B.b.c. News I'm John Shea a court in Saudi Arabia has begun the trial of 11 people allegedly involved in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi the prosecutor has asked for the death sentence for 5 of the accused Mr Khashoggi was killed when he visited the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul in October Frank Gardner reports in the Saudi capital Riyadh the opening hearing has been held in what promises to be one of the kingdom's highest profile trials 11 men have been accused of being involved with the murder of the Saudi journalist. They have not been named but the prosecution is calling for the death penalty for 5 of them the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin sole mom whom Western intelligence agencies suspect ordered the operation to silence one of his biggest critics is not amongst those accused and Saudi Arabia has denied his involvement the defendants had their lawyers present during the hearing and they've been granted more time to study the indictment against them the new Us Congress will be sworn in later today ushering in a new era of divided government under President Trump From Washington here's Laura Trevelyan Democrats will be in control of the new House of Representatives this will be the most diverse Congress in American history with Muslims Buddhist Asian Americans Native Americans Hispanics and African-Americans represented a record number of women have been elected to the house the 1st order of business is an attempt by Democrats to end the partial shutdown by introducing bills to reopen the government but without money for the president's border war with Mexico Senate Republicans have already said they won't consider it since the president will veto it without money phase wall and so the impasse continues. The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has defended its decision to block internet access during the 1st 4 days since the long delayed election took place there thought is took a pro opposition t.v. Station off air and blocked f.m. Radio broadcasts by Radio France International Luis to reports the minister of information and government spokesman long amending says only the Election Commission can announce election results and says Internet has been suspended to prevent the spread of unofficial results he did say however that the government would consider a request from civil society to restore Internet the minister warned journalists that they must abide by what he describes as the norms and rules of this country provisional results are officially expected on January 6th but there are growing doubts about whether the deadline will be met a leader of the yellow vests movement in France has denied trying to organize a protest on the Shans Elisa in Paris on Wednesday Eric drew a was arrested after posting a video on Facebook calling for people to gather as a way of shocking public opinion but his lawyer told the b.b.c. That Mr Dreher it was simply meeting friends to light candles in honor of the 10 people who died during the protests since mid November this is the latest world news from the b.b.c. The Spanish government has warms the monk in charge of general Franco's tomb that he will not be able to prevent the dictator's re burial elsewhere accusing Santiago Cantor of being obstructive it highlighted his past as a political candidate for a splinter group from General Franco's party the government was responding to the monks formal refusal to allow the exhumation of the remains from the Valley of the fallen mausoleum there Madrid. South Korea's spy agency says the North Korean ambassador to Italy has disappeared Jo song Gill and his wife are reportedly seeking asylum having last been seen leaving their embassy in Rome in November Here's the Rebecca in Seoul United's Mint comes amid unconfirmed reports that Mr Jewel was asking the Italian authorities for protection in order to seek asylum in a 3rd country a defection by one of North Korea's elite could prove to be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Il And according to some in Seoul Mr Chalker may have been more than simply an ambassador his father and father in law I thought to be former diplomats and high ranking Workers' Party officials Pyongyang considers defectors traitors to the country and there can be severe consequences for any family members left behind the president of Sudan Cher has marked the country's independence anniversary with a speech highlighting his government's achievements despite continuing protests in many towns and cities addressing workers' unions he blames the economic crisis on the loss of oil revenue since the secession of South Sudan worsened by the impact of u.s. Economic sanctions and antiterrorism tribunals in Afghanistan has sentenced a man to death for the murder of a b.b.c. Journalist in the eastern province of course last year 2 other men were sentenced to prison terms char who worked as B.B.C.'s past 2 service was shot dead on his way home the identity of his murderous hasn't been made public and the motive is unclear the a.b.c. News. Hello welcome to News Hour from the b.b.c. World Service it comes to you live from London I'm Reza Iqbal. We begin today with a new milestone for the world China has successfully landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon this is the 1st time this has happened state media in Beijing confirmed that the Chang who for probe to touchdown in the unexplored South Pole 8 can base in the largest oldest and deepest crater on the moon's surface the mission's chief engineer she Jan Fang told Chinese television it was a highly successful landing. On the deficit and the whole process of the probes powered descent and landing is the single most essential part of our overall Chang'an for Tarzan and it has laid a foundation for the craft to land road and explore later according to all the data sent back the whole landing process was normal and the probe stood straight and steady after landing. I've been speaking to Bryony whole gun who is an assistant professor of planetary geology at University in Indiana in the United States why landing on the far side of the moon is so difficult we've always landed on the near side in the past all of our robotic and human missions going back to the Apollo program of always landed on the near side and that's mainly because you know we have a direct line of sight to the near side from the earth so communications are very simple on the far side you don't have that it's always facing away from the earth and so in order to communicate with the far side you have to have some sort of intermediary satellite