hello you're watching bbc world news. i'm adnan nawaz. our top story this hour: the house democrat leader calls forjeff sessions to resign. it's over his undisclosed encounters with the russian ambassador during the election campaign. welcome to the programme. our other main stories this hour: pressure mounts against embattled french presidential hopeful francois fillon as he suffers new setbacks to his campaign. new research suggests why elephants, the animals with the longest memories, may also have the shortest sleep. i'm sally bundock. in business: snapped up! investors scramble for snapchat — in the biggest tech flotation since twitter. but is the app a cash cow or just a craze? plus coming up on netflix — the boss tells us his plans for the internet tv giant as it heads towards

100 million users. the future of president trump's newly appointed attorney general, jeff sessions, is under threat after it emerged he had two undisclosed encounters with the russian ambassador to the united states, sergei kislyak, during last year's election campaign. as the country's chief law enforcement officer, mr sessions is in charge of the fbi, which is currently investigating alleged russian interference in the election. this all comes as the intelligence committee of the us house of representatives has decided to launch a formal investigation into allegations of collusion between donald trump's presidential campaign and the russian government. our correspondent tulip mazumdar is in washington. yet details emerged the and fast. —— new. this had been reported in the

washington post in the us but it has been confirmed. we understand attorney generaljeff sessions did indeed have two conversations with the russian ambassador to the us last year during the election campaign while he was still a senator. apparently he did that in his capacity in the armed forces committee. the reason why this has been a huge problem for the attorney general is that during his confirmation hearing he was asked specifically about contact with russia and during that confirmation hearing which he was doing under oath he said specifically i did not have communications with the russians so clearly many in washington are up in arms about this. senior democrats are calling for his resignation. nancy pelosi

has given a statement saying he is not fit to serve as a top enforcement officer in our country. some republicans also calling for him to step down. overseeing the fbi investigation into russian meddling into the election campaign, as attorney general, he does hope to see that so the recalls for him to step down and so far he has refused to do so. a statement came out saying there is nothing misleading about the answer he gave during the confirmation hearing. he was asked about russia and the trump campaign not as a member of the armed services committee. they are saying he has not done anything wrong but others are saying he made these state m e nts others are saying he made these statements under oath saying he did

not have contact with russians and now we hear they have been to meetings with the russian ambassador. we will get more analysis later in the programme. the french presidential candidate francois fillon has temporarily lost the support of the centrist udi party. mr fillon is now facing a formal investigation into allegations of fraud, and despite an earlier promise he would quit the race if that were to happen, he says he's going to carry on. this report from greg dawson contains some flash photography. it has become a staple in the french election calendar — the candidates, the cameras, and the cattle at the paris agricultural show. in france, winning the rural vote can be key to winning office. but before francois fillon could sample the cheese he had to deal with the awkward business of tellinbg the country he had to deal with the awkward business of telling the country a judge is placing him under investigation over a fake job scandal. it involves claims his wife was paid for years for work she did not do. the centre—right candidate insists

he is staying in the race though. translation: i will leave it up to the french people because only the popular vote and not a one—sided procedure can decide who will be the next president. i will not give up. i will not withdraw. i will go on till the very end. but already, a political ally has suspended its support. the centrist udi party says a final decision will be made next week. it is a scandal that could give further momentum to this man — emmanuel macron, the young centrist candidate who has never held elected office. later on thursday, he will put the meat on the bones of his plans for france, when he present his policy at a news conference. he criticised mr fillon choice to call this investigation a political assassination. translation: words have a meaning and i think several times this week mr fillon has chosen to use big words, it is rather the sign of a loss of nerve or the loss of a sense of reality.

