New yorks mayor says the citys worst Apartment Building fire in decades has left 12 people dead. Four people are said to be critically ill and Emergency Services said at least 15 people were also injured after the fire in the bronx. Its believed to have started towards the northern end of prospect avenue, which stretches up near bronx zoo. Local media say the fire erupted shortly before 7pm in the evening, local time, on the third floor of the five story building. Five storey. A witness from a neighbouring building described the scene. The fire trucks wasnt even here yet, when all the smoke was coming out. They werent even here yet. There were people on the fire escapes already trying to get down on their own, thats how fast it was moving. People were screaming, thats how we could tell it was trouble, people were screaming, help, fire. That was the beginning and the end of it. I dont know whats going on right now, ifeel its too much right now, its overwhelming. Its overwhelming. The citys mayor, bill de blasio, held a News Conference a short time ago. Were here at the scene of an unspeakable tragedy. In the middle of the Holiday Season is a time when families are together. Tonight, here in the bronx, there are families that have been torn apart. This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city in at least a quarter of a century. Based on the information we have now, this will rank as one of the worst losses of life from fire in many, many years. At this moment, based on preliminary information, and again there will be more information coming in in the next few hours, but based on the information now, im very sorry to report that 12 new yorkers are dead, including one child as young as one year old. There are four people critically injured who are fighting for their lives. Other serious injuries as well. Thank god, because of fdnys quick response, based on the information we have now, at least 12 people were rescued and will survive, but the search of the building continues. So we know that even though it is horrible to report that 12 are dead already, we may lose others as well. Another breaking news story this hour. A huge fire at an office and restaurant complex in indias Financial Capital, mumbai, which has killed at least 1a people and injured several others. The blaze in a building at the kamala mills compound is reported to have broken out in a restaurant and spread quickly. The complex housed a collection of derelict former Industrial Buildings until a few years ago, but has been transformed into a hub of upscale restaurants and offices. Bachi karkaria, a columnist for the times of india, described the complex. This is a big entertainment and business complex in what used to be the former district of mumbai, the district has now been turned into an area of huge skyscrapers and restau ra nts. Very recently, permission was granted for rooftop restaurants and it isa granted for rooftop restaurants and it is a tragedy that this thing has happened so soon. The former world footballer of the year, george weah, has won the liberian president ial election. Mr weah played for a string of high profile clubs, including ac milan, chelsea, and manchester city. He entered politics after his retirement in 2002, and will succeed Ellen Johnson sirleaf africas first elected female president. From monrovia, umaru fofana reports. Hundreds of supporters of george wea h hundreds of supporters of george weah gathered in front of the Electoral Commission officers to celebrate his victory. The percentage of the cdc, 61. 5 for the cdc. 38. 5 for the united party. Minutes later, the liberian capital was full of singing and dancing and the blaring of deafening car horns. President elect weah tweeted this message. Both foreign and domestic observers have praised the conduct of the election. They say its a marked improvement on the way the first one was run in october. Hardly anybody is surprised by weahs victory, but the margin is stunning. This is third time lucky for a man who is used to winning trophies, but found it hard to win this, the biggest award of his life. Its become possible through controversial alliances. The Vice President in waiting is the ex wife of the convicted war criminal, charles taylor. As a footballer in the 1990s, weah won trophies in italy and france. He was the first, and remains the only african, to have been named fifa world footballer of the year. He takes over from ellenjohnson sirleaf, the first elected female president on the continent. Liberia has stabilised in the past decade after a long and bloody civil war, but is still struggling with poverty and corruption. Now, africas oldest independent republic has become its first to elect a former footballer as president. Lets take a look at some of the other stories the news now. A further 29 people in urgent need of medical assistance have now been transferred to damascus, from a rebel held area near the syrian capital, in a deal with the government. The United Nations says nearly 500 people are in urgent need of medical care in ghouta. 