Schools concluded that the bequest from a former pupil Professor sobriety Thwaites wasn't compatible with their values but the decision has prompted a debate about equality and race Simon Jones reports So Brian who's $96.00 had planned to bequeath 800000 pounds to win just the college and $400000.00 pounds the dollars college in his will he received scholarships to attend both schools and said he wanted his money to go to white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds because they do worse at school the most other ethnic groups he told The Times newspaper that if Cambridge University was prepared to accept money from the grime artist storm's easy to fund the education of 2 black students each year why shouldn't he do the same for underprivileged white pupils under the Equality Act education providers are allowed to take what's called positive action to remedy a disadvantage faced by particular groups of students but in a statement winches the college said it could not see how discrimination on the grounds of a boy's color could ever be compatible with its values and Dollops college said it was resistant towards being made with any ethnic or religious criteria the Iraqi prime minister Abdul Mahdi has condemned the u.s. Airstrikes yesterday that killed at least 25 members of an Iranian backed Iraqi militia he said the American action had violated his country's sovereignty and he appeared to suggest that Iraq would now have to review its relationship with the us the Americans targeted the Diab Hezbollah militia in retaliation for attacks on bases in Iraq used by the u.s. Military Unconfirmed reports say cars go in the former boss of Nisson Rhino who is awaiting trial in Japan has flown to Lebanon local sources said he arrived on board a private plane from Turkey it's not clear how Mr Goh who holds French and Lebanese citizenship would have been able to leave Japan where a court has placed restrictions on his movements he faces charges of financial misconduct which he denies. Police in Spain whelmed up their investigation into the deaths of a father from London and his 2 children who drowned in their hotel pool on the Costa del Sol on Christmas Eve Detectives say Gabriel Dia his 16 year old son and 9 year old daughter died in a freak accident however Mr Dia's wife the children's mother disputes that her lawyers have a thorough has raised questions about how for the police investigation was not known when they were not all got it down with a fairly things that I knew with cases so exceptional and so strange it's a sum of factors it's not only one could be the shape of the swimming pool temperature of the water or the levels of distress but it is clear that a lifeguard this wouldn't have happened in get I mean when 3 people die in the same swimming pool it has to be something else another reason that we don't know yet Spain's acting prime minister Petro Sancerre has signed a formal coalition agreement with the left wing only does support a most Party is a major step towards forming a government that can survive a confidence vote next month Mr Sanchez they were determined to forge a majority in parliament day by day law by law. The world's most famous naturalists a David Attenborough best known climate activists greater tune bag have spoken to each other for the 1st time the conversation organized by the Today programme was conducted over Skype so David who's 93 described the impact made by the 16 year old as astonishing and said she'd used her campaigning message to around the world created to Merck told him he had inspired her to take action when I was younger when I was maybe 8910 years old I think that's what made me open my eyes what was happening with the environment the climate was was fails and documentaries about about the natural world and what was happening that was what made me realize situations so thank you for that the song writer and comedian Neil Innes is do. Side at the age of 75 he found fame as part of the Bonzo Dog Band in the 1960 s. And later worked with the Monte Python team arts correspondent Vincent Dowd looks back at his life. And the urban spaceman written him song by Neil Innes was the only hits for the Bonzo Dog doo da band making the charts in 1968 but the Bonzo's were never aiming for mainstream success they celebrated a wild eccentricity in the seventy's Neil Innes worked with Monty Python he had small roles in the Holy Grail and Life of Brian and he wrote sketches and songs for their last t.v. Series he appeared with Eric Idle in the satirical b.b.c. Series Rutland Weekend Television which in turn gave birth to the affectionate Beatles parody the rattles then sit down on the life of Neil Innes Thanks Jim You're listening to the world tonight was surely it's hot and windy and there's a lot of smog a bare lot of far still gallons on best off Cape and any until it's all over I think what is happening to the weather every one of Australia's States has seen temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius in Western Australia reached 47 in Melbourne and the rest of the state of Victoria the heat and strong winds have fanned the flames making it impossible to evacuate people from some areas at risk from the bush fires raging out of control what we've seen up until today is more than 70 new fires in the state more than 20 of those are going fires at the moment Meanwhile in Moscow temperatures have been plus 4 degrees rather than the more typical minus 4 there unlike in Australia there's no threat to life rather the more present a concern from the authorities is what the unseasonal models could mean for Muscovites New Year festivities up until today it hadn't snowed it's been the woman's December since 886 Steve Rosenberg our correspondent in Moscow still hasn't needed. Thermals this year this is be one of the warmest Decembers on record in Moscow there's been hardly a flake the Moscow thought is brought in some fake snow to the center of the city a couple of days ago to make a snowboarding hill lots of reaction on social media to that lots of jokes about the fake snow but now we've got some real stuff I hope at last back here in Castle in northern Scotland on Sunday it reached 16.8 degrees Celsius the highest ever recorded in the final days of December not that many would have noticed the Met Office says the high was reached at 3 o'clock in the morning it might surprise you there is mild it across the Highlands of Scotland at the moment and coldest as it come down to earth the fact of England and those supposed just keep coming tonight confirmation from India that the north of the country