thursday is also a big day for another of the main contenders, national front leader marine le pen, was the first to visit the agricultural fair this week and she will attempt to build further support when she makes a speech about the french economy. she faces a separate investigation after being accused of misusing eu funds, which she denies. but it is not affected her poll ratings and she remains the most likely candidate to contend the run—off vote in may. greg dawson, bbc news. in other news: voters are going to the polls in northern ireland for the second time in less than a year. the power sharing arrangement between the two largest parties at the assembly collapsed in january in a dispute over the handling of a failed green energy scheme by the leading unionist parties. british government sources say ministers will seek to overturn their defeat in the upper chamber, the house of lords, on brexit legislation. the bill will return later this month after the lords voted by a large margin for an amendment which guarantees the rights of eu

nationals living in britain. theresa may has refused to give any such assurance until a similar commitment for british nationals living in europe is given. the two accountants responsible for muddling up the main award envelopes at the oscars will not be employed to do the job again. a mix—up meant la la land was named best picture, when it was actually moonlight. one of accountants, brian cullinan, was apparently "distracted" by twitter just before the dramatic turn of events. despite appearances to the contrary, iam not despite appearances to the contrary, i am not as cool as i look because i not even sure what snapchat is, sally! it is a message that is sent and then it will disappear after a few minutes... seconds. itjust disappears. it will. ..

few minutes... seconds. itjust disappears. it will... i will explain all now. we start on wall street where investors are gearing up for what could be the biggest and certainly the most hyped technology flotation since twitter in back 2013 or even facebook the year before. in a few hours time shares in snap, the owner of photo messaging app snapchat, will begin trading on the new york stock exchange. the big question — will it end up a stock market giant like facebook or like twitter a bit of a flop? here's what we know so far. the flotation has been hugely oversubscribed. there were as many as ten orders for every share. that's allowed snapchat to up the price. late on wednesday it priced its shares at $17 — above the $14—to—s16 range it had previously indicated. that will give the company an opening valuation of $24 billion. more than twice as much as twitter at its current share price. that's despite a couple of major worries — or so you'd think — for investors.

firstly, snapchat has yet to turn a profit. in fact it lost over half a billion dollars last year alone. plus shareholders who buy in will not have any voting rights. the founders of the company will retain complete control of any decisions. they are incredibly young and as of tomorrow officially incredibly rich. evan spiegel and bobby murphy — both in their 20s — will be worth around $4 billion each. asi as i was trying to explain, you send a picture to someone else through the app and then it disappears. we are also looking at netflix — the internet tv streaming service has been growing fast

and is on track to hit 100 million subscribers. but it's facing growing competition. co—founder and ceo reed hastings has been speaking to our technology correspondent— rory cellanjones — we'll have that for you to in 20 minutes time i would like to share. on his first day as president, donald trump signed a ban on us government money going to international groups that perform abortions or even provide information about terminating pregnancies. many global charities are worried his order will hit healthcare for women, particularly in poorer and developing countries. to try to fill the shortfall, countries such as the netherlands, sweden and denmark are launching a special fund—raising conference in brussels called ‘she decides'. the bbc‘s yogita limaye has been to nepal, a nation that depends heavily on international aid. she's come here to get an abortion. it's not illegal in nepal, but there's extreme social stigma around it. and so she doesn't want to show her face. for women like her, a proper medical facility like this one run by a global charity, is a refuge.

many end up going to illegal clinics. this man lost a loved one to an unsafe abortion. miles away from his village, he agrees to meet us at a tea shop. his wife's sister died after having pills she was given to end her pregnancy. she wasjust 19. translation: the clinic she went to didn't even have a sign board. somebody that looked like a nurse gave her medicines and told her she would be fine in a couple of days. that evening she started bleeding heavily. we tried to rush her to a proper hospital, but she bled to death on the way. nearly half of all pregnancies in nepal are unintended, which means safe abortion services are crucial. this country heavily depends on charities to provide them. but now, those organisations will no longer be able to get aid money from america if they continue to perform abortions.

