this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at 12.00pm: the conservative mp for dover, charlie elphicke, denies any wrongdoing after being suspended by the party over serious allegations. as the westminster harassment scandal deepens, political parties consider how to strengthen codes of conduct for mps. police in new york say they have a viable case against film producer harvey weinstein after an actress accused him of raping her seven years ago. us climate scientists clash with donald trump as a major report says human activity is driving global warming. also in the next hour: road safety campaigners express concern after it's revealed that only half of fixed speed cameras in the uk are actually switched on. and love them or loathe them, six billion of them are used everyday.

we look at the future of emojis in click in half an hour. good afternoon and welcome to bbc news. the conservative mp charlie elphicke has denied any wrongdoing after being suspended by the party for what officials say are serious allegations which have been passed to the police. the party didn't give any details about what the allegations are, or who had made them. it comes amid growing concern in westminster over the conduct of politicians following a string of allegations of sexual abuse in parliament. the conservatives have published a new code of conduct for mps and other elected representatives, while labour has introduced a new complaints procedure. our political correspondent emma vardy has the latest from westminster. it has been described as a torrid

week of here in westminster. many allegations are being strenuously denied. we have seen theresa may and jeremy corbyn under pressure over this, and many feel that what we are seeing here is a culture change in british politics —— british politics taking place. new allegations are emerging ever more frequently. this is charlie elphicke, the conservative mp for dover since 2010, who wakes up this morning no longer a tory mp — at least for now. that is because last night the man in charge of discipline amongst conservative mps, the new chief whipjulian smith, issued a statement... charlie elphicke‘s anger about how he's been treated was clear. he tweeted: he added: meanwhile, the labour mp

clive lewis has strongly denied an allegation of impropriety at the labour party conference in september. i don't, as a rule, at packed labour party conferences, grope people's bottoms when i greet them. it's just not how i roll — it's not what i do. labour is also under pressure over mp kelvin hopkins, who was suspended on thursday following allegations of misconduct towards a young labour activist. and jeremy corbyn is facing questions over why mr hopkins was previously promoted to the shadow cabinet even after this came to light. mr hopkins says he denies the allegations. and the former labour cabinet minister ivan lewis has apologised for making some female colleagues uncomfortable, but said he never made any nonconsensual advances towards women. this is a place gripped by a collective trepidation about what might come next. individuals fearful

for their own reputations — others fearful for the very reputation of politics itself. just to add to all of that the times newspaper was reporting this morning that anna soubry has told them that an unnamed person came forward to the prime minister ‘s team alleging asexual allegation against a michael fallon, who resigned this week. he has strenuously denied his allegation and the bbc spoke to and subaru but she has not given any more detail about who made the claim and the nature of it, but, as you can see, the allegations are really gathering pace and almost hour by hour and day by day they are getting more serious in nature. this morning

we had the veteran conservative mp sir roger gale say we should hang on a second and take stock and put the bra kes a second and take stock and put the brakes on. he says it is in danger of turning into a witchhunt and mps must be seen as innocent until proven guilty. i would suggest before we rush to judgment and say eve ryo ne before we rush to judgment and say everyone is guilty until they are proven innocent, we should look at the facts and aside and allow responsible people with access to the evidence to decide whether there actually is an accusation that needs to be answered and if so, if someone has done something very wrong, then by all means throw the book at them, but do not throw the book at them until the case is proven. what we are seeing with this sex scandal unfolding as some people are comparing it to the expenses scandal that rocked british politics back in 2009 and there is a sense that party officials are now braced for more allegations to emerge and they do not know where the next scandal could come from. netflix has cut all ties with kevin spacey, who plays the lead role in one of its most successful programmes, house of cards.