including Delhi is experiencing one of its coldest spells in more than a century what's likely Daly will be recording the more or less in the long 119 years we have been reporting these old iron ore India had been under the grip of winter chill extreme. Morning as well relief on leaks back to doing the. Ready or whether or not these high lows a different part of the world revenues of global warming they underline the difficulty facing forecasters trying to predict what the weather will do will discuss that shortly if a Victorian g.p. From Whitby it had his way every drawing room in the country would have been equipped with a 10 pest prognosticator his device for predicting storms caused a sensation at the Great Exhibition in 851 but somehow it never caught on perhaps had something to do with who or rather was was doing the full custom leaches I've been to Merton in Devon to meet the man who's lovingly constructed an exact replica . Welcome to brutal world on Philip Collins I own and manage this establishment although I am semi retired and trying to retire if you are a broom or some make of many it yes we made Mercury barometers all sorts of different types of parameters is a great number of skills in making a traditional brooch had all about being able to predict when a storm was coming how poor it was that particularly in the early period megger important a barometer and the person using it which is important thing would be able to predict the storm often and save a crop stop or ship from going out to sea now you're back to show me something rather special in the history of weather prediction Yes I mean I've looked at repaired boat sold so many times of barometers I suppose my interest began into a little bit more unusual bizarre and this is one of the most bizarre types of weather forecasting devices let's go have a look. Well this apparatus was called atmospheric electromagnetic Telegraph conducted by animal instinct however the inventor Dr George Merryweather shortened it to the tempest prognosticator driven or operated by leeches you're safe because I have a leech isn't it today we have round wooden Bice decorated with red and gold and blue and on that 12 glass jars each one of those jars would have about an inch of water with a leech in it and they have air holes at the top little arrows at the top when it's going to be stormy a leech will try and rise from its prison from its Joe and they touch a little piece of bone once they touch that the bell at the top rings so you go what is it a dozen of these yes a dozen Dr George Merryweather coated the jury usually. Starts and you've tested it it works we've tested it my wife is very obliging we have this in our bedroom for someone outside. We didn't have a stall else but definitely the leaches rang the thing out of 3 o'clock in the morning because it was all times. This Tempest prognosticator if you come down in the morning and want to bells that go off well him up a bit of bad weather come in if I know I know 10 or go off you're pretty sure of a still expect you like to listen to the bell of to hear it even without the leaches at least to hear this lovely sound of his it do all the work is going into it we can ring the bell that. What happens now because you all retired and really the exhibition is closed we'd be lovely to find a home it was appreciated in so the public could see that it's a great thing for him that's got everything. To lay for Christmas so like this Christmas but he wrote have that. It is unique it's a one off it can only be and is only the most authentic reproduction of George merry way there's Tempest prognosticator. Philip Collins talking to me or to world down in Devon where Professor Liz Bentley is chief executive of the royal meterological society herself meteorologist and she's live in the world tonight studio for spending good evening there you have being with us this evening let me ask you 1st of all that it was going to be so mild in Moscow so cold in India Central more extremes would you have been able to forecast yes so we can certainly look at the trends of how things are changing but specific temperatures and the records and when they're going to get broken the kind of detail that you need on a day to day basis I think it's very difficult to forecast almost impossible to forecast that far ahead what impact if any is climate change having on the science of weather forecasting Yes So we took the climate change we have climate models and they are obviously looking decades ahead so they're not trying to predict the weather on a particular day say 10 years in advance in a particular location what they're trying to do is look at how the climate is changing so you know the temperatures rising in what are the kind of averages going to look like what have rainfall amounts going to look like but not specifics in the kind of detail that we need in a weather forecast which looks a few days ahead we do want to know particularly what the temperature and then fall and exciter going to be like on a particular day at a particular time in a particular occasion so they're very different type of things that we're trying to look at when we look at climate and weapons like I guess what confuses a lot of people is that we have events like for example the extreme flooding we seen lots of events this year that have been described as extreme in different parts of the world the flooding is a big one we worry about it and you can particularly people say will we reassured by the experts that this is what it once 100 year event suddenly has become a once in 10 year event a once in 5 year event is that climate change or is that because that the kind of mechanics of forecasting is not as effective as it once was yes I know that is that is climate change so you know if you look you know why. $100.00 you know events it basically is looking at what the climate used to look like a 100 years ago and these things probably only happened 100 years so one in a 100 year would you don't know is strange in other words until it does change that's right and the climate has changed we've been able to look at that looking at data that we collect and so dense that would have happened one in a 100 year frequency and now happy more frequency if you look at rainfall or less frequent if you're looking at cold events in particular so the frequency is changing the probability of things is changing because our climate is changing you raise the point about probability because forecasting can never be 100 percent accurate because it's a combination of different factors that come together in different ways. Can