In doha on saturday. The afghan president , ashraf ghani, says his government has made no commitment to free five thousand taliban prisoners before peace talks begin. At 10 oclockjane hill will have a full round up of the days news. First, our world, blasian love in south africa. The countrys painful past means interracial dating is still often frowned upon. Do you have a thing for people of my race . Erm. During apartheid south africa, you could go to jailfor dating somebody outside your race, but now, more than 25 years later, a whole generation, the born Free Generation, have grown up together and more and more of them are falling in love with each other. And its notjust black and white whats it like dating between people of colour . Apartheid was south africas government sanctioned segregation based on race. Destroy white south africa and this country will drift into chaos and poverty. And officially ended in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president. Everyone born after this year is part of the born Free Generation, but dating amongst this group is a minefield in race relations. Being in south africa, now its a bit like a cappuccino nation, you have, like, your little sprinkle of integration on the top. And hang ups from apartheid are real. You know, we were very racist. On to be honest with you, because i come from old school and that stigmas always there. So just how free are the born Free Generation of south africa . Ithra and tumelo are a blasian couple. Tumelo is black and ithra is of mixed asian descent. The tiered levels of apartheid meant that mixed asian, indian and coloured people were often given preferences over black people, meaning that divisions were just like and white. Lots of people are in interracial relationships . Is everyone at it . There is more non interracial relationships than interracial relationships. And friends, in our friends. Within ourfriends, its more interracial but its more an indian person with a white person, not necessarily with a black person. Theres no other blasian relationship in our class. Not in our class, but i have seen some around here. Our class is 300 people. Around the school, one or two, but its not common. Its not a common thing but it does happen. So our parents are meeting for the first time on saturday. My mum and stepdad and siblings and his mum and dad. Im excited actually. Tumelo, i dont know if hes teasing me but he says his mums going to cook traditional food and its going to be mopane worms worms like, live worms im going to eat. Im excited but im nervous at the time time because it can go one or two ways. Our mums are both, like, i think theyre more or less the same person and theyre both, like, very loud. They must know me the way i am. Yeah, i mustnt pretend to be something that im not, yeah. They must take us as we are, and were going to take them as they are, thats it. Ithras family are from cape malay, a community of mixed asian ethnicity that have been in south africa for decades. Ithras mum, rhianna, who actively opposed apartheid, straddles the divide of someone who grew up in the system but raised her own daughters out of it. I remember when reality hit home that shes dating a black guy. Its really hard for me to even say it, because its not part of our conversation. It was, like, 0k, how will i deal with this as a mother . How will i deal with this in terms of my family and friends . A lot of questions that i had which i havent really had the chance to process. But interracial relationships in south africa have become more common among ithras generation. Data shows that theres been an increase in relationships between white and black and white and asian people since apartheid ended, whilst blasian marriages have only increased by 0. 1 . So my previous boyfriend was croatian and german. And what was. Did you notice any difference in terms of how people reacted when you were dating a white guy to dating a black guy . So, his mum actually wasnt very accepting of me initially, so that was, like, kind of our biggest challenge. Unlike past experiences, ithra having a black boyfriend has led to family tensions. So we have a family group, and then. A Whatsapp Group . A Whatsapp Group, yeah, and then i came home from a night shift at the hospital and i was really tired, and i saw everyone from my family left the group so i thought, something is happening. So i phoned home and my sister was, like, no, my gran found out im dating a black guy and apparently she. But she didnt even ever address me about it, she phoned my aunt in cape town to ask what her opinion was and she phoned my sister. Where she comes from there very much about the community and the community was everything, so shes very concerned about what people think. We stopped speaking about two to three months ago, 2. 5 months ago, yeah. And theres been no contact . Theres been no contact, no. When you were growing up, would it have been possible to date outside your race . No, no. That wouldnt happen. What would have happened if you brought home an indian boyfriend . I dont know, i dont know. What i know is that was not possible. I think i would be thrown out of the house, and i would be disowned completely. There is no ways that i could bring home a black boy. It was indians, it was blacks, it was whites and thats it. If youre black, you marry a black guy or a black woman. If youre indian, you marry the same. An indian boy or an indian girl, and thats it. Tumelo introduced me to his friends. Theyre all part of the born Free Generation, also described as mandelas generation of hope. In theory, these young adults are free to live wherever and love whoever they want, and i wanted to talk to them about