the company said it would no longer be involved in the series if the actor continued to be part of it. the announcement came after mr spacey faced allegations of sexual misconduct from a number of men. police in new york say they have a viable case against the hollywood producer, harvey weinstein. the announcement came after actress paz de la huerta claimed that mr weinstein raped her twice in 2010. she is among dozens of women who have come forward since october to accuse the 65—year—old of sexual misconduct. he has denied all allegations of non—consensual sex. this david willis reports. recent weeks have seen a torrent of allegations against harvey weinstein. now comes the first word of a possible arrest. new york detectives following up a call to the department last week are investigating an actress's claim that the former movie mogul raped her twice back in 2010. they say the woman's account is detailed and credible. we have an actual case here.

we are happy with where the investigation is right now. mr weinstein is out of state. we would need an arrest warrant to arrest him. so right now we're gathering our evidence, we continue to do so every day. when some of hollywood's biggest names, amongst them gwyneth paltrow and angelina jolie, came forward to accuse harvey weinstein of sexual harassment he issued a statement emphatically denying any allegation of nonconsensual sex. he's now under investigation here, in los angeles and in the uk as well. like ripples in a pond, the accusations of misconduct against men of wealth and influence appear to be growing rapidly. david willis, bbc news, los angeles. the lebanese prime minister saad hariri has resigned. in a statement read out at a news conference in beirut, he voiced fears of being assassinated saying the current situation was similar to that when his father rafik was killed in 2005. he also criticised iran and the hezbollah militant group which wields considerable power in lebanon. us president donald trump kicks off

an ii—day trip to asia this weekend, taking in south korea, japan and china. it will be the longest tour of asia by a us president in 25 years. before setting out, he visited hawaii's pearl harbor to see a us battleship sunk by japanese bombers in the second world war, and received a security briefing from the us pacific command on issues including north korea's nuclear programme. 0ur correspondent stephen mcdonnell is in tokyo. here in tokyo, people are expecting donald trump's visit to be completely dominated by security issues emanating from the north korean nuclear threat. now, in theory, the united states and japan do have a lot to talk about — trade for example — but everyone knows all of these other issues are going to be completely swamped by north korea. on his way to asia, donald trump also travelled to pearl harbor in hawaii, where other side of the sunken ship uss arizona they had a wreath laying ceremony. but perhaps more crucially in hawaii, he also had a briefing from the generals at the us

pacific command, speaking about regional security. no prizes for guessing what they would have been talking about — again, north korea. when donald trump arrives injapan he'll be meeting us troops based here. the same in south korea. perhaps this is a way of sending a message in terms of american capabilities in this part of the world. he'll also be trying to build a coalition of asian governments in an attempt to pile even more pressure on the north korea to get them to give up their nuclear weapons. that includes beijing. now, some analysts have said that china hasn't done enough in this regard, but donald trump says of his chinese counterpart xijinping that his effort so far has been "pretty terrific."

a spanishjudge has issued european arrest warrants for the sacked catalan leader carles puigdemont and four of his allies who went to belgium. the five failed to attend a high court hearing in madrid on thursday, when nine other ex—members of the regional government were taken into custody. mr puigdemont has said he will not return to spain unless he receives guarantees of a fair trial. nick vamos is the former head of extradition at the crown prosecution service and now partner at peters & peters law firm. he told me that the process of extraditing carles puigdemont is not likely to be straight forward. the problem in this case is that the offences are not straightforward and they arise out of a very intense and heated political situation in spain, so this is the kind of case where the court would be entitled and actually obliged to go behind the spanish warrant and actually explore whether it was issued for a political purpose and whether carles puigdemont could get a fair trial. the very first question they have to answer is actually whether what he is accused of doing in spain would be an offence in belgian, that is the dual criminality test.