you give examples of sort of things that maybe a forecast would assume would happen and then would be thrown by the kind of combination of of weather event there's been some research done in to kind of how forecasts might the predictability of forecasts might change because of climate change there is a paper that came out earlier this year from the University of Stockholm and it looked at certain parameters so things like temperature and air pressure will become easier to predicts in future but things like rainfall events particularly summer time then fall events that usually come in the form of heavy funder down halls will be much harder to predict and that's partly due to the scale of these events it's partly due to the kind of excessive nature of the extreme events the the amount of rainfall that's likely to fall in a particular short period of time it's just too too difficult really to get the precise detail on these these are all the scallop I mean on a personal of a soft an inconvenience if you thought it was going to be sunny and it ends up running you have got your bell or your anchor with you but some of these things can have catastrophic consequences come when things of the flooding obviously are and whether that will affect things like where we choose to build much needed homes in the future when thinks of United States the potato crop having the road this year because of a severe weather that wasn't so predictable what are the kind of a. Konami consequences of this if we get it wrong oh huge absolutely huge and I think the it's the impacts of these extreme weather events that really are going to we're already starting to see that so again Christian Aid report at the end of last week looking financially at the impact of 15 of the 1st worst weather events that happened in the last decade or so and you're talking about billions of pounds tens of billions of pounds for one particular event in different parts of the world so financially it can be you know you know extreme catastrophic and presume you're organizations insurance people all those kinds in spend a lot of money on getting accurate predictions from Rogers Yes that's right and we go back to this one in 10 a 100 year event they will look at past climates to try and understand the frequency of these high impact events but understanding that our climate is changing and actually looking back over the last 100 years is not as helpful as trying to understand how the climate is changing in the decades ahead I guess the people are using things a bit more sophisticated than the tempest prognosticator these days what just before you leave is what's the kind of strangest way of predicting the weather you've you've encountered in your long career that actually works well you have heard of seaweed and pine cones they tend to look at humidity in the atmosphere to help to understand whether the air is becoming drier or more moist I remember when I was a forecast of I worked there was a lady I worked with who she could tell when the static was building up in the atmosphere when thunderstorms were like she'd feel nauseated and she for me said we got from the storms in the focus today so even humans can have you know an impact on what the weather is going to do it's not just leeches that respond to the pressure present his belly thank you very much for being with us fascinating and maybe we'll talk to get in a year's time see how 2020 what. The sound of demonstrators in bastra and I chaffed to Shiite dominated cities in southern Iraq chanting anti-American slogans a burning u.s. Flags today their response to air strikes last night carried out by the u.s. Against Iraqi Parliament of Trees who had but who are backed by Iran 25 people died 51 way injured in bombing raids against facilities operated by the Hezbollah point Gates on either side of the border with Syria u.s. Secretary of state Mike pump Ayers said the strikes were carried out in retaliation for a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in cook cook on Friday in which an American a civilian contractor died this wasn't the 1st set of attacks against this particular Iraqi for Celie and others for their American lives arrests and today what we did was take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for months and months and months which is that we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy and we continue to demand that the Islamic Republic of Iran act in a way that is consistent with what it is that we expect Iran to do so that it can rejoin the community of nations having you know pleas from Iraq's acting prime minister not to go ahead with the raids the government in Baghdad today accused Washington of violating its sovereignty country's national security council said it was reviewing the relationship which for now at least permits $5000.00 u.s. Military personnel to operate inside Iraq Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani revered by the Shiites who make up the majority of Iraq's Muslims so this government must prevent Iraq being used as a place for the settling of accounts in other words the battleground for proxy war between Iran and the United States an advisor to the Baghdad government Laith Kubba told the b.b.c. The Us administration needed. To have a different perspective on his country they only see an Iraq from the perspective of keeping it on a track I think it's very shortsighted the I spect it is to support Iraq built its state and its state institution and that's the only way you can have stability in the region and Iraq is a neighbor and has no interest in antagonizing Iran we do want to see a balanced relationship and that Bannister in a ship can already happen if there is a strong state in Iraq Laith Kubba Well William went sleighs director of the Atlantic Council he was deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism in the Obama administration what does he make of the decision to strike back I think is very significant it has the potential to drive the region in a much more dangerous place it is a game of chess that we seem to be playing against the Iranians but only one move at a time and it is very unclear where this is all going to end do you think that there was a conscious attempt by Iran through its proxies to kind of probe the American response that this wasn't just a casual attack on Friday. The Iranians have been very methodically working their way up the escalation latter trying to discover where the American Red lines are a Rand 1st started attacking the shipping with the most thin reed of deniability 'd possible and there was no real respo