wildfires in greece which are threatening northern athens. hello, i'm rajini vaidyanathan. welcome to the programme. us secretary of state antony blinken is scheduled to travel to the middle east on tuesday — his ninth to the region since the october 7 attacks. his visit comes as president biden joined four european leaders in urging iran to de—escalate tensions — amid fears tehran could soon launch a retaliatory strike on israel. the joint statement warned of "serious consequences" for regional security if there were to be an attack. british prime minister sir keir starmer spoke on the phone to iran's new president masoud pezeshkian — asking him to refrain from attacking israel, saying the war was not in anyone�*s interest. it comes as white house national security spokesperson

john kirby warned that iran or its proxies could launch a �*significant�* attack as early as this week. in preparation, the us has beefed up its regionalforces over the past few days. sending a guided missile submarine to the middle east on sunday to support israel as it braces for a potential attack. our middle east correspondent, wyre davies sent this update in jerusalem. there have been increasingly credible intelligence reports in western governments and in the region and perhaps an increasing expectation that sooner rather rather than later iran will follow through with its vow to respond against israel, either directly or indirectly through hezbollah, for those attacks believed to have been carried out by israel in iran and in southern lebanon against seniorfigures in hamas and hezbollah. how and when those iranian responses will take place we simply don't know but the israeli government says its military is prepared for an attack.

all of this comes against increasing international pressure for iran to pull back from the brink. the americans have increased their naval presence in the region. there's been a co—ordinated effort from the governments of france, britain and germany persuading iran not to go through with an attack. in the last few hours, the british prime minister, keir starmer, has spoken to the new iranian president, again emphasising that level of international concern and saying that any iranian attack mightjeopardise peace talks that are meant to take place later this week indirectly between hamas and israel. but it's looking increasingly perhaps uncertain — that those talks might not even take place. it's very difficult to second guess what the new hamas leader, yahya sinwar, and the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, want to get from those talks and whether either man is prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve a ceasefire and secure the release of those hostages still being held by hamas

in gaza. former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the middle east and fellow at the institute for near east policy — dana stroul — told the bbc about the diplomacy behind ceasefire talks. this is really a make or break week for diplomacy. washington, eu nt, week for diplomacy. washington, egypt, qatar, _ week for diplomacy. washington, egypt, qatar, everyone _ week for diplomacy. washington, egypt, qatar, everyone is - egypt, qatar, everyone is focused to getting on a ceasefire, both to save palestinian lives but also unlocks in over 100 passages that hamas still holds. it looks like hamas is behaving like a terrorist organisation it is by putting new parameters on the table after that white house statement where egypt, qatar and biden all came out together and said we are going together and said we are going to be at the summit in august 15. it is hamas who appears to be bogging. the question is

does hamas feel sufficient pressure that now is the time to save lives on gaza and get to save lives on gaza and get to that ceasefire and can egypt and catta put enough pressure on hamas to participate properly on thursday —— on hamas to participate properly on thursday -- qatar. for more, i've been speaking to ambassadorjamesjeffrey, diplomat and chair of the wilson center's middle east programme. we are hearing allowed a lot more diplomacy and we have heard from the us and four other european nations urging iran chest —— de—escalate tensions. is that going to happen? this something you have to do for any new military crisis to warn everybody and make sure that all of the channels are open, and of course the new iranian president has been, from all reports, to talk to, but whether or not they will listen to these calls or not, that is still a questioned. there are likely the iranians are likely to do something

whether it will be the major escalate that will require an israeli and possible american retaliation, that is still on the cards. we are hearing from the white house that that significant attack, as they've described, could come as early as this week. would the intelligence channels be able to suggest how soon it might come? there has been a lot of speculation now for a number of days. particularly hezbollah in lebanon, is very good at moving quickly and they are the greater threat to israel because they have such a large number of missile systems they can overpower simply by numbers the israeli defenses. iran has long—range missiles but as we said before, there are usually defeated and intercepted but if both act at the same time there will be some signals setting up launches and that kind of thing but it will only be a few hours. so what's your sense about how soon it might come? my sense that something will happen in the next few days.