18 children and six women were among those taken out of ghouta over the past few days. Indias lower house of parliament has approved legislation to outlaw the muslim tradition of instant divorce. A Supreme Court ruling has banned the right of muslim men to divorce their wives, simply by speaking the word talaq three times. It means divorce in arabic. Italys president Sergio Mattarella has dissolved parliament ahead of an election scheduled for march the fourth. Immigration is likely to be the key issue, with the anti Establishment Five Star Movement currently leading in opinion polls. Officials in alabama have formally certified Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the States Senate race. Thats despite attempts by his defeated republican rival, roy moore, to stop his certification going ahead. Mr moore filed a last minute lawsuit to challenge the result, alleging voterfraud, but a judge denied the request. Roy moore, Whose Campaign had been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct, lost narrowly. His lawyers said thered been a higher than expected turnout. But state officials were emphatic that they found no evidence of fraud. I dont think theres any doubt from the minds of anybody thats in this room or anybody thats in this room or anybody thats within the sound of my voice, thats within the sound of my voice, that there was ever a question about whether or not the state of alabama conducts honest and fair, safe and secure elections, that questions been eliminated from anyones thought and mind, period. In venezuela, hundreds of people have been protesting in the poorer parts of caracas against a shortage of promised pork a key ingredient for traditional christmas meals. President maduro has accused portugal of sabotaging deliveries, as jon ironmonger reports. Venezuelans are starving. Rocketing food prices and scarce basic groceries have stoked deep frustrations amongst the poor. Now a shortage of pork, the traditional dish at christmas time, has led to angry protests in caracas. Hundreds took to the streets, accusing the socialist president , nicolas maduro, of reneging on a promise to provide them with subsidised meat. Translation we are hungry now, the people are hungry. There is a famine. The government says the food is with the local food supply committee, but we have been waiting four months. It should be handed out every 15 days, as they say, but it doesnt arrive. Translation the authorities have come to say that we are the opposition. We are not the opposition. We are protesting for food because at this stage, it has been three months they have not sold us a box. The pork protests are an escalation of unrest during the holiday period, as a result of fuel rationing and widespread power cuts. Under pressure to give answers, president maduro took to state tv to blame portugal. Translation they sabotaged us. I can name a country portugal it was all arranged because we bought all the pork there was in venezuela, and so we had to import and i gave the order and signed the papers. But they went after the Bank Accounts and they went after the two giant shipments of food that came. The portuguese government has denied sabotaged, and the company, raporal, says caracas still owes more than 50 million for pork deliveries made in 2016. Once the richest country in south america, venezuela has been crippled by four years of recession after a collapse in the value of oil, its greatest export. Crime is commonplace. On tuesday, 28 people were arrested for looting. Critics blame the worsening crisis on rampant corruption and economic mismanagement by maduros leftist government. Thousands of people have marched through cities in peru to protest the pardoning of former president , Alberto Fujimori. They accused the current president of granting the pardon in exchange for Political Support from a party led by mr fujimoris daughter. Bill hayton reports. These protesters thought ex president Alberto Fujimori would spend at least another decade injail, but his convictions for corruption and for ordering the killing of opponents have now been quashed and that is what brought thousands onto the streets. Translation they gave a just sentence to fujimori and he hasnt fulfilled it. Who is he . We all deserve justice. We were calm, but now Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has betrayed us. Lets get rid of him. Last week, president kuczynski celebrated after surviving an impeachment vote, despite admitting taking money from a brazilian company, odebrecht, while a government minister. The company has admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials in several countries, including peru, to secure contracts. However, president kuczynski says he was only paid legitimate consulting fees. On thursday, he was interviewed for four hours by prosecutors investigating the case. They also interviewed kuczynskis main rival, the leader of the Majority Party in parliament, keiko fujimori, daughter of the former president. She was the driving force behind the impeachment vote. But her party split and the move failed. Two days later, her father was pardoned. On the streets, the protesters assume a deal was done and blamed the entire political class. The man at the centre of the anger, fujimori himself, remains in hospital, seriously ill according to his doctor. His future and that of the country are once again intertwined. Do stay with us here on bbc news. Still to come. The pub, the pay packet, and the power of social media. How one man was reunited with his missing money. The most ambitious financial and political change ever attempted has got under way with the introduction of the euro. Tomorrow in holland, we will use money we picked up in belgium today, and then we will be in france and again it will be the same money. It has just got to be the way to go. George harrison, the former beatle, is recovering in hospital after being stabbed at his oxfordshire home. A 33 year old man from liverpool is being interviewed by police on suspicion of attempted murder. I think it was good. You. Just good . No, fantastic thats better. This is bbc news. The latest headlines at least 12 people have died, including a young child, after a fire at a multi storey apartment block in the bronx, new york. A huge fire in a high rise building in indias Financial Capital mumbai has killed at least 1a people and injured several others. Will the Tech Company Apple apologised to its customers after it admitted slowing down older iphones in order to protect their batteries. The company said it would never intentionally shorten the life of any apple product and said it would offer replacement batteries