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ukraine says 174,000 square kilometres that s roughly the same area as syria has been contaminated by landmines since russia s full scale invasion. most have been found in the north eastern kharkiv region, and it s feared it will take decades to clear them completely. 0ur ukraine correspondent james waterhouse brought us this report. it reflects the size of the battlefield. now, typically, mines are used by armies to protect their positions or force their enemy into areas where they will suffer casualties. but the reality is, in areas where the russians initially advanced, where they ve then occupied territory for a number of months and then were subsequently forced out in ukrainian counter offensives, these areas are where the issue of land mines is the most acute. and these are also areas where people are looking to continue their lives and live in incredibly challenging conditions. we ve been to the eastern town of balakliya. this is what you call a scratching of ....
tony christie about living with dementia, music therapy and recording a new song for this year s thank you day. it isa it is a cold start for many but largely dry, with sunshine. that will change as heavy rain barber and strengthening winds push in from the south west. all the details later. it s tuesday the 11th of april. our main story. a four day strike by junior doctors in england that begins this morning is expected to be the most disruptive in the nhs s history. more than a quarter of a million appointments and operations could be cancelled, but doctors say they are striking for patient safety as well as pay, as our health correspondent catherine burns reports. what do we want? payrise! how do we get it? strike! this winter, we ve got used to seeing nhs staff waving banners on picket lines. we re now into the fifth month of industrial action, but this walk out byjunior doctors in england is bigger in scale than anything that s come before. a four day strike from this mo ....
This is bbc news. now freshwater pearl mussels were once common in our rivers, and the rare pearls found inside them were used in the crown jewels of kings and queens. but over the past few hundred years, they ve become critically endangered and almost vanished from our river beds. so now scientists are working on a project to breed them and boost numbers again. chris dearden reports. so small you need a magnifying glass to see them and a microscope to look at them properly. thousands of tiny baby pearl mussels growing slowly in a hatchery. i ve been working on these mussels for 17 years and i would say probably for the first ten years, we had little in the way of results. we were able to get them ....
To breed in captivity, we were able to collect the juveniles, but getting them to survive past six months has been really tricky. and that s partly because under water, the baby mussels have a strange, secret life. the babies look like a tiny version of the 19805 computer game character pacman. remember him a circle with a big mouth? they use that to hitch a ride mouth on the gills of passing fish. if they can survive all that, they can live to be 140 years old. the thing about freshwater mussels is that they re probably one of the best bio indicators i know. so if you ve got baby mussels in your river, you know, juvenile mussels in the river, it probably means that there s not much wrong with that river at all. also, they are a functioning part of the ecosystem, they create a habitat on the river bed, they will be good habitat for fish species and invertebrates. so that s why conservationists are also creating places for the mussels to live. one reason the numbers declined is becaus ....