03/01/2018 BBC News at Six

Winter piles on the pressure -

the government apologises

to patients as thousands

of non-urgent procedures

are postponed.

More than 50,000 people in England

could now face delays in treatment

to allow the NHS to deal

with the most urgent cases.

I want to apologise for the fact

we have regrettably had to postpone

a number of operations.

We are trying to do it

differently this year.

Labour says the NHS is underfunded,

understaffed and in crisis.

Also tonight.

Blowing through the UK -

Storm Eleanor brings winds of up

to 100 miles per hour,

leaving thousands of

homes without power.

I'm reporting live from Portree in

North Cornwall where part of the

harbour wall collapsed this morning

and we are now waiting anxiously for

high tide.

My nuclear button's

bigger than yours -

Donald Trump's boast to North Korea

after its leader says America

is in range of a strike.

A man dubbed a hero

at the Manchester Arena attack now

admits stealing from two

of its victims.

The bionic hand with a sense

of touch - we have an exclusive

report on the woman who's been

testing it out for scientists

in the real world.

Proud parents - the UK's first polar

bear cub for 25 years is born

at the Highland Wildlife Park,

though it's not yet been seen.

And coming up on Sportsday

on BBC News, we look ahead

to tonight's London derby.

Arsene Wenger's Arsenal host rivals

Chelsea in the fight

for Champions League football.

Good evening.

The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has

apologised to patients

after hospitals were told to delay

tens of thousands of non-urgent

operations and out-patinet

appointments in England this month

so the health service can cope

with the winter pressures.

The Prime Minister acknowledged

the decision was "disappointing

and frustrating" for all those

affected but she insisted

that the NHS was better prepared

for this winter "than ever before".

Senior doctors, though, have warned

that they're struggling to cope.

Labour says the NHS is in crisis.

Our health editor,

Hugh Pym, has the latest.

Cancelled operations bring new

worries for patients like Anna. She

is due to have facial reconstruction

surgery. That an appointment next

week but that is in doubt and her

hopes of the operation happening in

January seem likely to be dashed.

It's impacting my life quite a bit.

I drool quite a lot now which is

quite frustrating, and I am very

uncomfortable with it. I think it

will improve my quality of life

quite a lot to have it.

Today the

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt pushed

for explanations, said sorry to

those patients affected.

I want to

apologise for the fact we have had

to regrettably postpone a number of

operations. We are 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. We

want to do it in a much more planned

way.

Surely the NHS, be running

properly and the government if you

have to cancel a months worth of

operations.

I think it's important

to recognise that these pressures

are pressures we are seeing all over

the UK in Scotland and Wales, where

the NHS is being run by different

political parties.

The Prime

Minister said she recognised that

for people who had had their

operations postponed it was

disappointing and frustrating. She

said NHS staff were doing a

fantastic job. NHS England and the

government is a extensive

preparations for winter were carried

out but if that is the case, the

question is why were official

instructions and cancelling

nonurgent operations extended this

week? Here at St Mary 's 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. 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 is very, very

significant. We've really had to

work very hard to find appropriate

places to nurse patients who have

got serious conditions. I think a

number of things play into this. The

weather, we know we are beginning to

see an increase in the number of flu

cases and all of that builds up to

quite a problem for us on Sundays.

Throughout the day there were

reports across the country of the

highest level of stress that

hospitals. Nottingham's Queen's

Medical Centre asked patients to

avoid A&E because of numbers.

Southend and Plymouth were also said

to be under extreme pressure.

When

you've got ambulances backed up

outside hospitals, hospital saying

they are overcrowded and people

waiting on trolleys for hours and

hours it is a crisis. It's because

of seven years of underfunding and

cuts to our NHS, and the government

burying their heads in the sand.

NHS

Scotland said there had been a 20%

increase in A&E visits before

Christmas. The Lanarkshire health

board has cancelled non-urgent

procedures. The Welsh government

said thousands of hours had been

lost for ambulance crews waiting to

hand over patients at hospitals. It

is early in the New Year and the NHS

across the UK is already struggling,

and it's patients who are in the New

Year and the NHS across the UK is

already struggling, and it's

patients who are injuring the

consequences.

Storm Eleanor has swept

across the UK, causing flooding,

power cuts, damage to homes,

and disruption to motorists.

Gusts of up to 100 miles per hour

were reported in the Pennines,

and thousands of homes were left

without power across

Northern Ireland, Wales,

the Midlands and South West England.

Chris Page reports.

After the swirl of the storm, the

sound of sauce was never far in

Northern Ireland today -- the sound

of saws. In south Belfast Eleanor

brought down a tree, garden fence

and power lines. Residents said they

had never seen whether caused such

destruction.

All of a sudden the sky

lit up and these power lines touched

each other and it was like Guy

Fawkes. It was box, it was

unbelievable.

As well as frightening

experiences, there were many

dramatic sides. The workers whose

job it is to bring back normality

have had a huge challenge. Engineers

have restored electricity to most of

the 25,000 homes which lost their

supply during the height of the

winds.

