title with his largest ever winning margin at a tournament. marcel hirscher dominated the field at alta badia in italy to take a record 5th straight giant slalom win finishing nearly two seconds ahead of his nearest challenger henrik kristoffersen. the six—time world cup winner started the day tied with another great, italy's alberto tomba, on four giant slalom wins. and having posted the fastest time on his first run, he increased his lead on the second. it's hirscher‘s third world cup win of the season, and the 48th of his career so far. the olympic super—g champion anna veith won her first world cup race since suffering a serious knee injury more than two years ago. she beat tina weirather of lichtenstein and italy's sofia goggia, by almost half a second at val d'isere in france. the 28—year—old austrian‘s last win was in the giant slalom at meribel in march 2015, the year she won the overall world cup title for the second time and that's all the sport for now. but before we go, there is news that mo farah has won the sports personality of the year. he retired from the track after the world championships in london. our top story, russia's president putin has acknowledge the help of the cia in preventing terror attacks in st petersburg. he said he told president trump the information has helped to track down a terrorist group that was preparing attacks, a p pa re ntly group that was preparing attacks, apparently on kazan cathedral and other public places. it was planned for this weekend on saturday. if you wa nt to for this weekend on saturday. if you want to get in touch on twitter, please do. i'm @karinbbc. good evening. sunday was a bit of a misty, murky and grey day for many of us. weather watcher pictures coming in like this one, taken in cumbria, where we had some grey skies and drizzle around. some places had fairly dense fog as well. moving to the course of sunday night, as the weather front clears away from the south, that will clear any rain away. dry conditions heading through into the early hours of monday. clearing skies with fairly light wind. a recipe for a fairly light wind. a recipe for a fairly chilly night. temperatures holding above freezing in towns and cities. in more rural spots, think we will see quite a sharp frost. we have a ridge of high pressure in charge of whether as we move through the day on monday. it is keeping the weather pretty quiet. a lot of dry whether as we look through the morning. a slightly milder start for wales and the south—west of england. temperatures here eight in the morning, about four five celsius. temperatures here eight in the morning, about fourfive celsius. a little bit colder as we look further east across england, where we could well see a few misty and murky patches. hl eu —— a chilly start for tuesday as well. a few showers towards the far north—west, where we will see the cloud increasing as we head through the day. many places having quite a good deal of sunshine. a brighter day in comparison to what we have on sunday, certainly. mainly light wind as well. temperatures milder towards the west, around about seven or 9 degrees. in the east, still quite chilly four or six celsius. monday evening, overnight into tuesday, as the milder air works from the west we will see some really dense fog patches forming. moving through into tuesday morning, that fog could be quite problematic, especially across central and eastern parts of the country, where it could be freezing fog. temperatures about freezing, with dense fog. it has the potential on tuesday morning to cause some disruption to travel, especially across central, southern and eastern parts of england. though be warned, tuesday, a foggy start to the day, less in the way of fog further north—west. things are again turning milder in the west. that is where we will see temperatures back into double figures. still staying quite chilly, especially where the fob lingers towards the east. —— fog. this is bbc world news, the headlines: russia and the united states say a terrorist plot in st petersburg has been foiled thanks to information provided by the cia. russia says the attack was planned for saturday. president putin called president trump to thank him for the tip—off. turkey's president, recep tayyip erdogan, says he wants to open a turkish embassy for palestinians in eastjerusalem. it follows donald trump's decision to relocate the us embassy in israel tojerusalem. south africa's ruling party gets closer to chosing its next leader. the two main contenders have now been formally nominated, and voting is under way. the winner will replace president jacob zuma as party leader. four—time olympic champion sirmo farah has won the 2017 sports personality of the year award. the track runner saw off jonathan rea and jonnie peacock, who came in second and third place.

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