the us government doesn't directly fund abortion services in any country. here in nepal, a lot of theirfunds go towards family planning activities, provided by ngos. but typically, large charities offer both. and now they stand to lose us aid money, which could leave a big hole in theirfinances. president trump's order goes one step further than previous republican governments. organisations won't even be allowed to tell women that abortion is an option. marie stopes, which runs the centre, says they simply can't agree to those terms. and so the family planning services they provide with us money could be severely impacted. if we lose that funding, then there's one in four women that want family—planning and can't access it. the reality is those women who can't get family planning because this funding is cut will need abortion

services at some point in their life. we estimate that around 80,000 women will actually seek abortion due to this, of which half of those, through no fault of their own, not knowing where the safe providers are, not having choice, will go to an unsafe provider. it's a move that's meant to be anti—abortion. but they won't end it in countries like this one, they could become more unsafe. yogita limaye, bbc news, nepal. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: bye—bye enrique — the barcelona coach confirms he'll leave the catalan giants at the end of the season we have shed so many lives and deaths in hopes and pain, we will show them forever and be forever bound. she was one of the most famous women of the 20th century —

now a series of love letters from the widowed jackie kennedy are going under the hammer. first the plates slipped gently off the restaurant tables. then suddenly the tables, the chairs and people crashed sideways and downwards and it was a matter of seconds before the ferry lurched onto her side. the hydrogen bomb on a remote pacific atoll. the americans had successfully tested a weapon whose explosive force dwarfed that of the bomb dropped on hiroshima. i had heard the news earlier and so my heart went bang and bang. the constitutional rights of these marchers have their rights as citizens of the united states and they should be protected even in the right to test them out so they don't get their heads broken and are sent to hospital. this religious controversy, i know you don't want to say too much about it, but does it worry you it's going to boil up when you get to the stage? well, it worries me, yeah. but everything will be all right in the end of the day. hello. these are the latest

headlines: the us house democratic leader calls on us attorney generaljeff sessions to resign over allegations he had secret discussions with russia during president trump's election campaign. let us get some analysis on this. steve fish is politics professor with the university of california, berkeley. how serious are these allegations againstjeff sessions? surely he could speak to the russian ambassador, would need? iwould could speak to the russian ambassador, would need? i would like to say that in the last few minutes he said he did not speak about the presidential alleged campaign with the ambassador. speaking with the russian ambassador is no crime, to be sure. the problem is that when jeff sessions, then a senator, was asked by his colleagues, who was

working on the hearings to confirm him whether he had had contact with the russians drink the campaign, he said no. he said no one trunk campaign had. and indeed it turns out that he gets. the russian ambassador was very interested in meeting. —— campaign. he headed up the national security part of trump's campaign. he was also a ranked part of the senate dealing with us military affairs. he is someone with us military affairs. he is someone that the russians would have sorted out. what is odd is that he did not tell the truth. of course, he would have been under oath in the series. he has said that he had a certain interpretation of what the question meant, but you are saying that he did not address the question directly because it was plain. that he did not address the question directly because it was plainlj insta ntly directly because it was plainlj instantly seen that he misled the treaty. the question was straightforward. what was more straightforward. what was more straightforward was what he answered in writing. he was also asked, i

just asked, just recently, today, by senator lay, in a written combination whether he had had contact with the russians, and he said no. the him to announce a he thought they meant as an operative of the drum campaign, that does not make any sense, because it was not asked about that. he was simply asked about that. he was simply askedif asked about that. he was simply asked if he always anyone in the campaign had had contact with the russians. we also have an announcement from the house intelligence committee that they are going to look into potential collusion between the russian government and the presidential campaign of donald trump. can i ask you about that, but concurrently about the reports that there were officials close to donald trump that we re officials close to donald trump that were trying to influence any potential investigations, as well? there certainly have been officials close to donald trump that have been trying to affect the investigations. and as the agreement in the house of