or something and that's the really new saying that chunky for mission has done is used to relay satellites to communicate between the lander and the communication center back on Earth Ok so when they say when the China National Space Administration says that this has opened a new chapter in humanity as exploration of the moon then also breast nosie in any way this is a big big deal it really is yeah we've never landed on the far side it's a completely it's a scientifically new environment one we've never visited the whole planetary community is very excited by this new landing Ok so tell us tell us a little bit about the the geology all of the fossil. Well the far side it looks very different from the near side we actually didn't even know what it looked like until the very early lunar exploration sent satellites around the far side of the moon in the 19 $160.00 s. And what these satellites saw was that the far side is completely light so and it's why it's bright it's very rugged it's covered in these huge craters including the South Pole it can Basin which is one of the biggest impact basins in the solar system even though we can't see it from the earth it takes up about a quarter of the surface of the moon and that's the basin that the chunky for mission has landed and we're really excited about that particular landing spot because this basin is so huge that we think it actually dug up part of the mantle of the moon when it impacted and put it onto the surface where we can actually investigate it in place Ok so what sorts of things is this probe. Going to be able to collect what sort of data is going to change what we know about the man. So it has a few geology instruments onboard so it has an instrument that can tell us about the mineralogy of the rocks that are present and a radar instrument that can tell us about the subsurface structure and you know how thick the broken up crust of the moon is there but actually one of the really neat things that this mission will do will be to conduct totally new brand new astronomical observations from the far side of the moon and that's because you know back here on Earth we have all these radio communications or reconstitute broadcasting we have a very thick eye on a spear and these things together serve to block a lot of very low frequency action all Mikkel emissions from stars in distant galaxy is that we haven't been able to observe before so this mission has multiple instruments that will help to investigate that kind of observation just very briefly it's possible to hate your excitement but I wonder if there is just said it'll envy that it wasn't the West that did this. First year is the NASA has actually considered a missions to the same similar area the south will they can based on a couple of times called the moon rise mission that hasn't yet funded it I know it's something that a lot of men are geologists would really love to see you know something we hope will happen eventually I was Bryony Hogan assistant professor of planetary geology at University in Indiana. The b.b.c. John Sudworth is in Beijing I asked him how big a deal it was for the prestige of China's space program of course as a success it's a huge deal in terms of prestige I mean China has been seen over recent years to be developing space technology for military purposes that's caused some concern it's harder of course to link the goals of this mission to that wider purpose but what we saw leading up to the launch this morning the official announcement finally came at 10 30 in the morning Beijing time but up until that point there was almost no coverage of this at all and I think that's a sign less about you know China's signaling of its position in the space race against its rivals if that's the right way to put it a more about the domestic signaling and perhaps it's a sign of a somewhat of a lack of confidence the fear of you know flagging this up getting people excited about it and then it failing was clearly part of the reasoning for for that sort of news silence but you know from 1030 the announcement came and from then on it's been covered pretty comprehensively by state media although interesting enough the main 7 o'clock news tonight put it way down the bulletin 16 minutes in or so after long items about you know normal sort of leadership movements and politics nonetheless you know a pretty important day for China and Chinese science and I mean you could argue that although China is a sort of late comer by decades if you like to space exploration it is quickly catching up how much do we actually know in the context of the silence that you're talking about secrecy of the new technology that the Chinese space agency has developed. What is it it's been signaling some of the ambitions almost all of them focused actually on the moon I mean China clearly sees that as the right place to start to build its space program after this one will come a mission to collect mineral samples from the moon surface there's a lot of talk here about the possibility one day of being able to to mine commercially for minerals on the moon and this exploration of that South Pole 8 can basin area is clearly likely to give the scientists a clue as to what the potential for that might actually be and beyond that there's talk of even setting up a lunar base capable of human habitation say pretty ambitious stuff China's also building a space station that will begin operation around the same time as the International Space Station falls out of its useful life and China will be the only likely therefore to be the only nation with an operating space station so these ambitions are pretty big in budget treaty it is still way way behind NASA best estimates suggest spending something like a 10th of what NASA is spending on space exploration so it is catching up fast but the gap is still pretty big. China Correspondent John sudras If your peers reformist prime minister has told the b.b.c. They'll be no turning back on historic changes in his country Prime Minister Ahmed heads Africa's fastest growing economy and is implementing deep reforms at breakneck speed he's $42.00 a former soldier and 9 months ago was elected to lead a policy that had suppressed dissent for decades are Africa at a focal keen reports. The prime minister has just arrived here at German extatic welcoming as you have heard what was really striking about watching the crowd there was how everybody just wants to measure how much touch of babies were held at all the traditionally you know sort of political scenario was played out but there was something deeper than that really happy with what I saw in the