Tonight the BBC has apologised to the Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie. For those of you who haven't seen it, here's what we said:

"Last month we carried some reports from the Conservative Party conference which fell below our usual standards. Our reports gave a misleading impression that Andrew Tyrie MP had been influenced by a Downing Street official to say something he did not believe to be true. We have apologised to Mr Tyrie for these reports".

Mr Tyrie gave this response within the past hour:

"I am extremely grateful to the BBC, and for doing this without needing to make a formal complaint. They have accepted that they made a mistake - we all make them - and apologised. As far as I'm concerned that is an end of the matter".

Before the Conservative conference Mr Tyrie had criticised the government's long-term economic growth strategy as being, in parts, "incoherent and inconsistent".

After the chancellor's conference speech he spoke warmly about it.

Steve Hilton put his arm round Andrew Tyrie's shoulder as they held their conversation

The BBC aired footage on that day which appeared to show Mr Tyrie being led away for a private chat by Steve Hilton - one of the prime minister's closest advisers. He was then asked by the BBC's James Landale whether he had been "nobbled" and responded “I think you know me well enough, James, to know the unlikelihood of that.”

Some of our reporting suggested that this encounter was evidence that he had changed his view as the result of pressure from Downing Street.

After Andrew Tyrie contacted us some days later, however, it became clear that he had indicated to the BBC before meeting Steve Hilton - and having heard the chancellor's speech - that he welcomed George Osborne's policy announcements.

He said the chancellor had responded positively to his critique and moved substantially in his direction on several issues such as re-examining the employment tribunal system and re-assessing the government's unilateral targets for reducing carbon emissions. And it was Mr Tyrie and not Mr Hilton who had initiated the conversation which had been caught on camera.

The BBC regrets that the footage was not shown in its proper context which happened as a result of it being broadcast and commented upon swiftly and before some extra editorial checks could be made.

The most widely viewed reports of the incident on the BBC's News at Six and Ten did not assert that Mr Tyrie had changed his views under pressure - they asked whether Mr Tyrie had changed his mind about the government's economic policy because of the chancellor's speech or because of his meeting with a senior Number 10 official.

Nevertheless we regret that mistakes took place and that the footage was not shown across the BBC in its proper context. There was never any intention to deceive our audience but we now accept that the impression created by the coverage taken as a whole was misleading. As a result we have decided to take the unusual step of apologising on air. We are glad that Mr Tyrie, for his part, accepts our apology.
Our journalistic reputation is built on trust and on this occasion, we got it wrong and we have apologised for that.

Gavin Allen is editor, BBC Political News.

In the next few days, we will be making some changes to the way we present news from Asia on the website.

 

Until now, our coverage of the region has been split into two: Asia Pacific and South Asia. However many users have told us that they do not understand these labels and do not always know where to go for news they want from the region.

We think we will be better serving audiences in the UK and elsewhere with a single Asia index - a home for news stories from and about the region as well as features and analysis from our correspondents and content from some of our unrivalled language services.

For those who want specific news and analysis from the world's two most populous countries, we will also create named country pages: first China and, later in the month, India. 

The change in layout is accompanied by increased coverage in the region as a whole, allowing us to report even more stories from a region that stretches from Afghanistan to Japan and Pakistan to Australia.

We will be able to bring you more of the news as it breaks in the region, with greater speed and in greater depth than ever before.

In the coming days users in Asia can also expect some further changes to the bbc.com homepage which will deepen the breadth of our coverage with more bespoke content for audiences in different regions of Asia.

We hope these changes will make our site more relevant to users in Asia, and make it easier for audiences in the UK and the rest of the world to understand this vital region.

Nathalie Malinarich is world editor of the BBC News website.

Rain or shine, we know that many of you like to access your weather forecasts through the BBC's Weather website.

The last redesign for the website happened in 2009, and since then we've been working on plans to make it even better and update the site so that it benefits from the latest technological developments.

As a result, we are today launching a "beta" version of an improved site. This is a work-in-progress version of the site which will eventually replace the current version of BBC Weather Online.

So in the coming weeks, we'll be running this beta version of the new design alongside the current Weather website, and you'll be able to access and use both of them. During this period we'll be ensuring that the new site operates as intended - it's important to ensure we've got the basics right in order to deliver the best experience possible at full launch.

They key improvements around the new site are:

A more focused and clear homepage design gives instant access to a five day and a video forecast and also has a short summary of UK weather. The map indicates the weather conditions in selected locations at the time shown in the right hand corner, and if you're after a more detailed full colour UK map with a five day time line just click "Detailed UK Weather". Our international users will see a world map on their homepage.

The easily personalised forecast favourites allow you to save a range of locations to appear in the drop down menu on the right hand side of the page. With the beta, when you access the site for the first time in the UK, you'll see the weather in Glasgow as the default option for the time being. We are working on this showing the biggest city in your nation, so bear with us.

Improved navigation across the site, allowing there to be more editorial content and audience pictures on the home page. This means the left hand side navigation has gone, and all the key content is accessible through the home page. The latest weather related stories will be where the 'Welcome' message is now on the beta, and news stories about climate and environment can be found from the Science and Environment section of the News website.

Last but not least, all the important, detailed weather information is still there - location pages show humidity, pressure and visibility as well as UV, pollution, pollen & observations. The country guides will also still be available, and the expectation is that the current list of countries will be available via a link on every page and will eventually become part of the country pages with the five day forecast map.

The improvements to the BBC Weather site are part of a bigger programme of change within BBC Online - we've been refreshing the BBC's ten key areas or 'products' to move towards a more distinctive family of websites, supported by a shared infrastructure to allow more intuitive journeys between them. Last summer the BBC News website was updated, BBC iPlayer followed in September, and at the moment there is a beta running for the BBC Homepage too.

BBC Weather will still have its unique look and feel, and the new design will introduce improved and easy-to-use functionality. The redesign & introduction of new infrastructure also means that the new site will be easier for us to optimise for mobile and connected TV devices in the future.

In the past months, we have invited over a thousand users to try out prototype versions of it, but we're still very keen to hear any feedback from you, so please have a look around the new Weather beta website. We've created a handy user guide accessible from the BBC Weather beta or here which should help to explain new features, and this carries a survey option. Do get in touch! We're using the #bbcweather hashtag on Twitter to group conversation, or you can comment below.

My colleague Peter in Future Media will be writing a post on the BBC Internet blog next week with more details, and other blogs about the user experience and technical aspects of the redesign will follow.

Liz Howell is head of BBC Weather