12/02/2017 BBC Weekend News

Good afternoon and welcome to BBC News.

The United States and Japan have condemned North Korea

for test-firing a ballistic missile - the first such test

since Donald Trump took office as US president.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the launch was "intolerable"

and President Trump said the US stood behind Japan,

The missile flew for about three hundred miles and landed

Our Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield Hayes has more.

It is now thought the missile fired from North Korea early this morning

was one of these, a ballistic missile. It flew about 500

kilometre, before splashing down in the Sea of Japan.

North Korea's dictator had been promising to test fire a much longer

range missile, capable of hitting the United States. That has not

happened. Instead, Mr Kim is almost certainly

using the launch to crash this weekend party in Florida.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been spending it golfing with

President Trump. Shinzo Abe was not amused by the

intrusion. North Korea's most recent missile

launch is intolerable. North Korea must fully comply with the relevant

United Nations Security Council Resolutions.

Then in his response, President Trump appeared to forget to condemn

the North Korean launch. Thank you very much Mr Prime Minister. I just

want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States

stands behind Japan. Its great ally 100%. Thank you.

In South Korea, the military made the normal noises.

TRANSLATION: Our military is poised to respond immediately to any

provocations from North Korea, that threaten the security of the

republic of Korea. Missing from all of this, so far, is

China. The country that many think holds the key to stopping North

Korea. China's leaders say they do not want a North Korea armed with

nuclear missiles but nor do they want the Kim regime to collapse.

With each new test, North Korea comes a step closer to that goal, of

becoming a nuclear missile armed state. The prospect makes South

Korea and Japan extremely nervous. But nobody seems to have any idea

how to get North Korea's nuclear genie back in the bottle.

Labour's deputy leader, Tom Watson, says the party's leadership

Speaking to the BBC this morning, Mr Watson played down reports that

Labour is using focus groups to test out the popularity of alternative

He said that this was "not the time" for another

We have had a tough 18 months, we had a damaging second

So we have got an uphill struggle ahead, the polls

aren't great for us, but I'm determined, now that we've

got the leadership settled for this Parliament,

that we can focus on developing a very positive, clear message

to the British people in a general election.

The Royal College of Surgeons, and the organisation that

represents NHS Trusts, is warning that highly qualified

surgeons in England are being left "kicking their heels"

while they wait for hospital beds to become available

They argue a lack of funding for health and social care means

patients are not being discharged when they should be.

NHS England says only 1 percent of operations were cancelled

The Commons Speaker has been accused of compromising his impartiality

by telling a group of students he voted to remain

John Bercow was filmed telling students at Reading University

it was "better to be part of a big power bloc" than

One Tory MP has called for him to resign,

but this morning politicians from both the Conservative

and Labour parties have come to his defence.

Our political correspondent is with us, how much of a threat is his

position under? His critics say he is at threat and certainly, there is

a motion that has been put, calling for there to be a vote of no

confidence in him, so far that only has one signature but it is recess

next week so that might pick up. Today there have been a lot of

people coming to his defence, his supporters say he wasn't being party

political, he was expressing a view on the referendum which is an issue

that the Conservative didn't have a united front on any way and he was

only making that point, long after the actual vote itself, and so we

have heard from the Conservative Leader of the House of Commons,

David Lidington who said in his experience the speaker is someone

who never shies away from calling Members of Parliament who have

difficult questions to ask. We heard from John Whittingdale who said it

is not helpful to express no confidence in the speaker and Labour

have been supportive, Tom Watson talking about how he has confidence

in the speaker, so he is somebody who does have support in the House

but he has a lot of critics and this will no doubt bubble on.

Protests in a Paris suburb turned violent again overnight,

at a demonstration in support of a twenty-two year old black man,

who was allegedly raped by a policeman earlier this month.

The man, who's known only as Theo, has appealed for calm

Police fired tear gas during the clashes.

A policeman has been charged with rape, and three

others with assault, in connection with the attack.

Tens of thousand of people in the Greek city of Thessaloniki

have been moved out of their homes so that an unexploded World War Two

The forty stone device was discovered under

a petrol station last week - it's thought to be one

of the biggest war time bombs ever found in Greece.

A state of emergency has been declared in the area.

Hollywood's finest will be out in force in London this evening

for the annual British Academy Film Awards.

The modern day musical La La Land leads the field

has been taking a look at the contenders.

Welcome to La La Land, the musical homage to Hollywood that

leads the BAFTA nominations, including one for its

and its two lead leads - Emma Stone, as a wannabe actress,

and Ryan Gosling as an aspiring pianist.

Andrew Garfield finds himself among the best actor

contenders for his role as a heroic pacifist in Hacksaw Ridge.

But he will have to see off the hotly-tipped Casey Affleck,

who is nominated for his portrayal of a broken man in

Meryl Streep is in the frame once again - this

time for her performance as the delusional Florence Foster Jenkins

- for which she has a Best Actress nomination.

It is a hotly-contested category, with Natalie Portman

the one to beat for playing the title role in Jackie,

a biopic that tracks Jackie Kennedy's

reaction to her husband's assassination.

It's not easy for me to admit that I have been standing

Fences, the August Wilson play about America in

the 1950s, adapted and directed by Denzel Washington, sees his co-star

Viola Davis get a Best Supporting Actress nod.

will compete with her for that BAFTA, having been nominated

for her role as a compassionate mother in Lion, with

Dav Patel playing her adopted son, for which he gets

As does Mahershala Ali for his sensitive performance as a drug

But it is likely to be La La Land's year on a night that could have an

added dimension with a possibility of politically-pointed

What we do know is that Stephen Fry will

host proceedings again, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

will be in attendance and Mel Brooks will be

From movies in London to the music industry across the Atlantic.

Los Angeles is gearing up for the Grammy Awards,

and Adele and Beyonce will go head to head for the top honours.

Adele is up for five awards - including best song for the single

Beyonce's also nominated for best song and album and is leading

She'll make her first public appearance since announcing

You can see more on all of today's stories on the BBC News Channel.

The next news on BBC One is at 5.35.

Good afternoon. Well, some know enoticeable weather changes, after a

weekend which has been dominated by raw easterly winds, a bit of snow

here and there across the hills of northern England a temperatures

which have struggled to reach three or four degrees. The wind changes