i believe that iran and even hezbollah will in the end blink partially because president biden has sent such a massive military force into the region and he's made it clear, particularly sending offensive systems such as f—22 fighter—bombers. they don't shoot things down, they blow things up, that there is going to be a massive retaliation if iran strikes seriously into israel. moving on to gaza. we understand there might be new rounds of talks although there is some complications over that. hamas was to the existing deal that was presented byjoe biden earlier in the year. israel wants to change some of the terms. what hope, if any, do you have of some sort of agreements to come to fruition. it's all linked since the conflict on the seventh of october, has been linked throughout the region. hamas has been cornered through israeli military actions and the fact that their hopes of the international community might slow israel down

hasn't borne fruit. there is also hope that hezbollah and iran would would threaten israel. effectively israel isn't being threatened. so hamas is facing a decision point. whether hamas negotiators will participate on thursday or not is open. they may wait to see what iran and hezbollah does. but we are entering an endgame, i think, in gaza. hamas needs some kind of ceasefire, the israelis want a ceasefire. there's now agreement finally between the us and israel as far as we can see on the terms it's a question whether hamas will take them or not. and of course a question whether hamas will take them or not. and of course hamas has a new leader following the killer of its leader. does that change the shots? yahyah sinwar was negotiating and has been a real leader of hamas for some time unfortunately. and just briefly we know that antony blinken is due tojoe ——

due to return to the region. we have seen him back and forth for months now. what it do you think is the purpose of this particular visit. it's what secretaries of state too. the main american mover in the middle east isn't tony blinken, it is setting aircraft and reinforcing submarines where we are to have them. ambassadorjeffrey there. after facing major technical issues, a live conversation is under way between the world's richest man elon musk and the world's most talked about, donald trump, on mr musk�*s site x. more than 1.3 million people have tuned into the chat — which is less of an interrogation, more of a sympathetic conversation between the billionaire and the former president. it marked mr trump's return to the social media platform, formerly known as twitter, after he was kicked off in january 2021, days after the storming of the capitol. before the interview began mr musk endorsed trump for president and has been involved in fundraising efforts for the republican presidential nominee. so far, the discussion has touched on thejuly

assassination attempt of the former president, criticism of his rival kamala harris, and mr trump's take on foreign affairs. israel would have never been attacked, zero chance. and again i said to vladimir putin isaid again i said to vladimir putin i said don't do it, you can't do it, vladimir. you do it it is going to be a bad day. you cannot do it. i told him things that what i do and he said no way and i said way. it was the last time we have had the conversation. he would never have done it. i got along well with him. i hope to get along well with him as well —— again. getting along well with them is a good thing not a bad thing. for more i've been speaking to our us national digital reporter mike wendling. so, elon musk says that basically twitter came under attack. ddos attack is an attack when a large amount of traffic is sent to a website

in order to shut it down so that nobody can access the website. we don't have any verification of that that is what he says happened. similar gremlins delayed the start of his conversation with ron desantis last year. this is unlikely to be an interrogation given how much elon musk is a supporter of donald trump and he has come out and endorsed him in this election campaign as well. let's talk about the platform x in a bit more detail. it was back in january 2021 that donald trump was kicked off the site when it was formerly known as twitter. that was after the storming of the capital. he's now been allowed back on today. just remind us a bit about the controversy around all of that. yeah, to give you the timeline, after elon musk bought twitter as it was then called, he unbanned donald trump

— the previous owners of twitter had deleted his account after the capitol rights in january 2021, as you say. he has not used this site very much. he put one tweet on around the time of one of his court cases. today he returned in a little bit more earnest. he posted several campaign videos throughout the course of the day, pretty basic campaign advertisements. what we don't know is if he will continue using the site in the future. and of course, during his administration and during his very first presidential run this was the place where he loved to communicate directly with the public. he put all sorts of messages on there and was really sort of like to go to account to know what was going through the mind of donald trump right then and there. he has another social media account on his own truth social site.

