The Prime Minister has defended englands new coronavirus restrictions that begin when lockdown ends next wednesday. Many conservative mps reacted angrily when it was revealed that almost the entire country would be placed into the two highest tiers with many areas that have low infection rates facing tougher controls than before. Theyre calling for a more locally targeted approach. Borisjohnson said he realised it was frustrating but insisted that the restrictions were necessary to kerb the disease. Our deputy political editor, vicki young, has spent the day in kent which is going into the toughest tier. Its not the festive reopening theyd been hoping for and once again, this bar will have to adapt. Customers wont be allowed to sit in and enjoy the craft beer, so owner alex is setting up as a shop. Most businesses were getting prepared to get back open in some way, so too have the rug pulled from under us at the last minute is quite a shock. And its upsetting, i guess, to be in this situation, especially when we tried so hard as an industry to be covid secure and we put in 70 measures. In tonbridge there are few coronavirus cases, but high numbers in a couple of areas of kent have put the whole county into the toughest restrictions. Its like when you are at school and you behave the whole lesson, and then there is just one kid at the back that hasnt behaved. We were quite shocked. We were not expecting to be in tier 3. And as new mums, we are struggling being alone, stuck in the house a look. The government has to put a line somewhere. I mean, you put a line through the middle of kent, no one is going to know where it is. The Prime Minister hopes that eventually, vaccines and mass testing will help control the virus. Today he told Public Housing and labs at porton down that for now, the tier system will dictate what rules we must live with. I totally understand why people feel so frustrated, but the difficulty is that if you did it any other way, first of all, you would divide the country up into loads and loads of very complicated subdivisions. There has to be some simplicity and clarity in the way we do this. But furious conservative mps have been lobbying for a more targeted approach. Of course he is right that we need simplicity and clarity, but we also needed to be appropriate. We are asking people to make very serious sacrifices, and economic sacrifices, and that is why its important that what we asked people to do is appropriate to the situation they find themselves in. Labour is not against the tighter restrictions, which mps will vote on next week, but it wants more Financial Support for those who have to isolate. Boris johnson might have to rely on Opposition Mps to get his plans through. There have been howls of protest from many conservative mps, who are particularly worried about the hospitality trade. But the government is taking a tougher approach this time round after scientists said the tier system simply wasnt working. Now mps in places like kent are pinning all their hopes on a review in two weeks time. Shops, those that have survived, will reopen across the whole of england next week. But many pubs and restaurants face an uncertain future. Vicki young, bbc news, tonbridge. Thats it from me, so let me get this opportunity to wish you all a very good weekend. James is here at the top of the hour. Now on bbc news, a special women focussed edition of witness history hello, im ciru muriuki, and thanks forjoining me here at the arboretum in kenyas capital nairobi for this special edition of witness history celebrating some extraordinary women. Coming up, we will hear about the fight for equal religious rights for women at the western wall in jerusalem. How the American Space agency nasa first allowed women to take an active part in its missions in the 19705, and the campaign to make the contraceptive pill available in japan. But first, we go to sri lanka in 1960 when sirimavo bandara naike was elected the worlds first female Prime Minister. Mrs bandaranaike and her politics led to the assassination of her husband. Witness history has been speaking to her eldest daughter sunethra about her mothers remarkable political achievement. Entered politics after the assassination of her husband. You are the first woman Prime Minister in the world, does this have any effect but do you think it makes your influence was strong or more strong . I should say more strong. Do you think they would be more capable of solving the problems of the world than men are so far . Thats left to be seen. My mother was incredible. She shed her reticence, her shyness, she came forward and on every political platform she spoke. My father was Prime Minister first from 1956 to 59, of sri lanka or ceylon as it was known then. Sadly, his enemies assassinated him. My mother had no intention whatever of going into politics. Her three children were fatherless, and she wanted to devote all her time to breaking them up. Bringing them up. But there was such a pressure from the party and the people in general that finally she agreed, because she was convinced that it was her duty. My mothers party won the election in 1960, but right wing forces started saying the nastiest possible things. Running down women, how can she lead a Political Party . But she was utterly unruffled. She said dont worry about it, she carried on. As for us, we three felt, my god, we have lost our father to politics. Now are we going to lose our mother as well . But she never forgot that she was a mother. She took on the mantle of the worlds first woman Prime Minister very comfortably. She took to it like a duck to water. I myself was quite amazed how she became passionately fond of the international scene. She played a very Important Role there. The first woman premier of mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike of ceylon. I noticed in no time at all the way she was carrying herself with