# i'm in love with your body... # and why 2017 was a great year for the uk music industry, and one particular british artist had a lot to do with it. and coming up on sportsday on bbc news, an eventful london derby between arsenal and chelsea at the emirates. find out if jack wilshere‘s goal was enough to get arsenal the points. good evening. the health secretary, jeremy hunt, has apologised to patients after hospitals in england were told to delay tens of thousands of non—urgent operations and appointments. the health service is struggling to cope with mounting winter pressures. the bbc understands at least one in ten hospital trusts have been put on the highest level of alert in the last 2a hours, meaning they are unable to deliver comprehensive care. the royal college of emergency medicine says patient safety is undoubtedly being compromised. labour claims the nhs is in crisis. our health editor, hugh pym, has the latest. there's been extreme stress at some hospitals. around 20 in england have been on the highest alert level. that means no available beds and severe delays for ambulances handing over patients. one reason why tens of thousands of non—urgent operations this month will be cancelled. that means patients like david, who is himself a doctor, will have to wait longer. he was due to have heart surgery today but was told yesterday he'd have to wait for a new date. as a patient, i think i underestimated how upsetting it is to prepare for something like this and then for it not to be occurring. and as a doctor, i really feel for all our patients who are going through the same thing. so what did the health secretary, jeremy hunt, have to say to patients worried about possible long delays? i want to apologise for the fact that we have had, regrettably, to postpone a number of operations. we're trying to do it differently this year. last year, we cancelled a lot of operations at the very last minute, so people got a call the day before to say their operation wasn't going ahead. that is obviously very undesirable, so we want to do it in a much more planned way. surely the nhs can't be running properly under your government if you have to cancel a months worth of operations and outpatients‘ appointments? well, i think it's important to recognise that these pressures are pressures that we're seeing all over the united kingdom, in scotland and wales. the prime minister said she recognised that, for people who'd had their operations postponed, it was disappointing and frustrating. she said nhs staff were doing a fantasticjob. nhs england and the government say extensive preparations for winter were carried out across the system. but if that's the case, the question is, why were official instructions on cancelling non—urgent operations extended this week? here and st mary's hospital in west london, they've planned to treat more people without needing overnight stays. the idea is to keep beds free for those who really need them. but it's been tougher than they expected, because patients this year are sicker than they were. the numbers are largely the same, but the intensity of the illnesses we've been seeing this year actually is very, very significant, and we've really had to work very hard to find appropriate places to nurse patients who've got really very serious conditions. and i think a number of things play into this. the weather, as we know, we've begin to see an increase in the number of flu cases — all of that builds up to quite a problem for us on some days. labour didn't say what the government should do now but said ministers were to blame for what it called a crisis. when you've got ambulances backed up outside hospitals, you've got hospitals saying they're overcrowded, when you've got people waiting on trolleys for hours and hours and hours, it is a crisis, and it's because of seven years of underfunding and cuts to nhs, and the government are simply burying their head in the sand. nhs scotland said there'd been a 20% increase in a&e visits before christmas. the lanarkshire health board has, for now, cancelled non—urgent procedures. the welsh government says thousands of hours have been lost for ambulance crews waiting to hand over patients at hospitals. it's early in the new year, and the nhs across the uk is already struggling, and its patients who are enduring the consequences. we can talk to you now, is anything the government currently doing going to stop this chaos at england's hospitals? well, fiona, ministers say there is more money coming through from the budget which should help the situation in a&e in england next year, they believe the measures of the last 2a hours should stabilise the situation in the next few weeks, but it comes at a cost — tens of thousands of postponed routine operations and procedures, very important for patients involved, hip replacements, knee operations, cataracts, having to wait longer, and a backlog which will add to the growing waiting lists with targets for routine surgery lists with targets for routine surgery already being missed. this time last year, many doctors were saying it was the worst they had seen saying it was the worst they had seen on saying it was the worst they had seen on the front line, there was a lot of planning over the summer