that is far from straightforward. there are charges of sedition and rebellion against the spanish state. how are the belgian authorities, particularly the belgian courts, particularly likely to look on that? i do not think it is straightforward at all. certainly if it was being looked at in the uk i don't think we have any comparable offences, treason probably wouldn't fit. belgium has its own federal system and their own separatist movement so it is a very sensitive area for them. a belgian court being obliged to decide whether somebody fuelling a separatist movement amounts to a crime is, as you can imagine, a very hot potato and i do not know whether under belgian law it would amount to a crime but it becomes a very sensitive judicial decision. mr puigdemont says he will not go

back unless he has guarantees of a fair trial but for one eu country to say to another, i am sorry but we are not confident that you can actually give this suspect a fair trial and so we will not extradite him would be quite a challenge to how the eu operates. i think it would be a very profound and significant thing for a belgian court to say and i suspect they will go that far but what they may say is that the underlying purpose of this arrest warrant is political, not just that it arises from a political situation, which is obvious, but that the reason it is being issued and the reason mr puigdemont is being pursued is for political ends and that would be a reason not to grant the arrest warrant. the other problem is that spain do not have a good track record when it comes european arrest warrants. there are previous court decisions at the european court

of human rights even at british courts against suspected eta terrorists when the spanish courts have been accused of breaching human rights of those suspects so they do not have a spotless record. the white house has attempted to downplay the findings of a report which goes against the trump administration's view on climate change. the study, compiled by us government scientists said it was extremely likely, with 95—100% certainty, that global warming is man—made, mostly from carbon dioxide through the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. to hear more about this story, we can go to richard black, director at the energy and climate intelligence unit, a non—profit independent thinktank. he joins us now via webcam. is good to speak to you again. thank you. what is the significance of this particular report coming from

this particular report coming from this particular report coming from this particular group of scientists? couple of things are significant, the timing, it comes immediately before the round of climate change negotiations that start next week in germany. a lot of what the report contains is not news in the sense that this is the consensus view of climate science but they have looked to the future and the unpredictability of some pretty serious consequences, for example, the release of greenhouse gases from the release of greenhouse gases from the arctic as the arctic warns and the arctic as the arctic warns and the message they are spelling out is that this is a time of choice. constraining impact on the climate change in the near term also constrains the risk of serious and unpredictable things happening in the future. for the lame man, such as myself, they will look at a

report like this and see phrases like we have never had this period of warming on the planet in 1700 yea rs or of warming on the planet in 1700 years or more and they will ask a obvious question, how can we possibly know? to start with you have temperature records going back two or 300 years... but not 1700 yea rs! two or 300 years... but not 1700 years! if only the neanderthals had weather stations! you can use proxy indicators such as ice cores and tree rings and you have indications of how biology has moved around the planet so the further back in time the less precise you can be but what they have said in this report is that 1700 years, that is a certain degree of precision and as far as you can tell in that time warming has never been as fast. it is important to point out that the rate of warming is as important as the degree itself because the natural world does adapt to changes in climate and always has done but if

the changes are too quick they cannot adapt. politicians have not been as adaptable as they might have been as adaptable as they might have been on dealing with this question. you have been talking about it for 20 years and others have been talking about this subject for even longer. president trump is a known opponent of the claim that climate change is man—made but the white house has allowed this publication to be released and this is now an official us government document, can we draw anything from that?” official us government document, can we draw anything from that? i am not sure one can draw any conclusion except that sometimes and i'm underplaying the seriousness of things at the moment, the white house doesn't really know what it's doing. it seems extraordinary on the one hand because they have released a report from an expert body and why would you commission a report from an expert body that goes along with everything as experts are telling you and then say that you will not act on it. strange. strange indeed.