a great sense of authority, which she was to walk into cabinet meetings she had files clutch like that to her left arm, and walked with her head held high. She came across in a very strong way when she was negotiating one to one with leaders of other countries, i have never ever seen her losing her temper. She would get angry, but in a very calm, stern manner. She would say what she had to say which was far more effective. She was very proud of her second daughter, my sister. My mother could see that she was a born leader. Wearing a peacock blue sari, the new president took her oath of office in all three of the countrys main languages. She was overjoyed with my sister became the president of sri lanka. She saw the legacy that her husband left behind which she took on from there, the metal had now fallen on her daughter chandrika. The worlds first woman Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of sri lanka, has died at the age of 84. Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike had been voting in the islands general election. Her daughter is the current president. Being the worlds first female Prime Minister was very important to her. She felt very proud that she had done it. Do you hope to see more women in politics . Yes i hope to. Sunethra bandara naike there remembering her mother, what a remarkable story. Next we go to japan where women had to wait until 1999 to get the right to control the number of children they had using the oral contraceptive pill. Now, in contrast, a male impotence drug viagra was approved for use injapan injust six months, legalised before the pill for women. Witness history has been speaking to Yoriko Madoka who has made it her life work to fight for the right of japanese women to access contraception. Translation the reason i started pushing for the legalisation of the pill was because before i became an mp i ran what i called a happy divorce class for women. I was not a professional counsellor or anything, i was a journalist. But i volunteered to help people going through a divorce. Many women wanted to talk a lot about their emotions. Divorce and abortion are actually closely related. If you have good communication with your husband you can say, i dont want to have sex today, or id like to use contraception. But many women told me they were not having any conversations like that with their husbands at all. So they ended up becoming pregnant and not wanting to be, and so then having emotions, and this would not be just once but twice, even three times. It brought a lot of stress on the marriage. I thought, women have got to be able to control their own reproduction, not rely on men for contraception. Women should be able to decide when they want to children. But japanese women have been taught for generations that it is better to know nothing about sex or even about their own bodies. It was all conceited, shameful, even now some women dont believe contraception is a female issue. In the 805, i became an mp and changing the law to allow the contraceptive pill became a big issue. I could not understand why it still wasnt allowed. So i approach the health minister, isaid its time to legalise the pill. But he told me, mrs madoka, the pill is allowed in western countries, not here because the body of a japanese woman is different to a western woman. And i wanted to say, are you crazy . Then in the late 90s, viagra arrived, the pill to cure impotency in men. It was approved in japan within just six months. That made us women angry. Of course the Japanese Parliament is dominated by men, thats why medication for impotency was approved straightaway and why we had to fight for decades for the pill. Japans population is shrinking. The birth rate is among the lowest in the world. Translation the government says we have a low birth rate, and we need to have more babies, but the japanese system still doesnt support women to have babies, its directly related. People dont want to more children because they cant afford them. Education is so expensive. I went to the politics because i wanted to change the law so that a woman can live the life she wants. Can marry who she loves, and raise the children she wants to have, and be financially independent. There still are not enough women in politics, but that a representation is the only way to make sure the mens issues get addressed. Yoriko madoka there talking about what we need women in politics. Next to go back to the 19805 when a group of jewish feminists started campaigning for the right to pray as openly asjewish men at one ofjudaisms holiest sites, the western wall injerusalem. Witness history spoke to annette hoffman, one of the founders of the so called women of the wall. Singing. I have been the chauffeur more times than i would like to think of taking women of the wall to emergency room. And of course and eggs, water thrown at women of the wall. When israel took over eastjerusalem, they built a partition between men and women at the wall. The partition is not equal. Men are encouraged to explore alljewish expressions. What some people allow themselves to say about us, and to us is quite shocking. Wrap them in their prayer shawl and buried them alive. And we are being called nazis by otherjewish people. And when we went to court it would be 1a years later when we will receive a verdict. The court felt that our issue is so complex that it rocks thejewish world as we know it. Cheering. Singing. We won three out of our four goals, women can wear a prayer shawl now at the wall, i wont say its a pleasure, but you can do it. I am waiting for the day when young girls going to be reading the torah, wearing her prayer shawl praying out loud and she will say to me, hey old lady, its always been this way. One of the founding members of the women of the wall. Remember you can watch witness history every month of new bbc news channel or catch up new bbc news channel