We have to bring in crews to

cut the trees, we have to bring in

digging crews to dig out polls and

replaced polls and free string

lines. All of this takes time and

effort, and essentially to restore

small numbers of customers at a

time.

The damage to homes, trees and

the fallen power lines all showed

there was a danger to people's lives

last night as Storm Eleanor blew

through. But most followed the

official advised to stay indoors and

in Northern Ireland no one has been

injured as a result of the severe

weather. But there were some

risk-takers, as the storm swept

across the UK and Ireland. In Galway

one driver tried to make it through

as PC invaded the roads. -- the sea.

The Channel Islands took a

hammering, the seafront and jersey

was an unappealing place to be when

Eleanor hit. In Clevedon, Somerset,

the promenade was out of bounds and

the emergency services were on

stand-by as the winds whipped up the

waves. And Wales also suffered.

Anglesey was pounded by fierce gusts

and ferocious tides. But the weather

was at its worst and the other side

of the Irish Sea. In Belfast and

ruin areas, roads have been

unblocked, Dave Breacker year dub

and electricity mostly back.

However, people here will remember

storm Eleanor for a long time. Chris

Page, BBC News, Belfast.

Well let's go to Cornwall now.

Jon Kay, the storm swept

through there last night -

but it's not over yet?

It's not. People here are waiting

nervously to find out what tonight

's high tide in the next few minutes

could bring. It was about 4am that

people heard a crack and then a

crash and then about 20 metres of

the harbour wall, the old harbour

wall which protects this community

collapsed into the sea. This is what

it looked like in the daytime. It

left a great big gap in the defences

which are meant to protect this

small coastal community. The

authorities have worked all day to

try to work out how to do it. They

cleared some of the rubble away and

try to create a bank which will give

some kind of protection. It's too

big a gap to fill in by high tide

tonight. They've cleared people

away. It is as close as we are

allowed to be. Members of the

Environment Agency are here, the

Coast Guard are here and people who

live in the houses around here are

urged to go to a nearby community

centre to take shelter to make sure

their homes and properties are safe.

We spoke to people who put their

Christmas presents upstairs to try

to protect them against any possible

flooding. The good news is at the

moment it seems the tide is lower

than it might have been. Hopefully

it won't be too bad. There's more

bad weather to come in the next

couple of days. This part of the

world knows all about bad weather

but it's not over yet. Sophie.

Thank

you.

President Trump has boasted

on Twitter that his nuclear button

is "much bigger" and "more powerful"

than North Korea's.

It was in response to a warning

from North Korea's leader

Kim Jong-Un that America

was in range of a nuclear strike.

Meanwhile North and South Korea have

conducted their first direct

communication in nearly two years

using a dormant hotline

run by the Red Cross.

Our 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.

Six people have been arrested

on suspicion of belonging

to the banned far-right terror group

National Action.

The five men and one woman

were detained during raids

in Cambridge, Banbury,

Wolverhampton,

Leicester and Stockport.

All six are being held at a police

station in the West Midlands.

A homeless man who was hailed a hero

for helping some of the injured

at the Manchester Arena bombing,

has pleaded guilty to stealing

a purse and a mobile phone

from victims of the attack.

Chris Parker appeared at Manchester

Crown Court earlier today.

Danny Savage is outside

the Manchester Arena for us.

Chris Parker became famous after the

Manchester Arena bombing. He was the

homeless guy who rushed in to help

people, that's what everyone

believed because that's what he told

everyone in the aftermath of the

bombing. But afterwards, when

investigators started looking at the

CCTV, a different story began to

unfold. Although he did help some

people, he undid all of that good by

stealing from some of the victims.

The CCTV showed him going to one

woman, Pauline Healey, repeatedly

going to her before he eventually

took a handbag with her purse in the

hours that followed he used her bank

cards in fast food restaurants.

Today at Manchester Crown Court he

pleaded guilty to theft and fraud.

He will be sentenced at the end of

the month and has been told he may

go to prison. Many people raised

lots of money for him after those

events and thought he was a hero. He

was in store to get more than

£50,000 from public donations. He

now will not get that money and

instead is looking at going to

prison. He went from hero to zero

over a matter of weeks.

Our top story this evening:

Winter piles on the pressure -

the Government apologises

to patients as thousands

of non-urgent NHS

procedures are cancelled.

And still to come:

Polluting the planet -

almost all the plastic in our oceans

comes from just 10 rivers.

We report from one of them,

India's Holy river the Ganges.

Coming up on Sportsday on BBC News:

Mason Crane will become

the youngest England spinner

to make his debut in 90 years -

as we look ahead to final

Ashes Test in Sydney.

This is a bionic hand -

the extraordinary thing

about it is that the person wearing

it can actually feel

what they're touching.

But until now it has only

ever been used in labs.

Now for the first time the bionic

hand is being tested

out in the real world.

Our 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 is the proof.

Blindfolded, Almarina Mascarello

knows whether what she's

holding is soft or hard.

She gets it right every time.

Over lunch, she told me that nearly

25 years after losing her hand

in a factory accident,

it is almost like it is back again.