thank you for being with us on bbc news. the headlines on bbc news: the conservative mp charlie elphicke denies any wrongdoing after being suspended by the party over serious allegations. police in new york say they are gathering evidence after an actress accused harvey weinstein of raping her seven years ago. the white house downplays a report by us government scientists, which concludes that human activity is the main cause of global warming. apologies, it is 12:17pm. more now on the sexual harassment allegations at westminster. a short while ago john mcdonnell spoke about the issue. we have had a member coming forward and say she was raped and thatis forward and say she was raped and that is unacceptable. we have had sexual harassment across all the political parties, by the look of it and that is not acceptable so we have to tackle it. it is notjust

westminster. it is in other parts of society is welcome but we are responsible for westminster so that is what we are doing and we are introducing new practices in which people can ensure their safety and if there are concerns and complaints they are dealt with properly. jeremy corbyn will meet the prime minister next weeks of all political parties will come together and agree a system that will work although it hasn't worked up until now. kelvin hopkins was promoted to the shadow cabinet after your chief whip was made aware of these allegations, how can that happen? i cannot comment on the individual cases because this will be investigated as part of the new process. there will be objective investigation of each case i cannot comment on individual cases but we must ensure the system does notjust apply to the labour party but applies to all parties and is very objective and deals with these cases and importantly it gives people confidence, and we are talking largely about giving women confidence that they can work here in safety and that is what we should where people can report and also an element of advice and assistance and thatis element of advice and assistance and that is happening now. when all political parties meet, my view was there should be an element of independence in there, particularly of support, so people can feel confident in where they can report these things and also how it can be

dealt with but i hope to get agreement on that quickly. john mcdonnell speaking there at the labour regional conference which is happening in blackpool. let's speak to sir alistair graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life. we go back a few years to the days ofjohn major and all the rest of it when his government was struggling with allegations of sleaze and the solution was to bring in an independent voice. did it work? well, in terms of the committee on standards in public life, they can only make recommendations to the prime minister and they have made very many important reports which have been followed through. what we are talking about here so i think is different to the sort of expenses scandal we had a few years ago in that with expenses there is hard information and evidence available and you can quickly move to a judgment, whereas as far as the sexual harassment allegations, they need very careful investigation and the complainants need a great deal of support and i am not sure the house of commons has the source of

independent skills people available to do that so that is the first thing i think that needs to be determined by the meeting on monday, where are these people going to come from, and the second most important thing is can they work with speed and who is going to receive the report? will it be all members of the house of commons, are we going to use the existing discipline rearrangements that exist for members of parliament? those are key questions because there needs to be total transparency and there needs total transparency and there needs to be swift disciplinary action if the evidence justifies that. the reason i asked the question was in a sense to highlight one of the problems potentially with this that arose arguably less so with the previous standards of public wealth which is a live and kicking and doing

valuable work, but in terms of the expenses scandal electoral public body being implemented and the mps spent a lot of time attacking that body and complaining that how it was operating and they find it difficult dealing with an organisation over which they and their parties have no control and how confident are you that for all the parties are now saying that something has to be done we have reached a point where things must change, can an independent if established, would they be quite so enthusiastic about it? that was a lwa ys enthusiastic about it? that was always the problem. they didn't like not being able to control the expenses system. there is still some unease but i think it so, on the half of parliament has done a solid job. whether it needs a new body or whether it needs very skilled and professional people able to deal with complainants and carry out investigations is another matter but i still think the key is siew, who

will these people report to? will it be, as! will these people report to? will it be, as i say, the house of commons standards committee or the full house of commons or will it be the prime minister or the leader of the opposition? these are key issues that will have to be quickly sorted out. i was interested by one of the things that sir michael fallon said when he resigned as defence secretary earlier this week, he said that he came to the conclusion that his behaviour fell short of what was accepted now and things that may have been accepted ten or 15 years ago in terms of relations between men and women are no longer the case, do you think things have changed in that way or are we acknowledging things that have a lwa ys acknowledging things that have always been and always been unacceptable? i think the sort of behaviour that has been alleged has a lwa ys behaviour that has been alleged has always been unacceptable, but i think the tolerance of this in places with rather closed societies like the house of commons have, in

fa ct like the house of commons have, in fact changed. higher standards are now expected and i think sir michael fallon was right about that. we haven't had the systems in place to deal with serious complaints, but the problem is always going to be, is the quality of evidence available to come to a firm conclusion? are we going to use the sort of several test of a balance of probabilities that we think this or that may have happened. then the difficulty arises that if you do use that test than someone decides that is something on which they can challenge that independent body decision through the courts. it would be effectively like your employer saying you been dismissed because they think you have done this content —— conduct and you take them to a tribunal. that certainly could well be the situation, particularly if you create a new independent body.

