this is bbc news. i'm alice baxter. our top stories: two big votes on catalonia's future expected within hours — madrid may impose direct rule and barcelona could declare independence. australia's deputy prime minister is ordered to resign from parliament because he held dual citizenship when elected. the cyber attack that crippled parts of britain's national health service could have been prevented, says the government watchdog. and i'm ben bland. online retailer amazon leads a barrage of tech earnings. its sales were up 34% injuly to september compared to the same period last year. and it's bye, bye, bye to floor trading on the hong kong stock exchange. after more than 30 years, it's going fully electronic. hello and welcome to bbc news.

spain's political crisis is likely to deepen today if, as expected, the senate backs a plan by the central government to remove some powers from the autonomous region of catalonia. madrid wants to reassert control by triggering an article in the spanish constitution that's designed to prevent regions from breaking away. but it's thought the catalan parliament may respond by declaring independence. andrew plant takes up the story. 27 days after this crisis started, each day, crowds have added, speeches have been made, it each day in agreement has been further away.

on one side, catalonia considering declaring independence and on the other, spain considering taking back control. on thursday, catalonian president carles puigdemont could have declared independence which would have angered the spanish government. or you could have backtracked which would have angered his own supporters. instead, he did neither. transocean mac my responsibility as president of catalonia was to exhaust all options available. what we need is deescalation and dialogue. once againi deescalation and dialogue. once again i have not had a satisfactory reply from the spanish government. thank‘s national government could now vote to take away his control. transocean now vote to take away his control. tra nsocean mac launching article 155 of the constitution which will affect catalonia's autonomy is the last resort. it's the only way to risk your galaxy, tolerance, democracy, and economic stability to catalonia. this is all the fault of

the catalan president. today, the spanish senate will vote on unravelling catalonia's powers. something which has never been done before. that much is clear that the future is not. the question, what will happen here if spain strips away catalonia's regional powers? the answer, no one really knows the repercussions may be. andrew plant, bbc news. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. a un—backed report has concluded the syrian government was behind a chemical attack on the town of khan sheikhoun earlier this year which killed about 90 people. investigators said the nerve agent, sarin, was dropped from an aircraft. syria has previously denied responsibility. north korea has announced that it will release the crew of a south korean fishing boat "within hours" on humanitarian grounds. the vessel was seized on saturday after being found to have entered waters under the north's control.

in thailand, a ceremony to collect the ashes of the country's late king is currently taking place. king bhumibol adulyadej died last year at the age of 88. hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the streets of bangkok for his cremation. it was a ceremony steeped in buddhist traditions. votes in kenya's re—run election are being counted in many parts of the country, but the poll was suspended in four counties until saturday. in those areas, opposition supporters clashed with the police and many polling stations did not open. the opposition leader, raila odinga, had called on his supporters to boycott the poll. it crippled hundreds of organisations across the world. now, an investigation by the uk national audit office has found that a malware attack that affected parts of the national health service in may could have been prevented. more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries were infected

with the wannacry ransomware but the nhs in england was amongst the worst hit. here's our technology correspondent rory cellan—jones. it was an attack which for us computers around the world. but the nhs was among the organisations worst affected. and the national audit office says it was ill—prepared. the audit office says it was ill—prepa red. the report audit office says it was ill—prepared. the report details the impact of the worst ever cyber attack on the health service. 80 on health trust across england were affected, one third of the total. it is thought over 19,000 appointments ended up being cancelled. including 139 potential cancer referrals. what planning there had been to deal with a cyber attack just hadn't planning there had been to deal with a cyber attackjust hadn't filter down to the hospitals. some work had been done about it on a national cyber response plan in the nhs but having been well communicated to all

of those local bodies, and in some cases organisations had to resort to telephone and paper and pen and apps such as whatsapp in terms of communicating with others. computers infected by the malicious software had ignored instructions to install security patch which would have protected them. now the nhs has lessons have been learned. we have been getting our act together, we are getting our act together, we are putting funding and education in and rolling out the programmes that were in place before this attack and we will continue to improve over time. there are more serious cyber attackers waiting to strike. hospital trusts are warning the government they may need to spend more money to strengthen their defences. ben bland is here with all the business news. thanks, alice. retailer amazon was at the centre of what was a huge day for tech earnings reporting.

alphabet, google's parent company, microsoft and twitter also reported. but let's stick with amazon. the retailer reported revenues of almost $41; billion in the three months betweenjuly and september — that's a jump of 34% over the same period last year. but profts were virtually unchanged since last year — that's because this is often the quarter when amazon chooses to pile a bunch of money into its own projects, like tech gadgets, streaming video, and warehouses. the company has operated on this model for years and it seems to have served it well. in fact, analysts now estimate that amazon will command about a3.5% of all commercial online sales this year — that's nearly half of all the stuff sold online. and let's not forget amazon's nearly $14 billion foray into bricks and mortar retail.