and there are some legal and business, technical reasons why he may not be using x instead of that site in the future but it is really sort of hard to tell whether this coming together of mask and trump means he will start to use his twitter account once again. i remember covering 2016, a day didn't pass when we didn't see a statement from donald trump and often they made the news. let's talk a little bit about x as well. since elon musk has taken over the side it has been wrought with more controversy, more accusations it's become a platform for misinformation and false is. we have seen elon musk post lot himself recently and get involved in a lot of politics including the other side of the pond, in the uk. he was in a spat with the british prime minister keir starmer over the british legal system

and the root causes of those violent riots. he has gone on a political transformation in the last few years and the way people have explained it to me is that he is, for whatever reason, clung on to what we might call the anti—woke activism train. that has caused some sort of — an interesting meeting of the minds, you might say, because it broadly aligns with some of donald trump's policies. it leads to a lot of, i suppose, you know, more conservative policies that elon musk has advocated for. it's useful to remember now that musk and trump were not very good friends. in fact trump called him a liarjust two years ago. he used a much more profane term actually to call

him a liar. since then, obviously they have been very warm and this conversation between them is kind of the culmination of a slow and steady dance that ended up shortly after the assassination attempt last month. 0k. elon musk endorsing trump. mike wendling there. thousands of residents are being evacuated from their homes in greece as wildfires raging north of the athens are now approaching the city itself — burning less than nine kilometres from the centre. one person is believed to have died. this satellite image shows wind blowing smoke from the wildfires over the city — with some residents reporting difficulty breathing. authorities say half the country will be in a "red zone" of dangerous weather conditions in the coming days. a drop in strong winds is offering hope to firefighters battling the flames as residents say there are not enough fire trucks to help, as some flames leap as high as 25 metres — or 80 feet.

greece appealed to the eu for help. several countries immediately responded including spain, italy, turkey, canada, france and the czech republic. in total, more than 700 firefighters, as well as waterbombing planes and helicopters, have been sent to battle the fires. 0ur correspondentjessica parker is in athens and sent this report. through the dense smoke, they battle a blaze that's reached the outskirts of athens. a path burned from the north and east, towards the greek capital. homes, businesses, even hospitals have been evacuated. translation: it hurts. we've grown up in the forest. we feel great sadness and anger. the fight against the expanding blaze comes from the sky and from residents on the ground. people who've had to flee tell of their terror. translation: the flames - surrounded me, i couldn't see. i hit a pine tree and this happened.

greece is no stranger to wildfires, but scientists warn things are getting worse because of climate change. this is a nation that just experienced its hottestjuly on record. we also have this very, very dry fuels, which contribute to the rapid spread of the fire and also they increase the chance of having a spot fire, generating away and quickly expanding wildfire. overall, i would say that it's another very difficult day, and the situation right now in terms of the fire spread and the fire behaviour is extremely difficult from the point of view of controlling it. people are continuing to be evacuated from their homes. these scenes were filmed north of the capital as officers tried to bring residents to safety. medics are urging people to be cautious, especially the elderly, pregnant women, young children and those with respiratory or heart problems. high winds have fuelled these flames, and there's no relief forecast from the searing heat over the coming days.

thick clouds have been hanging over the ancient acropolis, a city under siege. jessica parker, bbc news, in athens. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. two 12—old—boys are the youngest to be convicted for their role in the recent riots across parts of the uk. they cannot be named because of their age. one was caught on cctv throwing an object at police in southport and the other admitted to two charges of violent disorder in manchester. a doctor who treated valdo calocane — who fatally stabbed three people in nottingham — warned three years before the attacks that his mental illness was so severe he could "end up killing someone." calocane's mother and brother have told bbc panorama that this was one of a series of missed opportunities over three years that could have prevented the killings.