what this meant in practice. Joburgs a very cosmopolitan place, and when you go to smaller places theres a lot more of each to their own. Would your parents be ok with you dating a black girl . They wouldnt love it, i think, but theyve said yes but theory and practice is to different things, but id like to think so. Preferably stick to your culture kind of thing. Being in south africa now, its a bit like a cappuccino nation. So you have, like, your strong black society at the bottom, and then you have your white and then you have your little sprinkle of integration on the top, 0k . So, a few people actually integrate, but a lot of the country is very much divided. So even though were born frees and were living in this new south africa, we are still quite divided and we still have a long way to go as a country. People have a hierarchy that was, like, built up in their head. They think, 0k, great. Honestly they think white is better, then comes this, then comes that. Everything except white, its a bit mixed depending on who you are and what you think. Its not necessarily white people saying we are better, but its a lot things like black people saying, we are not as good. Back home, ithra and her sisters are worrying her mums honesty about race may be misinterpreted. I know, ithra, you were eavesdropping. Our twitter, its called black twitter. Ive heard of black twitter. Its hectic, you know, so. Ive never reared you guys to be racist, but the reality is its the first time im stepping into a black family under the context of possible in laws, you know . Somehow it sits differently, but it goes back to what you were saying, that people are not ready to have the difficult conversations. Its just sensitive, everything is so sensitive around the race issue. Because i lived in apartheid, those divides were real. I remember being so angry with my parents and my grandparents for not doing something about it. How could we be part of such a cruel and unfair system and you allowed it . Now, when you have that kind of purpose, of course im going to have kids that ive raised that is free of that reality, but im also human and i come from a Certain Community so, you know, it does go deeper. More than 500km south east ofjoburg, durban has the largest Indian Origin population in africa. One of the features of apartheid meant that people of different races were made to live in different areas, a segregated city planning that still exists today. Shivana did not grow up around black people. Even today, her extended indian family live on the same street, and her black boyfriend has not welcomed by everyone. My mum, she didnt like it at all, and she proceeded to make life difficult for me via texts. What were the kind of messages that she sent . The kinds of things she said was, like, that i was sullying myself by being with a person of this race. Its not what she envisioned for me, just things around those lines, and it was purely because of his race. Durbans chatsworth market is a former indian township, but today asian origin and black storekeepers work side by side. Have you ever dated a black boy . Not really. You think this community would accept it . Not really. Have you ever dated an indian girl . No, why not . I like malaysian. You like . Malaysian. We dont integrate, we dont form meaningful relationships, so there is this chasm between us. We dont fraternise, so therefore we get along because neither of us are bothering each other. Thats not getting along. We are doing a film about interracial relationships, do you think its ok to date outside your race . No, its not right, its not right at all. Its not right. We didnt expect a generation, a generation that turned so much, because we were living in a place which was colour blind. We looked on one section, the whites are living there. Since this government took over with maturation and new south africa, this is what the bosch is all about. Mixing their own National People together, like blacks, whites, green, blue and all. This is what happened in the centre because they acknowledged blacks are doing more problems than the indians. Who says that . I is. You say that . Im saying that, because why . Normally an indian girl falls in love with a black guy, right . She says, ok, fine. After a couple of months, hes giving her blue eyes. Ive been told about a young blasian couple in the rural province of kwazulu natal. Its home to the most brutal riot between indian and black people. The durban riots of 1949 was anti indian and resulted in more than 140 deaths. Here in our area, like, i feel like were the couple that. Were the only couple in this area. Yeah, we are. Are there any other places where you would not hold hands in public . We dont even hold hands in public because, like, so unromantic we dont hold hands in public i was so, so scared of my father, especially, that i just kept my whole pregnancy a secret from the whole family. We are scared about telling our father. Daddy, im about to have a baby. With a zulu guy. It was just. I was like oh, gosh. I think im going to die right then and there and i told my dad daddy. I did the thing youre gonna hate the most i literally gave birth on my bedroom floor. And my mother was just there like oh my gosh shes having a baby i told my auntie please tell my parents that ive got a baby now with an indian girl. Then my auntie told my parents and they phoned me. Theyre like why you never told us this . They were, like, shouting at me. But then after two weeks time, they were fine with that. They were like, so when can we see the baby . And theres the baby now and theres the baby. There is the baby now you couldnt date an indian girl, you couldnt date a white person, so