and autumn by the nhs supported by the government, and now some doctors are saying it is even worse now. those 20 hospital trusts we have identified as being on the highest state of alert in the last 2a hours co m pa res state of alert in the last 2a hours compares with just a handful last year. i don't think we have heard anything in the last day or so which says this won't happen again, possibly even worse next time, and it reopens the debate about how much more money the nhs need and where it is going to come from to provide sustainable quality patient care. hugh pym, thank you. north and south korea have conducted their first direct communication in nearly two years via a brief conversation on the phone. north korea said the aim would be to discuss sending a north korean delegation to the winter games in south korea next month. meanwhile, president trump has boasted on twitter that his nuclear button is "much bigger" and "more powerful" than north korea's. 0ur correspondent rupert wingfield—hayes reports from the south korean capital, seoul. on monday, kim jong—un welcomed in the new year with a more conventional display of fireworks than the sort he's been firing off throughout 2017. but anyone who was hoping his new year message would carry an offer of peace and goodwill was quickly disappointed. "the entire united states is within range of our nuclear weapons," he said, "and the nuclear button is always on my desk." "this is reality, not a threat." that was all the excuse president donald trump needed, and as we have now come to expect, his response came in a twitter tirade. so 2018 has begun pretty much as 2017 ended, with the president of the united states and the dictator of north korea hurling threats at each other, while the rest of the world looks on mostly in dismay. but here in seoul, 2018 has begun at least with a glimmer of hope, because as of this afternoon, north and south korea are talking to each other again by telephone. out of the blue, pyongyang suddenly reconnected the hotline between the two koreas that kim jong—un had personally ordered cut off two years ago. in his new year address, kim also said he was prepared to send a team to take part in the winter olympics which begin here in south korea in a little over a month. the us state department accused north korea of attempting to drive a wedge between the us and its south korean ally. and it could be right. but for the 20 million people of seoul who live within firing range of north korea's artillery, any sign that pyongyang is willing to talk is a new year gift they will welcome. rupert wingfield—hayes, bbc news, in seoul. following his tweet about north korea, president trump has gone on the offensive again tonight, this time to launch an extraordinary attack on his former chief strategist, steve bannon. what provoked it were reports that bannon had described a meeting between the president's son and a russian lawyer during the presidential election campaign as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic". it's understood the comments will be published in a book next week. the president has hit back with a statement tonight, claiming steve bannon had nothing to do with helping win his presidency. mr trump says, "when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind." 0ur north america editor, jon sopel, is at the white house. this is an extraordinary outburst, even by the standards of donald trump. fiona, i thought it would take quite something to eclipse donald trump's tweet about kim jong—un, it now seems that the president and steve bannon are engaged in a battle for who has the biggest button and the most powerful one. let me read you a bit more of what the president has said about his former chief strategist, steve had very little to do with our historic victory, he doesn't represent my base, he is only in it for himself, steve was rarely in a one—to—one meeting with me, and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people. this is an unprecedented statement from a president, so why the ben an? 0ne, steve bannon has gone afterfamily, and it makes it much more difficult for donald trump to deny collisions with the russians when you have got someone with the russians when you have got someone who was with the russians when you have got someone who was on with the russians when you have got someone who was on the inside talking about treasonous and unpatriotic behaviour. there is one source of comfort for the white house — steve bannon continued to be an influence after he was fired. not only moral, he has now been cast out into outer darkness, and the question is what does steve bannon do next? i don't think he's going to go away quietly, he has the breitbart news website, which is hugely powerful, and he will continue to be a thawed in the side. there was an earlier president who commented about a troublesome ally, better to have him inside the tent looking at, than outside the tent looking at, than outside the tent looking in, although that is not exactly the quote. certainly not as iruna exactly the quote. certainly not as i run a brit, jon! storm eleanor has swept across the uk, causing flooding, power cuts, damage to homes, and disruption to motorists. gusts of up to 100 mph were reported