street artist banksy unveiled new mural in southeast london — showing a rhino mounting a nissan micra with a traffic cone on its bonnet. the piece which was confirmed on banksy�*s instagram account, marks his eighth mural in the past eight days. it comes a day after he painted swimming piranhas onto a city of london police sentry box which was first spotted on sunday morning. you're live with bbc news. ukraine's military says it now control 1,000 square kilometres of russian territory. if the claim is accurate, this would represent a greater surface area than major cities, like berlin or singapore. ukrainian troops, highlighted in yellow, are reportedly advancing as deep as 20 miles, or 32 kilometres inside russia. kyiv�*s incursion seems to be, at least in part, drawing russian forces away from the frontline in ukraine, shown here in red. the us has continued to show its support for ukraine. senators richard blumenthal

and lindsey graham were in kyiv monday meeting ukraine's president zelensky. senator graham, a republican and staunch backer of ukraine, said the white house should lift restrictions on strikes deep into russia. in his nightly address, mr zelensky said monday that "russia brought war to others, and now, it's coming back home." translation: it is entirely justified to destroy russian | terrorists wherever they are, wherever they launch their attacks from. russian military airfields, russian logistics, we see the benefits this can bring in bringing peace closer. russia needs to be forced into peace especially if putin is so set on fighting. the russian defence ministry is releasing selective footage trying to convince the russian public that the situation is under control even as more than 100,000 evacuations take place from kursk. on monday, the army showcased armoured vehicles being loaded onto a truck, purportedly

heading to the kursk region. president putin has accused kyiv of "committing crimes" against russian people and promised to respond. 0ur russia editor steve rosenberg reports. a music video from the russian military, allegedly showing it targeting ukrainian troops who'd crossed the border. it's presented like a blockbuster. in reality, this is a huge problem for russia. the governor of russia's kursk region put it in figures. he told vladimir putin that ukrainian soldiers had seized 28 settlements in his region. the kremlin leader cut him off. "leave the numbers to the military," he said. translation: the main task is with our ministry _ of defence, and that is to force the enemy from our territory. our adversary will, of course, receive a fitting response. and, without doubt,

all our objectives will be met. as ukrainian troops have moved in, residents have moved out. officials say that more than 120,000 people have been evacuated in kursk region, and thousands more in the neighbouring region of belgorod. there are fears of a ukrainian incursion there too. what is happening is huge. for the first time in more than 80 years, foreign troops are fighting on russian soil. and yet the country's leadership describes this as a provocation, a terrorist attack. the kremlin still avoids using the word war, as if to tell the people there's no need to panic. on the streets of moscow, no shock — just resignation about ukraine's offensive. "i'm not surprised," olga says. "it's a border area and this war has been going on for some time."

what we all want is peace, and, like, the quickest resolution of this conflict. in the meantime, these volunteers are trying to do something. in moscow, they've organised a collection of food and clothes for the evacuees. there are people who lost their homes. they need shelter, they need food, they need supplies. it was their country that invaded ukraine. russians are now having to deal with unforeseen consequences. steve rosenberg, bbc news, moscow. in an interview with the financial times, a ukrainian soldier who took part in the initial incursion last tuesday, described his shock at how little resistance his brigade faced. the soldier told the ft an unarmed russian unit was �*sitting in the forest, drinking coffee at a table.�* then, he said, �*our stryker drives right into their

table.�* nina khrushcheva is a professor of international affairs, and the great—granddaughter of former soviet union leader nikita khrushchev. she tells the bbc president putin is facing an unusual level of embarrassment. so the border has been sort of protected by watchmen. but not necessarily _ protected by watchmen. but not necessarily by — protected by watchmen. but not necessarily by actual _ protected by watchmen. but not necessarily by actual troops - necessarily by actual troops which is embarrassing and the reason it is embarrassing because since march there has been incursions since the presidential elections, i don't want equality elections, when putin was becoming president for his fifth term, they have been incursions and they have been incursions and they have been repelled quickly but that was embarrassing enough at that time and the order supposedly was to protect the border and has not been protected because russians were concentrated on the donbas region, on the regions in ukraine.