i would say this shows that there is freedom now in south africa, and we are born frees. Its the evening before ithra and tumelos family meet for the first time. Although ithra and her grandma have not spoken since she found out about tumelo, ithras grandma agreed to speak on camera. You know, were staying in a new South African now. Before, it would have been different but everything is so very, very different and, you know, to us really, its not about colour. Its not about colour. Its more culture. Culture. And also, it depends on religion also. Because we are very religious people. And he seems a nice person and he comes from a decent home and that is very important, and they love one another. What can we say . Theres nothing we can do. Would you want to do anything . In the beginning, it is a bit tough because, you know, like, we are from old school. I come from the era where it was apartheid. It was the apartheid era and, you know, there were barriers. The whites one side, the coloureds one side, and the blacks one side. But as the years are going by, we are accepting one another. We have to. We are living in south africa and it is the rainbow nation. But what were the initial worries that made the kind of lack of contact, what were your initialfears . Ok, let me put it to you like that. Its a culture. And dating a white guy or a black guy, does that make a difference . I mean, thats being racist, actually. That is racist. You know, we were very racist im going to honest with you because we come from old school and the stigma is always there. It will never go away. But it is strange when it comes to your own family. Then its a different scenario and then you have to accept it, you see . And what is wrong . Like i said, its more cultural. And its social. Thats what it is, yeah . Yeah. Its the rainbow nation. On the big day, i went along early to help tumelos mum modjajdi prepare for the family lunch. Its like a worm. Only its alive. I am scared of it, it is like a worm, its a worm, and theyre from a tree you have you pick them up from a tree. And theyve got segments they look slightly like a fat caterpillar yeah, it looks like a caterpillar sourpap. Which is like maize . Yes. And then you have got the chicken feed which still has the nails on yes and you were telling me how to eat them, which is. You first start by taking off the nails, and then you spit it out, and then you eat. What if ithras family are not fans of mopane worms or theyre not fans of chicken feet, and theyre like, oh, i dont know if i can eat all this, i dont know if i can eat tripe . How would you feel . No, like, tumelos going to buy halal meat. Theyre going to make halal meat. And then, if they dont like this, they will have the halal. Would you be offended if they did not like mopane worms or chicken feet . No, but what they said to me is, ithra and her mum, they said they cannot wait to eat mopane worms. They said that . Yes, they told me yesterday that they cannot wait. Have you ever had other girls come over before . Yeah. With theirfamily . No, never. And thats why also this is such a big thing, like, its making me nervous, because it is like this is an example of what it really means to integrate. Like, its ok, cool, were going to come here, youre gonna come here and youre gonna see it, but youre gonna eat, like, our food. Were not going tojust make you youre not going to get pizza. Like, im not im notjust accepting you as ithra and then, like, your culture and your religion and everything is like like, im not going to be a part of that but i will be a part of this. Like, you have to be part of the whole thing, notjust a part of it, like a little piece. So, yeah. Do you think shes outside . Oh, i do think shes outside i can see them, actually. They are outside. Yeah, theyre right there. Im going to go say hi. Yeah, all right. Hello hello. Long time finally my friend i am with my friend lam rhianna. Im modjajdi. Modjajdi. Im good, and how are you . Good, thanks. Nice to meet you. Tumis the favourite. Oh, i know modjajdi had almost the same reaction if you were, ithra, tumis age, if you bought home a black if you brought home a black boyfriend, what the reaction would have been, and i asked the opposite question to modjajdi exactly the same reaction. No way way its true, hey . How things have changed. You know what i was thinking, what i was thinking about . Because obviously, last night was pretty intense. We went to see my mum and dad. 0k. And they spoke on camera. And actually, it was the first time we really got to hear how they really felt. I know. And that reaction was based on fear. We got straight to the reasons of racism and, you know, Everything Else that media is feeding us, but when we look at it from an emotional point of view, it looks a little bit different. It is. Can we please say black people and not blacks . Thank you. Im actually. I really dont know, and i said this yesterday as well on camera, i struggle to say black generally, you know, because ijust dont feel that we should be using this, you know, these words. Because ive heard blacks be used so, like, often as a derogatory term that it makes me uncomfortable, like, to hear black people be referred to as blacks, or the blacks. Sure. Thank you for raising that. If we really want to move away from how the word colour is associated and with it, a brand of racism, a brand of discrimination. Same as how blacks always portrayed as wrong and white is portrayed as pure. Always, correct. If we just listen to peoples language patterns and then we inherit that and society inherits that, itjust creates more prejudice and more discrimination. But do you think saying, oh, a cultural, you know, division is