at a discounted price. Earlier, Technology ExpertCharlie Brown told me what he thought of the tech giants move. To orfrom customers to or from customers grew so strong that apple had to respond the groundswell. But telling a customer these days what you are doing in the background is a real no no, especially when you have a product that everybody relies on, day to day, hour to hour. The 30 for replacing your battery will be fantastic, because iphone customers will be able to extend the life of their battery. I think you will see other manufacturers respond in kind shortly as well. Their hand was forced. It was actually some Technology Experts who worked out that it was the battery is causing the problem. Correct. What we saw was every time apple did an update of their software, when these changes to peoples operating structures would occur, there would bea structures would occur, there would be a massive spike on google of people searching slow iphone. That told us that something is going on here. It did not take too long for these programmers to go and debunk what was going on. Do you think we will see more transparency from apple now that they have had to back down on this issue . Getting an apology out of apple are traditionally has not been that forthcoming with other issues customers have been annoyed with. I think it is part of a more transparent apple that we will see. If you go back ten years or so to win the iphone launch, or even before the bombing had ipods, we might have had one apple product. To date we might have an iphone, and ipad today. It really does need to focus on maintaining that relationship, keeping a positive. I think the apology from apple today isa think the apology from apple today is a step in the right direction. Charlie brown speaking earlier. Bitter cold continues to blanket the Northern United States and canada as forecasters warn the deep freeze will continue into the start of 2018. New record lows have been set including minus 36. 6 degrees celsius in new hampshires mount washington. Officials say parts of canada are colder than the north pole or mars. Further disruption is expected in many parts of the uk with ice and heavy snow forecast. The aa said conditions for many drivers on thursday were appalling, while passengers who were stuck at Londons Stansted airport have complained about the airports response to the weather. Anisa kadri reports. Hanging around for a flight longer than you expected. Its not much fun, especially when the queues are just getting longer and you find out your flight is now notjust delayed, its cancelled. More than 12 hours after sarahs flight to stockholm was meant to take off from stansted, sarah was still here and will now fly tomorrow. I only found out literally i think it was three hours after my flight was supposed to leave that it was cancelled. And there was no boards to tell us that it was delayed or anything so it was literally like going backwards and forwards between the one person who was there, kind of thing. Ijust ended up lining up for like ten hours to try to get a new flight did you get any sleep at all . No. I think ive been awake 25 hours now. You only need to head to social media to get an idea of the frustration some people here felt last night. One person tweeted it was a shambles, another posted a picture of people sleeping on seats. Stansted airport says it has cleared the backlog of stranded passengers and things are returning to normal. They say there still could be delays because of the weather. And the weather has been causing problems elsewhere, too. In the cairngorms, three climbers had to be rescued after getting lost in blizzard conditions. The rescue took five hours. The wintry weather is not going away as we are being told to make sure our vehicles are safe for the road. Check your tyres, make sure youve got some good tread and they are well inflated, that should keep you safe on the road, because they keep you gripped to the road, after all. And pack accordingly, so have your own winter breakdown kit with plenty of spare warm and dry clothing, a flask, some snacks, a shovel and certainly a fully charged mobile phone. Today in inverness, people were enjoying the snow but there is more on the way for scotland and the met office is warning that tonight could be the coldest night of the year. Turkey and the us are to resume issuing visas to each others citizens. Theyd been suspended after a bitter row, when turkey arrested a local embassy employee in october. But in statements earlier, the Turkish Embassy in washington, and the us embassy in ankara said the issue had been resolved. Seref isler from our Turkish Service explained how the disagreement began. Back in october, the turkish authorities wanted to detain some Us Embassy Staff over what they thought what they claimed to be links to the coup attempt of 2016. After the coup attempt of last year, turkey launched a very large operation to find the perpetrators and they claimed that it was masterminded by a cleric living in the us, so when the turkish authorities wanted to detain these Us Embassy Staff members, they stopped Visa Services to turkish citizens and turkey in turn stopped these services for us citizens. The last day, some resolution to this, but a slightly messy one in its wording . Yes, precisely. The us is saying that they received security assurances from turkey and thats why they were able to resume Visa Services, but turkey is saying they are resuming the Visa Services but no security assurances are made, and we dont know what happened behind closed doors but its highly inconceivable that two countries would, by chance, start issuing visas again. Some chat should have taken place. We just dont know the details. The arrests aside, many other issues have made it a difficult year for us turkish relations . Is that right . Absolutely. The us