representatives, looking into this matter, the republicans have been tried to push this into —— put this on the backburner to cause it to cool down. they do want to be bogged down in investigations into their president from their own party in the time want to get done what the republicans want to get done. this of course promises to be a big diversion from that. and they had tried to slow walkers. it looks like they cannot get away with it any longer. it looks like there is intelligence that shows that trump campaign commercials may have had regular contact with russian government officials. —— trump. he could have even been looting and collaborating with them to use russian intelligence to trump's benefit. i'm not saying that trump suzanne every day is —— sits down every day and think about how to undermine the united states. but the question is if he is lacking so much

in the loyalty to anyone but himself, if he thought that some it was could help his campaign, he might well in doors his people collaborating with the russian government. and that is the danger, thatis government. and that is the danger, that is what we have two c if it happened. we need to investigate this. and so the trump administration to say nothing happened, so we don't need to investigate, it will not work any more. thank you for your time. it was my pleasure. a study in botswana has been looking at how much sleep elephants get. to give you an idea of how they differ to other animals, here are some other slumber times: pythons and armadillos sleep for an average of 18 hours a day, little brown bats for close to 20. pachyderms get far, far less, as helen briggs reports. for five weeks, scientists track to elephants roaming across botswana to find out more about their sleeping habits. they discovered that on average the elephants were sleeping forjust average the elephants were sleeping for just two average the elephants were sleeping forjust two hours a day, mainly at night, the shortest known sleep time

for any land mammal. and sometimes they did not sleep at all. one of they did not sleep at all. one of the more unexpected find that we had was that 15 of the 70 nights, we recorded sleep, they did not sleep at all. interestingly, during these notes they appear to be disturbed at around 730 at night, when they walked a0 or 30 kilometres away. these notes without sleep since it correlate with nights where they we re correlate with nights where they were predation affects, or bull elephants were chasing the female heard, or poachers. even when they did geta heard, or poachers. even when they did get a chance to race, they would often sleep standing up, only lying down every few nights. sleep, of course, plays an essential role in memory. so researchers say it is a mystery why elephants, who are known for their incredible of memory powers, survive on so little sleep. in sport, barcelona's head coach luis enrique has confirmed he won't be at the club next season. he is in his third

season at the club, during which time barca have won eight trophies, including the champions league. this season has been less successful, including a humiliating a—0 defeat to paris st germain in the champions league last month. one man who knows the pressure of being the coach of one of the most fabled clubs in the world is pep guardiola. he spent four season there and played with enrique for spain and barcelona. what i want is the best for luis. he isa what i want is the best for luis. he is a realfriend. we play together. he isa is a realfriend. we play together. he is a huge manager. so he deserves respect. but like a fan, east antrim barcelona, it was the most important of my life. so i am a little bit sad, because barcelona needs one of the best renders —— because he is one of the best trainers are ever had, at barcelona. —— i ever had. the announcement from luis enrique came after barcelona beat gijon 6—1

to put them top of the league table, a point ahead of real madrid. real had to come from 3—1 down at home to las palmas to draw 3—3, but they have a game in hand over barcelona. to the english fa cup where sergio aguero scored twice for manchester city in their 5—1 fifth round replay win over second tier huddersfield town. despite going behind injust the seventh minute city steadied themselves to lead 3—1 at half time before finishing thejob. they'll meet middlesbrough in the quarterfinals two goals from robert lewandowski helped holders bayern munich ease through to the semi—finals of the german cup. they won 3—0 win over schalke. this is the second goal from thiago alca nta ra. the game sealed with just half—an—hour played by lewandowski. (pres)she was — and remains — one of the most iconic

she was — and remains — one of the most iconic —— she was — and remains — one of the most iconic women in history. now a series of letters written by jackie kennedy to a british ambassador to washington, david ormsby gore, will be auctioned this month. one of the handwritten notes explains her decision to turn down his marriage proposal and marry another man, aristotle onassis, instead. the letters were found locked in two red—leather cases discovered in wales at the family home of the ambassador. what these letters choice is the incredibly touching love story between david ormsby gore and jacqueline kennedy. and what comes through in these letters is this touching relationship that they had that very nearly blossomed into marriage. dearest david, you are like my beloved, blood above and mental, and the only original spirit i know. —— beloved brother. and she jury i know. —— beloved brother. and she jury love heart. one of the nicest things here is david ormsby gore's passport as the ambassador of