the giant bought upscale supermarket whole foods. this squarely puts it in competition with one of its biggest rivals, walmart. we will look at all of this in world business report in about 20 minutes. it's the end of an era — the hong kong stock exchange will close its trading floor after 31 years on friday. in its heyday, the floor was home to more than 1,000 stockbrokers, but the rise of electronic and internet trading has irrevocably changed the industry. the hong kong trading floor was the last of its kind among major stock exchange in asia, and around the world. the new york stock exchange now stands as one of the few that keeps its floor open, but that's mainly for marketing reasons. live in hong kong at the exchange in world business report. you don't wa nt to world business report. you don't want to miss it! don't forget, you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter.

i'm @benmbland. thanks, ben. what happened in dallas on november 22, 1963 has fuelled conspiracy theories for decades. on that day, of course, presidentjohn f kennedy was assassinated. now, a batch of classified files on the killing is being released by the us national archives, while another batch is being held back, pending further review. but experts say they don't expect any dramatic revelations from the thousands of documents. here's nick bryant. page after page, previously thought —— top—secret documents, many handwritten from the investigation into the assassination ofjohn f. kennedy. it was november 22, 1963 and lee harvey oswald shot the president as he was travelling in an open top limousine in dallas. archive: it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route.

the official investigation concluded lee harvey of what had acted alone. archive: president kennedy has been assassinated. it is official now — the president is dead. more than 50 years later many americans find it difficult to believe the official version of what happened. conspiracy theorists think information could have been withheld to avoid embarrassing government agencies. historians, journalists and legal scholars are now poring over the almost 3000 documents just released, searching for clues and discrepancies in the official story on new facts to back it up. several 100 documents are being held back for further scrutiny. it will be a six—month review period after the cia and fbi expressed concern about their content. it's a move that will only fuel the conspiracy theories. australia's government has lost its narrow majority after the country's highest court ruled that the deputy prime minister was ineligible to sit in parliament because he held dual australia—new zealand citizenship. barnabyjoyce said he respected

the verdict, and a by—election would now be held. phil mercerjoins me live from sydney. with this decision expected? barnaby joyce says he wasn't surprised by the high court's decision and clearly, when you look at what the sevenjudges have had to say, clearly ignorance is no defence. these seven members of the citizenship seven at all argued they simply didn't know that they were citizens of another country. at last you's election. but the judges have said you should have known, certainly in the cases of five of

those parliamentarians, barnaby joyce being one of them. he will now face a by—election. the political futures of the other four are uncertain. one thing is certain is they won't be in parliament until they won't be in parliament until the least the next election. two other elections of the upper house of the australian parliament have been cleared of any wrongdoing. their political careers will continue. safe to say not only has the centre—right government lost its nowra on the men majority but for 110w nowra on the men majority but for now it is very embarrassing for the administration of the prime minister, malcolm turnbull. and how big an event has all this being, this section 44 drama in australia? has anything like this happened before? it's very unusual in attracting too many people in australia were aware of section 44 that banned subjects or citizens from so—called foreign powers from sitting in federal parliament. we've

just in hearing from a senior member of the main opposition labour party and she said that most australians would be forgiven for thinking all of this was a little bit strange. —— labour. it is an unusual constitutional crisis for australia, the upshot is five mps have been deemed to be ineligible, have been disqualified from parliament, to others in the clear but significantly, barnaby joyce will others in the clear but significantly, barnabyjoyce will be facing a by—election and we expect him to win but in the meantime, no doubt, the sniping at the government by its critics here in australia will intensify and it will be an almighty fight for barnabyjoyce to retain the seat here in eastern australia. this drama still has a long way to run. many thanks. stay with us on bbc news. still to come, rescued after five months at sea — the two sailors and their two dogs who disappeared in the pacific ocean. indira gandhi, ruler

of the world's largest democracy, died today. only yesterday, she'd spoken of dying in the service of her country and said, "i would be proud of it, every drop of my blood will contribute to the growth of this nation". after 46 years of unhappiness, these two countries have concluded a chapter of history. no more suspicion, no more fear, no more uncertainty of what each day might bring. booster ignition and lift—off of discovery, with a crew of six astronaut heroes and one american legend. well, enjoying the show is right — this is beautiful. a milestone in human history. born today, this girl in india is the 7 billionth person on the planet. this is bbc news.

the latest headlines: the spanish senate will meet later to approve government plans to strip the autonomous region of catalonia of some of its powers. australia's high court has ruled that the country's deputy prime minister, barnabyjoyce, should be disqualified from office because he held dual citizenship