in the pennines, and thousands of homes were left without power across northern ireland, wales, the midlands and south west england. from cornwall, jon kay has this report. breached — nervous moments in portreath tonight. part of the old harbour wall had collapsed, letting the atlantic seep through at high tide. quite a gap, isn't it? it is an awful gap. sandra's house is right next to the giant hole that's been left in the sea defences. what are your thoughts? scared! yeah, we just had all new carpets put in, so you know, it's... yeah, yeah, it's going to be a frightening night, i think. it was the early hours of this morning when storm eleanor smashed away the 20m section. cornwall‘s coastal communities are used to fierce weather, but portreath now feels especially vulnerable. they weren't the only ones. this was galway in the irish republic. high spring tides added force to the storm — a potentially deadly mix. in northern ireland, gusts reached 90 mph, leaving 25,000 homes without electricity. we have to bring in crews to cut the trees, we have to bring in digging crews to pull out the poles and to replace poles and to re—string lines. all of this takes time and effort, essentially to restore small numbers of customers at a time. back in cornwall tonight, the collapsed sea wall has become a tourist attraction. just take a step back, please. much to the alarm of the authorities. we've just got to move them back to a safe distance so that they don't get their feet swept away from them, cos the sea is a powerful thing, it's a silent killer, it'll have you quick as a lick. absolutely crazy, it looks like a very, very angry sea, and it's got a lot of things to answer to. i think it's amazing, i absolutely love it, but it's so unpredictable, it's quite scary. in the end, tonight's tide was slightly lower than feared, and no properties were damaged, but there are already more warnings in place for tomorrow. jon kay, bbc news, portreath in cornwall. the head of the powerful revolutionary guard in iran, which supports the country's clerical leaders, has claimed that the week of unrest in the country's towns and cities is over. tens of thousands of people have been taking part in pro—government demonstrations today, organised by the regime. 22 people have died in six days of demonstrations against the government, which were initially in response to price rises and alleged corruption. 0ur middle east editor, jeremy bowen, is here. is it all over? well, the major general say it is. the sedation is over. what if he's right. he says 15,000 people were involved. his men had to only get involved. his men had to only get involved three times. well, it could be correct or it could be that this now is at a test, this movement is ata now is at a test, this movement is at a test, a crossroads. will they go back on the streets to try to ta ke go back on the streets to try to take on the authorities? 0r, go back on the streets to try to take on the authorities? or, will they just say, well, take on the authorities? or, will theyjust say, well, rub their hands and say — maybe we've made our points. the thought of an interrogation in one of the regime's prisons is not attractive and people now know what we think. we have to wait and see about that. i think that even if it all stops now, because people can get intimidated. the authorities, the security forces there can be very intimidating, if they were angry enough to take on they were angry enough to take on the security forces in the first place, if they were angry enough to get on the streets and not call for reform of the system but to call in some cases for something new. no that's going to stay there, that anger will stay within them even if they've gone home. a lot of them are young and under 30. some arab states have found out that if you alienate those people and don't give them what they want, it can be a very serious problem for a regime. now, the general says that something has ended, but perhaps he's wrong. perhaps something has just started. we shall see. jeremy, thank you. a brief look at some of the day's other news stories. six people are being held on suspicion of being members of the banned far right group, national action. they were arrested in raids across england and are being questioned by officers from the west midlands force. national action was banned by the government in 2016. a homeless man who was hailed as a "hero" for helping those injured in the manchester arena bombing has pleaded guilty to stealing from them. chris parker admitted taking a phone from a teenage girl and a purse from a woman whose granddaughter lay dying yards away. 22 people were killed in the suicide attack last may. the construction company, carillion, is to be investigated by the financial regulator. the uk's second biggest construction compa ny‘s statements, made between december 2016 and july last year, will be examined when the firm issued a profit warning. the company's shares have since lost more than 90% of their value. an international team of researchers has unveiled a bionic hand which enables the person wearing it to actually feel what they're touching. until now, it has only ever been used in labs. but for the first time, it's being tested out in the real world. 