TRANSLATION: The feeling

is spontaneous, as if it

were your real hand.

You are finally able to do things

that before or difficult.

Like getting dressed,

putting on shoes.

All mundane but important things.

You feel complete.

The world's first peeling 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 is 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 humanlike bionic hand

is still decades away.

But the team here

think it will happen.

We feel we are going more and more

in the direction of science fiction

like movies like Star Wars.

With Luke Skywalker

after the amputation of the hands.

So fully controlled,

fully natural, fully sensorised

prosthesis very similar,

identical to the human hand.

Since we filmed with Almarina,

she has had to give back her bionic

hand because it is still

in the research stage.

But she says when it is

commercialised in a few years,

she wants the feeling bionic hand

back for good.

Fergus Walsh, BBC News, Rome.

2017 was a great year

for the music industry.

Across Britain, 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.

Our consumer affairs correspondent

Nina Warhurst has been

looking at the figures.

# I have no time...

2018 is set to be big

for Francis Lung.

# Give it back...

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 is good enough

for other people to hear.

Last year we streamed more music

than ever, 68 billion songs.

The equivalent of more

than a thousand each.

Father Christmas brought it,

and that is Elbow...

Perhaps more surprising

is how the tables have

turned with vinyl records.

As some who had 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 are listening.

Vinyl sales were up an astonishing

26% on the year before

with 4 million records sold.

And the shape of the British

music industry was helped

by one Ed Sheeran.

For the 13th 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

is termed a value gap.

That is a disparity

between the amount of music

that is being listened to,

and the amount of money that

that is generating for the industry.

We are 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 will pay 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.

The head of the revolutionly guards

in Iran has claimed the week of

unrest in the country is at an end.

Thousands have been taking part in

pro-government demonstrations today.

22 people have died in six days of

anti-Government demonstrations,

which were initially in response to

price rises and accusations of

corruption.

The problem of plastics

and the impact they're

having on our planet -

it's 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 is 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 Varananasi

that you realise how this mighty

River that is 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 his family have

lived along the Ganges in Varanasie.

Living witnesses to its

gradual degradation.

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

will 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 ten 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.

A polar bear cub has

been born in the UK

for the first time in 25 years.

The parents are both

well and looking proud.

But the cub itself has

not yet been seen.

Staff at the Highland Wildlife Park

say they first heard the baby's

cries in late December.

But they don't expect the cub -

or possibly cubs -

to emerge until March.

Katriona Renton reports.

Up in the snowy hills

of Highlands, listen carefully.

A sound which has not been

heard in the UK for 25

years - the cries of a new-born

polar bear cub emerged from this den

the week before the Christmas.

And they have been

heard every day since.

This is dad, Arctos,

he is in a separate enclosure.

He can feed and play.

For now, mum Victoria must not be

disturbed, but the park is

very excited.

We discovered the cub

when my colleague Nicky went up

there on one of my days off

and she rang me very excitedly

to tell me that she could hear a cub

in the den.

It is a very distinctive,

very loud noise that the cubs make.

So she was incredibly

excited and then

the next day I heard

the noise for myself.

Arctos and Victoria mated last year.

This footage shows a polar

bear club born in the

Netherlands.

They have a high mortality

rate in the first few

weeks, due to their underdeveloped

immune system and the mothers need

for privacy means any

disturbance risks cubs

being killed or abandoned.

Some conservationists do not believe

polar Bears should be bred

in captivity.

What we are doing here

is replicating as much as we can

possibly the natural habitats

and I think you have seen

for yourself today the conditions

that our polar

bears are in -

the space that they have

and the enjoyment and

the

freedom of movement

that they have here.

Male polar Bears have no involvement

with their offspring.

Arctos will never actually meet his

cub and the rest of us will have to

wait until the end of March

or beginning of April when all being

well Victoria will emerge from her

den with her baby or baby even

babies.

Time for a look at the weather.

Here's Louise Lear.

Here's Louise Lear.

The talk of the town has been Storm

Eleanor. These are the winds we had

this morning, between 75 and 90mph.

The storm is moving towards

Scandinavia, down to the low

countries and Germany. Behind it, we

have this fella that is moving into

the South West. That is going to

bring some rain, some of it heavy

and some gale force winds. Nowhere

near as the strong as the night

past, but there could be some

localised flooding. Further north

and east a cold start with frost and

icy stretches. Tomorrow morning, it

is all about the rain in the London

area. Some of it persistent, moving

up into the Midlands. An improvement

in the South West and Wales. A mild

start as well. The rain will linger

in the north of England, through the

Isle of Man and into Northern

Ireland and here it will stay for

much of the day. To higher ground

there could be some sleet and snow

as well. To the far knot of Scotland

it is stays with clear skies with

frost and sunshine. That stops and

further south it is a brighter end

to the day. Still breezy, but mild

at 13 degrees. To the north we keep

the cold air and that will be the

story at the weekend. The cold air

spilling down from the north and

with a brisk north-easterly wind it

will feel quite raw. So it will be a

shock to the system as temperatures

fall below the average for the time

of the year. But it will be