what we are concerned about, or a religious division is what we are concerned about, is actually giving an easier excuse to being bigoted . Now, post apartheid, everything is ok and everyone is living happily when it isnt. There are still subtle racism and structural racism. When mandela got elected as the president , that was the moment. But it was never the moment, right . I tell you, in my view, things actually got a little bit worse than what we thought. I want to raise my kids to go to probably a Better School because i think that was what i was aiming, and that would be non racial in other words, it will have other races, so that they must learn what i couldnt learn. Ive never interacted with indians at all, until very late in my life, when i was working. This generation will solve it. Every generation has its own problem and i think this generation, this is their problem. Theyll sort it out. The born frees make up around 40 of south africas population. Soon, the majority of the country will be populated by people who were born after apartheid ended. But for now, a true rainbow nation seems at least a generation away. What would be your hopes for chloe and her future . I do feel like if people are more open to it and, like, more people start to date outside of their race, then it could possibly be less of an issue going forward. Because people would see chloe as an example that two people love each other, theyve created something so beautiful. I feel like that could be enough to change peoples minds, eventually. Hello. I know the flooding goes on but im sure many of you are glad to see the back of februarys relentless record rainfall. The met office confirming it was the uks wettest february on record. The first few days of march are looking a bit quieter, less windy. More importantly, less wet than it has been and the reason for that, the jet stream has moved south and it will take with it the more substantial areas of low pressure, the wind and rain, allowing us to keep, well, overall pressure low, but really just showers feeding in from the atlantic as we go through the next few days, and were on the cold side of the jet stream so we are in the blue, and as a result, we are going to find temperatures at or below average for the time of year. Some of these showers coming in will be wintry in nature, particularly on hills. There may even be a bit of sleet and snow associated with this weather system pulling away from southern england as we start monday. Icy elsewhere, where you have had showers overnight, and into the morning, and some will continue, particularly towards the north west of the uk, ganging up on western scotland into the afternoon. Rain, sleet and hill snow. It will not be as windy. It will not feel quite as chilly. Another weather system overnight and into tuesday. This weather front moving through could bring some snow to quite low levels in parts of north east england, southern scotland to start off on Tuesday Morning before it clears away. A few showers follow on behind and a glancing blow for one of these low pressure systems carried by the jet stream to the south of us may still bring a bit of rain towards parts of the far south of england, more especially the Channel Islands on tuesday. Then that clears away. Another one comes in for wednesday. It could turn things wetter again into the Channel Islands and there will be a few showers pushing towards the north west of the uk, wintry on the hills, but actually, on wednesday, you can see the extent of dry weather and more significantly, dry weather where we are seeing some of the worst flooding at the moment. Now beyond wednesday, the pattern starts to change again. We get a bit of a ridge of High Pressure building in to start off on thursday but a weather system developing in the atlantic looks like it will head towards us later in the day. A cold start on thursday morning but a fine day to come for many of us across england, wales, eastern scotland, but the rain clouds gathering again for Northern Ireland and western scotland later on thursday, and the breeze starts to pick up as well as that next weather system comes in. It dives south thursday night and into friday, so that does mean another spell of rain moving through and another area of low pressure is waiting in the wings. So we clear the rain on friday, it brightens up a bit, a few showers, not long before that next weather system brings some rain back into Northern Ireland, if it currently goes to this plan in terms of timing. For much of the week, though, before that happens, it is quieter. Some sunshine, some of us staying dry, but there will be showers around. Not as windy, not as wet, it will be quite chilly, though. There will be frosty, icy conditions. But as we have noticed, by the end of the week, and into next weekend, it is all change again. Thejet stream is back, running towards us, within this dip in the jet stream we will be finding low pressure, that means it will be windier again, it will be wetter again, so this is how the weekend is shaping up and even into the following week, further areas of low pressure look like coming our way from the atlantic. Temperatures, though, will head up a bit. Two years ago, it is hard to find temperatures any lower. Tredegar in south wales, a high on the 1st of march 2018 ofjust minus 4. 7 celsius. Our coldest march day on record. The beast from the east. Thankfully our beastly february is now behind us. Another 13 cases of coronavirus. There are now 36 confirmed in the uk. A teacher at an Infants School is among those affected the school has been shut and the government says many more closures may be necessary. We dont take anything off the table at this stage,