let's turn to some other important news around the world. pakistan's military announced on monday that its former spy chief was arrested and will be court—martialled. the military said faiz hameed was detained following an internal probe over allegations he played a role in the top city project scam. top city is a company that was developing land near islamabad, for a private housing project. last year, the country's supreme court called for an investigation alleging mr. hameed was involved in a scheme of land grabbing and corruption. the leader of a kenyan cult is on trial for manslaughter after allegedly encouraging more than 400 followers to starve to death in one of the world's worst cult—related tragedies. self—proclaimed pastor paul nthenge mackenzie pleaded not guilty in a court in mombasa on monday. the prosecution says several hundred witnesses will testify. the venezuelan government says that 25 people have died in protests since the contested presidential elections were held two weeks ago. president nicolas maduro shared that information during a cabinet meeting discussing the crisis. mr maduro has accused the opposition of organizing the protests.

it comes as many countries in the region — including the us have rejected the official results, saying there is widespread evidence of election fraud. but is it for the moment. you can of course go to the live page for full analysis of that ongoing interview with donald trump and elon musk. stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. it's been a very dramatic start to the week, what with the thunder and lightning and the heat and humidity, and it was hottest across east anglia, the south east and lincolnshire. temperatures widely over 30 degrees. but it was in cambridge where we set the highest temperature of the year so far. i can't those temperatures are ebbing away. we'll be turning cooler through the rest of the week, and while there'll be some sunshine these are the temperatures early in the morning, still quite warm across southeastern areas, but elsewhere a more comfortable 10 or 11 degrees. and there is cloud and rain coming into western areas by the morning, and this rain will push

very slowly eastwards. moving away from northern ireland, we'll get some sunshine. we'll see the rain pushing eastwards across scotland, moving further into northern england, wales and the southwest. but across the midlands, lincolnshire, east anglia and the southeast, it's dry. a little bit hazy with the sunshine perhaps, especially in the afternoon, but very warm once again. temperatures 27 or 28 degrees. not as hot or as humid as it was on monday. but there is cooler air coming into the northwest. it follows that weather front that's bringing the cloud and rain. that meanders down towards the southeast. it brings a very different look to the weather across the east midlands, lincolnshire, east anglia and the southeast of england on wednesday. much more cloud around, a bit of rain and drizzle at times, although it does become drier later. but it's across the rest of the uk that we've got the fine weather this time, and it should be a fair bit of sunshine too. not that warm, perhaps making 20 degrees at best in scotland and northern ireland. a little bit warmer across england and wales. but it is turning cooler

because we're seeing atlantic air coming our way, and that's going to bring with it some rain. the next weather system arriving overnight and moving down into the uk on thursday. some stronger winds with that rain in scotland and northern ireland. it's moving more slowly southwards now, so it's going to be later in the day that we get some sunshine in the northwest. may well stay dry through the midlands, east anglia and the southeast, and actually quite warm here, temperatures 26 degrees or so. but it is cooling down a touch for scotland and northern ireland. that rain does eventually move southwards overnight. it may take a little while to clear away from southeastern most parts of england on friday, but otherwise following that, we've got some sunshine, blustery wind in the northwest will blow in some more showers into parts of scotland, where temperatures are still only 17 or 18 degrees, further south, 23 or 24.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme.

this week we have a sustainability special as we revisit some of our favourite sustainable stories from the last few months. yes, we're up, up, up and away. this plane can stay up in the air almost indefinitely. we're under the ocean with a 3d printed sea wall. sustainable leather, anyone? lara's sniffed out a material that's made of beer. doesn't smell of much. a bit like a new car, maybe. and if you don't fancy driving, you could go by rail, where paul's tracking wildlife beside the tracks. love a train. and that is the understatement of the century.

let me take you up.