0ur medical correspondent, fergus walsh, has been to rome to meet the woman who's been using it to see what difference it makes to her life. here's his exclusive report. a bionic hand with a sense of touch, and here's the proof. blindfolded, almarina mascarello knows whether what she's holding is soft or hard. she gets it right every time. 0ver lunch, she told me that nearly 25 years after losing her hand in a factory accident, it's almost like it's back again. translation: the feeling is spontaneous, as if it were your real hand. you're finally able to do things that before were difficult, like getting dressed, putting on shoes. all mundane, but important things. you feel complete. the world's first feeling bionic hand, given to this danish man, never left the lab, the technology was just too bulky. now nearly four years on, it is portable, allowing almarina to go back to her hobby of car mechanics. all the electronics are in her rucksack. here's how it works. sensors in the fingertips are linked to a computer, this converts the signals into a language the brain will understand. the information is relayed to it via tiny electrodes implanted in nerves in almarina's upper arm. this represents a significant advance in neuro prosthetics, the interface between machine and the human body. the next patient won't need to have a rucksack to carry these electronics because they're going to be miniaturised and implanted under the skin, and the team here are hoping to do the same with a bionic leg, which will have pressure sensors in the foot. engineers, computer scientists and surgeons from several countries are involved in this eu—funded research. a truly human—like bionic hand is still decades away, but the team here think it will happen. you see that we are going more and more in the direction of science fiction movies, like star wars, luke skywalker after the amputation of the hand. so a fully controlled, fully natural, fully sensorised. prosthesis very similar, identical to the human hand. since we filmed with almarina, she's had to give back her bionic hand because it's still in the research stage, but she says when it's commercialised in a few years, she wants the feeling bionic hand back for good. fergus walsh, bbc news, rome. the bloody civil war in yemen has claimed thousands of lives and driven millions to the brink of starvation. the current crisis started three years ago when houthi rebels took control of parts of the country. last year yemen was hit by the world's worst cholera outbreak. now diphtheria — not widely seen in the country for 30 years — has returned. the bbc‘s nawal al maghafi travelled to the remote village of beit al haboob where more than a0 people have contracted the deadly, yet preventable, disease. hidden between mountains, beit al haboob has mostly been spared the violence of yemen's civil war, but not its consequences. the people in this isolated village, halfway between the warring cities of sanaa and aden, have endured starvation, cholera, have had no schools and no healthcare. now they face a new and entirely preventable threat. 14—year—old raqma has diphtheria, a bacterial infection of the throat. if left untreated, it can kill within days. it's been virtually eradicated in most of the world, but has now come to yemen. translation: at first she had a really bad fever, then someone in the village died. suddenly, a second person died from a sore throat. my daughter was terrified, she said, "mum, my whole throat is white." it was so scary. this is what it looked like. translation: when i see my children helpless and sick, it breaks my heart. my daughter will die and we have nothing to treat her with. the outbreak was made worse by a blockade imposed by saudi arabia, which delayed medicines getting in. off camera the villagers, who we didn't film for their own safety, told me the supplies that did make it here were taken by the houthi rebels who control this area. as ever, it's the ordinary yemenis who suffer. translation: because the nurses and doctors didn't get paid for months, they closed the local clinic and left. that's why all these diseases spread — cholera, diphtheria and many others. the nearest hospital is an hour's drive, the villagers can't afford to get there. can you show me maybe one of the patients that came yesterday? yes, i can show you. diphtheria's spread through the air, which is why it's transmitted so easily. sandra, from the aid organisation msf, introduces me 10—year—old zainab, who's finally on the mend. translation: this war has starved us of everything. we must fight for food, water and medicine. now, we have nothing. god help us, this crisis, this war, it needs to end. it has starved us and made us ill with disease. we've been resilient, but now we can't handle any more. enough is enough. this war has brought yemen to its knees — air strikes, starvation, now disease. the people here say all they have left is prayer. nawal al maghafi, bbc news, beit al haboob, yemen. at least 48 people have been killed in peru after a coach plummeted down a 100 metre cliff near the capital lima. 55 people were on board the bus, which landed upside down on a deserted beach. the accident happened on the notorious devil's turn bend of the pacific coastal road. the