face of all these people was told. We're driving into the town of Jenin now on each side of the narrow streets here crowded with people hundreds of cameras to welcome Mr. Ahmed with motion but not moved into a giant auditorium a small a medical center and some other graduation prime minister I was addressing them and he's just sat. In the sense don't worry about the conference that took the lives of our company in the middle there is a good reference in the 2nd World War and rather country is now illustrating so I said I gave an economic success for that he told the truth you have to have a government mark to make the process of reform and that's not true it's everybody's job to have. Up for teaching these articles this Egil although the homage emerge from the autocratic leading polish and he has astonished the world with the pace of his reforms in just 9 months he's freed political Chris has ended a long running conflict with neighboring Iraq appointed women to the posts of Chief Justice and president. After half the cabinet positions were supporters of my party and I was also imprisoned so that you can the tax I was a political prisoner before being forced into exile in America. Abbie Ahmed invited her home to run the country's election commission thousands like if not millions of people paid to see this kind of change in this country to see the softening to have like a former opposition leader former dissidents to lead an institution where significant independence of Lacson you know time is a lot. But there are immense challenges if your view has more than 80 different ethnic groups clashes between some have led to the displacement of nearly 3000000 people among them hundreds of thousands of children like these ethnic Somalis displaced in the recent upsurge of fighting with their own neighbors. It is here to the far north in the province of to great across a landscape of mountains and valleys filled with hay making foreigners but the most serious stirrings are being felt against the new dispensation. The to Gran's used to dominate the army and government but many senior figures have been arrested and accused of human rights abuses and corruption under the old authoritarian regime although a minority of just 6 percent they've proved formidable fighters in the past. Is a prominent to Graham politician you cannot take chances in this country because what we are talking about is the difference between transforming the entire nation and spreading disaster and that's not much of a choice for the moment really. Like many reformers before him I'll be Ahmed is finding that the most dangerous moment for any autocracy is when it starts to change he's heavily guarded as he makes his way around the country but I did manage to get close to him as he toured the town of Prime Minister finally came from the state can I just briefly ask yourself Are you the man tonight did you ever have a closer. Look at all that. It was a day for the racing there's more questioning journalists but I did catch up with the prime minister again the consummate politician he greeted me with a traditional kiss to the cheek and this invitation he came to the international community to come if you're really doing these. Youth and he's going to lead me on the promise of you to do this and there will be no turning back on your family right on down. But just watching the Prime Minister's helicopter take off and it's circling around I'm leaving Gemma what are the closing impressions of her following him all day but also traveling around Ethiopia over the past week well it's a sense of a country that's in a process of truly dynamic change. But also shadowed the shadow of ethnic difference of to. Vision which has been here long before we came to power which if you cannot find a way to resolve threatens to overturn this entire process of the film. And that report from Ethiopia was by our Africa editor Fergal Keane You're listening to News Hour. Still to come into the program the very 1st Netflix production in Polish called 983 imagines what might have happened if communism had prevailed in Europe and a totalitarian regime was established in Poland the director of national Holland has experienced communism firsthand she says the ideas in the series appeals to her we are living in the what when the some of the stop Yes quite popular it is because in reality say zinc so quickly is the phantasy of the pop culture is out this abating where it's going to go. To Stay with us for that interview the b.b.c. News headlines this hour 11 people have gone on trial in Saudi Arabia accused of being involved in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul and the opposition Democratic Party takes charge of the u.s. House of Representatives in a few hours time pledging to end a government shutdown that's lasted for almost 2 weeks. This is a bar with news our life from the b.b.c. In London. There are big changes in Washington d.c. As of today Democrats officially take control of the House of Representatives off to winning an extra 40 seats in November as midterm elections this comes as the partial government shutdown of a president trumps demand for a border wall funding and 13th day so huge power for the Democrats but what will they do with it the B.B.C.'s Anthony's Eka is in Washington well the 1st thing they're going to do is be able to stop the Republican legislative agenda in its tracks that means Republicans and Donald Trump aren't going to be able to do any more tax reform doa health care repeal no major overhaul of the immigration system no big entitlement Social Security reforms now whether Democrats can actually enact their legislative agenda remember the Republicans still hold the Senate they still have the presidency the House could possibly pass government ethics reform changes to voting rights gun control climate change all these things they want to do but the reality is it's probably going to be partisan gridlock for the next 2 years the big thing that they will have however is oversight power of the Trump administration for the 1st time in these 2 years they're going to have control of committees of the House of Representatives be able to issue subpoenas to look into his business background look into possible lection meddling his ties to foreign governments everything that was essentially stymied by Republicans for 2 years is now on the table and they are definitely up for that challenge on the I mean there's no questioning that absolutely I they've been itching for this for 2 years now and they they finally have some skin in the game we had unified Republican control of all of the levers of power