washington. he looked dapper and handsome. he was a close adviser to kennedy. he was his competent. —— he was a confidant. kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and david ormsby gore lost his wife, and so they were a widow and widow at. really supporting each other. ultimately, they went on holiday once or twice, and clearly, romance blossomed. there is a draft letter from david ormsby gore, where he talks about a secret marriage. they we re talks about a secret marriage. they were obviously hatching these plans and discussing their potential future together, and then she went and married aristotle onassis. here, we are lucky and after have one of the drafts of a letter that he wrote to her. why do such agonising things

that do happen? cartright four hours and hours to understand uefa nation, and hours to understand uefa nation, and suppose they do, in a way, without agreeing with it. as your photograph, i weep when i look at it. -- photograph, i weep when i look at it. —— as for your photograph. i think the letters are heartbreaking, ina think the letters are heartbreaking, in a way. the most gutwrenching thing is when she writes back to him painfully, on aristotle onassis' stationery from his yacht, saying that she will always love him and they will always have sunny special. but i don't know how much they placated him. you and i have shed so many lives and deaths and hopes in pain. we will show them forever, and be forever bound by them. —— shared. we will be as close as only two people who have shared all that can be. world business report is next.

the weather will be changeable for the rest of the week and into the weekend. there is one went out there across the atlantic. weather fronts making a beeline for the uk. but thursday, actually, overall, is not looking too bad at all. in the short term, the overnight period into the morning is very blustery. we have winter to gale—force in places. very windy inland, too. some rain and hill snow and also some showers across scotland. pretty cold across the northern half of the uk first thing in the morning. not far off freezing, more like five or six in the south. windy first thing. there will also be cloud in rain around, particularly in the central sway of england. the showers will continue in scotland. the grouping is after the windy night, those winds will ease and we are left with a pretty good afternoon. this is three o'clock in the afternoon on thursday. temperatures not spectacular. around eight or ten,

maybe 11 degrees. and it is still pretty breezy, but at least we have a lot of sunshine around. and that at this rate across the republic of ireland. they will be moving into northern ireland on. —— look at this rain. there is showers dotted around parts of western and northern scotland. into thursday evening, that rain pushes into northern ireland, then there is another rain front coming in from the south—west and south, meaning a website through the day for many parts of the country on friday. but that rain will be pushing through fairly swiftly. it will be a more grey day on friday. and it will feel chilly as well, six degrees, for example, in leeds. so next day for friday, the end of the week. saturday, a low pressure are stuck over the uk. more weather fronts. some outbreaks of rain as well. they changeable day. sunshine around, too. most of the rain you can see in these northern errors on saturday afternoon. chilly in the north, six or seven degrees.

ba rely in the north, six or seven degrees. barely touching double figures across southern barely touching double figures across southern errors barely touching double figures across southern errors of the uk. and then on sunday, room and what i told you about there being a lot of weather fronts in the atlantic? that is the pitcher for the weekend. a low is stuck right over us. and that means there will always be a chance of some rain. though that's summarise that for the weekend. wet at times, winds will be strong, and it will feel on the chilly side. this is bbc world news. the headlines: there have been calls for the us attorney generaljeff sessions to resign amid allegations he failed to disclose talks he had with russia's ambassador during the presidential election. separately, the house intelligence committee is to launch a formal investigation into allegations of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. embattled french presidential candidate francois fillon has suffered further setbacks to his political campaign, with a political ally freezeing theur support. it follows the revelation that mr fillon is facing a formal investigation over a fake job scandal involving his wife. he denies any wrongdoing. representatives from a number

of countries are preparing to meet in belgium to raise funds for women's health services providing information about abortion that face the withdrawal of us funding