problem of plastics and the impact they're having on our planet is a subject we've been exploring this week. according to a recent study, 95% of plastic pollution in the world's oceans comes from just ten rivers. one of them is the ganges in india. our correspondent, sanjoy majumder, reports from the banks of the holy city of varanasi. this looks like a drain carrying sewage, but it's actually a tributary of the ganges. the waste along its banks choking and contaminating one of the world's greatest rivers. every day wrappers, bottles, cups and other plastic waste is deposited here, slowly sliding into the water and then eventually flowing into the ganges. for centuries some of india's greatest cities have been built along its banks, varanasi the oldest one of them. it's only when you come to the ancient city of varanasi that you realise how this mighty river, that's so central to the hindu faith, that sustains the lives and beliefs of nearly half a billion people, is as polluted as it is. the ganges is more than a river to indians, it is sacred to hindus who pray and worship along its banks and cremate their dead in it. from the time it flows out of the icy heights of the himalayas, until it gets here, its crystal clear waters give way to a fetid, muddy flow contaminated by the millions who live along its banks. five generations of sanjit‘s family have lived along the ganges in varanasi, living witnesses to its gradual degradation. translation: there is an old saying here that the ganges belongs to everyone. you are free to do what you want, throw what you want, cremate dead bodies, bathe, wash and you'll achieve salvation. but we are being irresponsible, we do not have the right to pollute the ganges this way. three years ago the indian government pledged more than £2 billion to clean up the ganges, but much of the money remains unspent and the focus in any case is on treating sewage and industrial effluents. so the only people trying to prevent plastic waste being dumped into the river are these scrap pickers. translation: every day we pick up about 10 to 20 kilos of plastic. we have to sift through the rubbish and segregate the plastic. it is estimated that every year 1.2 billion pounds of plastic waste is dumped into the ganges, much of it carried into the bay of bengal where the river eventually empties out. sanjoy majumder, bbc news, varanasi. football, and in the premier league arsenal and chelsea have drawn after a tense game at the emirates stadium. chelsea were ahead with just minutes to go, but arsenal's hector bellerin snatched a late equaliser in injury—time to leave the final result at 2—2. 2017 was a great year for the music industry. across the uk, the amount of music we bought, streamed and downloaded rose at its fastest rate since the 1990s. and home—grown artists, like ed sheeran, accounted for eight out of ten of last year's best selling albums. it's notjust digital downloads, there's been a vinyl revival too. our consumer affairs correspondent, nina warhurst, reports. 2018 is set to be big for francis lung, releasing his first album on manchester's buzzing music scene. because of the internet, he doesn't need the backing of a big label to be heard. i've got the power to put it online immediately and everybody that is waiting for it can hear it. whereas before, i would have to wait for someone to give me permission, wait for somebody to tell me that it's good enough for other people to hear. last year we streamed more music than ever, 68 billion songs, the equivalent of more than 1,00 each. -- 1,000. father christmas brought it, and that's elbow... perhaps more surprising is how the tables have turned with vinyl records, as some who'd flirted with digital returned to their first love. just the beauty of having the record in your hand, i think and looking after it, making sure it doesn't get scratched. so you like physically holding it? physically holding it, looking at the artwork on the covers, maybe reading the song lyrics as you're listening. vinyl sales were up an astonishing 26% on the year before with 4 million records sold. # now my bedsheets smell like you #. and the shape of the british music industry was helped by one ed sheeran. for the thirteenth year in a row, the number one artist was home—grown. today's news is encouraging for studios like this one in manchester, which is home to a small record label, but there's still what's termed a value gap. that is a disparity between the amount of music that's being listened to and the amount of money that that's generating for the industry. we're getting a bit too used to getting music for next to nothing and that isn't really the value of the music. the music is somebody‘s life's work. and if the business model that we currently have continues, artists are paying the price of that. so artists like francis lung won't be singing from the rooftops just yet. but our willingness to spend more on music as times get tighter does give the industry a little something to dance about. nina warhurst, bbc news, in manchester. newsnight is coming up on bbc two, here's emily. tonight we're live in america, as we talk to steve bannon's right—hand man about his spat with donald trump.

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