or catch up on new bbc news channel or catch up on our new bbc news channel or catch up on our films with more than 1000 video programmes and online archive. We go back to the 19705 when na5a but women at the forefront of one of its mi55ion at the forefront of one of its mission for the first time. But it was not into space. Instead women were put under water to 5ee women were put under water to see how 5cienti5ts would cope in an confined environment, they were labelled awkward knot5. Shes been telling about this forging away for women in an industry dominated by men. The womens team was under tremendous pre55ure the womens team was under tremendous pressure to perform. The role of women in Undersea Research was going to depend an awful lot on how well we did. We know that we were in a glass fishbowl and everybody wa5 watching us. You have to go back to the 19605 when the 5pace back to the 19605 when the Space Programme was back to the 19605 when the 5pace programme was in back to the 19605 when the Space Programme was in full gear. Na5a wa5 Space Programme was in full gear. Na5a was trying to plan ahead in terms of how to send human5 into space for longer wages. The best they could do foran wages. The best they could do for an extreme environment on earth was to use the undersea environment. The department of the interior with General Electric designed this programme to help na5a 5tudy human beings under isolation. They designed text type to which they opened up to working Research Scientists to submit propo5al5 Research Scientists to submit proposals for projects that would specifically benefit from extended working time underwater. Some of the nasa quys underwater. Some of the nasa guys really did not want a womens mission, that did not think we were capable of doing the work. We were going to prove them wrong, we were like, no, we are going to do this and do as good of a job or a better job as the guys can do. We did have that chip on our shoulder. The training for going into the mission was pretty intense. We had to learn how to use rebreather is, these extra lectures, and on top of that we had to do these social activities because of the publicity. Emotionally we just wa nted publicity. Emotionally we just wanted to do what we are supposed to do, we are supposed to be aquanauts, can we just go down and get our projects under way . Our mission was 1a days long. Probably spent six to eight hours a day underwater. Like living in a tiny little apartment but you had this great undersea outdoors. The underwater habitat had these big lights all around the top so it eliminated the reef all around us. These fish really reflect the light, they are gigantic scale select silver dollars and they would come right up to these bubble windows that we had and it would be this big guy looking in at you. It was the most amazing thing. There were times where we got along just fine, and there were times where there was tension. And people we re there was tension. And people were sort of trying to avoid each other as much as you could in such little space. They had cameras in each of the four rooms that could see what we we re rooms that could see what we were doing. In contrast to the mens group, you know, we were a little self conscious about not being observed when we were in the shower, and there was no shower curtain when we first went down there. The during the Training Mission we said no, we need to shower curtain here. By the time the mission was over we we re the time the mission was over we were all ready to come back. We were looking forward to getting a pina colada or something. 0ne getting a pina colada or something. One of the major findings was that having visual communication between the land, control people and the astronauts or in your case aquanauts it was very important. Without that when we can actually see each other and talking to each other that that made a difference in terms of people getting along, and the behavioural analysis showed we had less time in leisure and more time on work than the mens teams did. The sense of becoming more one with the underwater world was the thing that i loved. A remarkable story about breaking barriers. For a finalfilm where story about breaking barriers. For a final film where staying with space exploration. Since that first underwater experiment in 1970 nasa has sent dozens of women in space. In 1990 she was one of the crew members of the Discovery Shuttle Mission that put into orbit one of the most remarkable scientific instruments of all time, the hubble space telescope. She believes that change the way we see the universe. Hubble matters on a number of planes, the scientific, the astronomical and cosmological advances that is delivered are legendary. Fundamentally changing our understanding of black holes. Showing us many dimensions we never knew before to how stars form, how the big as clouds are nurseries of stars. I imagine astronomers have been dreaming since they first look at the stars about some way to get rid of all these pesky clouds in the turbulent atmosphere. So thats really what hubble was about, so really what hubble was about, so if you could put a really high performing telescope above all of that it really opened great doors to astronomy. We launched on april 24 there with a few hiccups and bumps got hubble played on day two of the mission, and then as planned returned to earth on the fifth day. T 6, five, four, three, two, one and lift off. Special discovery with the hubble space telescope. 