and turkey are staunch nato allies. I remember a time when turkey sided with the us in the first gulf war against iraq, for example. The two countries have disagreed, such as with syria. Turkey is of the uss opinion, but is talking to russia. Turkey has reacted very angrily when the us recognised the capital of israel asjerusalem and other problems in the region, where there might have been some disagreements, but donald trump has a tower in istanbul, so this is a messy situation. The immense power of social media was once again in evidence at christmas when a welder from london left his christmas wage packet in a pub. Chi chi izundu takes up the story. This is the story of a welder, a pub, and lost wage packet. Last thursday, after a few hundred people had been here at the alexandra pub celebrating their christmas parties, at the end of the night a small brown envelopes stuffed with cash was spotted on the floor. The only reason i realised it was a wage packet was because i used to get paid in a similar packet when i first came to the country. All they had was the name mariusz and £600. The landlord and his wife posted a picture on social media which is reposted by authorjk rowling and then hundreds of thousands around the world joined in the search. We did not find him straightaway and a couple of celebrities retweeted it and it went bonkers. My phone was like a fridge buzzing we were getting messages from all over the world, so much interest trying to find this guy, people contacting asking if we found them . From canada and america and australia, everywhere. And then what happened . Lo and behold, yesterday, he walked in the door and said hello, im mariusz and i believe youve got my money it was like the biggest anti climax in history, he just wandered in he said, i think youve got my money. Mariusz explained he took out his phone to take pictures of his Christmas Party and that is probably when his wage slip fell from his pocket and under this chair, and he did not notice until about a day later. He had not seen the social media posts, it was his son who alerted him to them and he may have kept the loss quiet from his wife to have, as he called it, a stress free christmas he came in yesterday and got it. In a show of gratitude, he gave nobby a generous tip. Dont forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter. Im duncangolestani. And there is much more on our website. Do stay with us. We are backin website. Do stay with us. We are back ina website. Do stay with us. We are back in a few moments. Thank you for watching. Hello. Friday starts with a number of wintry weather warnings from the met office covering many parts of the british isles. We have very specific concerns about the amount of snow that is likely to fall across the Higher Ground of england. Into an already cool atmosphere, it will eventually bring quite a bit of moisture from the atlantic. And as that moisture falls into a pretty chilly atmosphere, so there will be a ready conversion of some of the rain into significant snowfall. Here we see the extent of it, around about seven oclock in the morning on friday. And anywhere really from the central belt of scotland down towards the Higher Ground of northern england, we will see lying snow accumulating. Ahead of it, some of the lighter rain will be falling onto pretty treacherous surfaces. So, there are warnings about ice. But over the high ground of the pennines, we may find up to 15 centimetres of snow. Further south, it is one of those mornings. That rain will again be falling onto some pretty cold surfaces. A risk of ice even across the southern counties of england. As the morning wears on, we will find the bulk of that moisture moving out into the north sea. But following on behind, just the northern portion of that front lingering for a time, just enhancing the snowfall across the Southern Uplands of scotland and the top end of the pennines. As that system moves away, so it makes room for another set of weather fronts to work its way in, particularly across the southern half of the british isles, as we get into the first part of saturday. A wet and windy combination gradually clearing away. You will notice the northern portion of the weather front eventually pushes up across the heart of scotland, with yet more snow to come. Chilly here, as you can well imagine. Further south, the temperatures rebounding. The sort of values we have seen of late. Even as far ahead as new years eve, there is another combination from another little system of some wet and windy weather. There is a great deal of mobility. Nothing hanging around for any great length of time. If you happen to have plans for seeing in the new year, it will be a chilly start to the new year, no doubt about it. Further south, passing showers, perhaps. Given the strength of the wind we are showing eight degrees, but it may feel a good deal cooler than that. So, what news for the start of the new year . Well, i suspect you have already guessed. Yes. More weather fronts coming in from the atlantic, more wet and windy weather to come. Hello. This is bbc news. The latest headlines. At least 12 people are dead, including a young child, after a fire at a multi storey apartment block in the bronx, new york. Four others are critically injured. The cause of the blaze, which began on the first floor and rapidly spread to the second and third floors, is not yet known. A huge fire in a high rise building in indias Financial Capital, mumbai, has killed at least 1a people and injured several others. The fire in a building at the kamala mills compound is reported to have broken out in a restaurant, then engulfed nearby offices. And the former footballer george weah has won a convincing victory in liberias president ial election. His win paves the way for the first democratic transfer of power in the west african nation since 19114