0ur window on the universe. Spatial lunches were an amazing experience. You had five engines running at the same time as he lifted off the pad, its turbulent, its combustible, its really shaking kind of ride. Hubble was bolted in the cargo bay of the shuttle and attached with an electrical connector, and the shuttle had a 50 foot long robotic arm that could grab onto the telescope at one particular specially designed point. Continuing to take the arm. Everyone on point. Continuing to take the arm. Everyone on our crew was arm. Everyone on our crew was with really excited about when we make it to see the first images from hubble. Time dragged on and then of course the next thing we knew there was a very ashen faced press co nfe re nce was a very ashen faced press conference with very senior nasa scientific officials coming before the public to have to confess that after lots of tweaking with the telescope they had been forced to conclude the telescope could not it would not focus properly and the reason was because this very large mirror, eight feet in diameter, 2. 4 metres, was supposed to have a very assertive particular curvature to it and it was just assertive particular curvature to it and it wasjust ever so slightly to flat. At the outer edge. It was this design that was the death knell for nasa, lost its way in the woods. He is to be able to put people on the moon and now cant even build a telescope. Although the folks that go to the mirror had messed up, they had messed up very precisely. And therefore its possible to calculate very precisely the difference between the shape it should have had and the shape it did have. Hubble was designed from the beginning to be able to ta ke the beginning to be able to take out one scientific instrument, but a new one in so they used the precision that had been built into hubble at the beginning to be able to replace the scientific box quite precisely. I cant think of any other scientific instrument ever that has become so instrument ever that has become so known, so widely known and so so known, so widely known and so delightfully adored piece of p0p so delightfully adored piece of pop culture as hubble is. The Astronomical Team decided to point hubble at a patch of sky that based on everything they knew, and everything they could sue so knew, and everything they could sue so far was empty. So they did that come a Long Exposure at this blank empty bit of sky. What came back was like a technicolor, itsjust what came back was like a technicolor, its just stunning and very richly coloured. And when you look a little more closely all of those points of light are, enough to not be stars. There are thousands and thousands of galaxies. So hubble let us see way further backin hubble let us see way further back in time come up much fainter objects and essentially i think taught us that there nowhere thats empty in the universe. Some wonderful images of space to and on there. And thats all from the special women focused addition of witness history. We will be back next month with more first hand accounts of extraordinary stories from the past. But for now for me and the rest of the witness history team, goodbye. Hello there. Friday was a decidedly chilly day, particularly in those places where fog lingered. The weekend promises something just a little bit milder, but it will often be quite cloudy, that cloud at times will produce the odd spot of rain and some quite murky conditions as well. Low pressure to the southwest, High Pressure to the east of us, that is driving a fairly gentle southerly flow across the British Isles. You can see a few different weather fronts moving through bringing some patchy rain, but with that southerly flow we are importing some slightly milder air. Weve still got some pretty chilly conditions, though, across the northern half of the uk, and a frost to start off across the far north of england. Parts of Northern Ireland and scotland, a bit of fog through the central belt. Any rain in scotland becoming increasingly confined to the far north, but at the same time this big lump of cloud pushing up from the south across much of england and wales producing the odd spot of rain through the day. And some quite misty, murky conditions in places as well. Perhaps something brighter into the far southeast, certainly some sunshine for the channel islands. Highest temperatures in the south at 13 14 celsius. Now, as we head through saturday night, this big lump of cloud with some mist and murk, and some spots of rain will all continue to drift its way slowly northwards. Clear skies in northeast scotland, we could see a touch of frost here, but elsewhere temperatures on sunday morning will be above freezing. Sunday, though, does look like a pretty cloudy affair. There will be the odd spot of rain or drizzle here and there. Best chance of any sunshine through the channel islands, Far Southwest of england, maybe west wales, and also northeast scotland. The cloud breaking up here as the winds begin to pick up a little bit. Top temperatures 8 10 celsius. Maybe 12 in the Far Southwest of england. A bit of a change into the start of the new working week, because we will see a frontal system pushing in from the north. That will bring outbreaks of rain quite erratically southwards across the British Isles through the day on monday. That rain likely to be quite light and patchy, certainly as it gets down towards the south. Some brighter skies following on from the north, but with the winds coming down from the north, itll start to feel quite chilly once again. Temperatures in most places 8 10 celsius. Tuesday should be a dry day for most, and then later in the week, temperatures will take a tumble. Well see some rain at times and perhaps something wintry over high ground. This is bbc news, im james reynolds. Our top stories. Iran blames israel for the assassination of its top nuclear scientist, accusing it of seeking to provoke war. New figures reveal1 new figures reveal 1 million more americans have caught covid 19. Emergency teams are struggling to cope. Iran has promised severe revenge for the assassination of its top nuclear scientist, blaming israel for his murder. Mohsen fakhrizadeh died in hospital after gunmen attacked his car outside tehran
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