finally, what was your experience in running the committee on standards in public life and part of your remit was to look at westminster and broadly maintaining the quality of public surface and also you have politicians as part of the panel you we re politicians as part of the panel you were working with. did questions of the standards of conduct in westminster arrive then —— arise then? on sexual harassment was never brought to my other committees attention. what we did get early warning about was the expenses issues which were in my final speech as gemini alerted the political class that this could be a very major issue and it turned out to be so. thank you very much for speaking us so. thank you very much for speaking us from leeds this afternoon. an american citizen has appeared in court in zimbabwe charged with insulting president robert mugabe. martha o'donovan is accused of being behind a twitter account

which posted a tweet saying the country was being led by a selfish and sick man. ms o'donovan, who works for a satirical video outlet, denies the allegations as baseless and malicious. only around half of fixed speed cameras in the uk are actually switched on, according to figures obtained through a freedom of information request. and at least four police forces don't have any fixed speed cameras at all. alan clayton reports. for motorists caught out by them, they infuriate and bring a hefty fine. safety campaigners argue speed cameras are lifesavers. new research suggests only around half of the luminous boxes throughout the uk are operational. the press association sent a freedom of information request to all of the 45 forces asking how many fixed speed cameras they had and how many were active. the 36 which responded had a total of 2,838 cameras, of which only 52% were working. forces in cleveland, durham and north yorkshire said none of their fixed speed cameras were active. while northants said it

turned its cameras off six years ago but left them in place to deter speeding. those than replied said they used mobile speed cameras and regularly reviewed which cameras were turned on. i suspect in this case there thinking that the yellow boxes are there, they're sending out the message that motorists ought to be recognising about risky roads, but they're also increasingly looking to more advanced technology such as average speed cameras, or indeed better engineering of the road, which might have a more beneficial affect. the national police chiefs council said the decision to use cameras was an operational matter and that all forces have individual responsibility for their use of the cameras. alan clayton, bbc news. matt taylor is at the weather map.

it is soggy where you are do not despair. it will be drier for many and it could be sunny as well. that is coming in from the west. it is wettest this afternoon in the east, particularly norfolk and suffolk, where it takes longer is to turn dry and clear. temperatures dropped during the day with a sunshine and showers in the west, it will feel quite chilly. that could come with her land under and the weather will continue into the bonfire celebrations this evening. it will all drop down into double figures and in some areas it could get down to or below freezing. a crisp start to or below freezing. a crisp start to sunday morning and a breeze coming through. it will gradually ease and there are a lot of showers in wales and west of england at first but may become fewer in number and a few afternoon showers in the

east of england. hello. this is bbc news. ina in a moment it will be time for click, but before then, we will have a full round—up from bbc sport. hello, we missed you. have some technical problems. but i'm back with you. rugby league, big morning for scotland and england, they have bounced back from their opening defeat last weekend to australia, by beating lebanon, this time around, they are off the mark in terms of points, lebanon had beaten france last week, england took lead through kallum watkins. the lebanese, whose team has a real strong australian influence, got one

of their own 2—level, but england pulled away, tom burgess scoring the fifth and final try in a 29—10 win for england. we got the victory this week, which is important. it is a tournament we will build into. patches today where i thought we we re patches today where i thought we were really good, and sometimes, a little indifferent, but you know what, give a lot of credit to lebanon, for what they have done, first world cup, i think it has got to bea first world cup, i think it has got to be a celebration of where rugby league is going to get to, in my opinion. elsewhere, scotland have been dismantled by new zealand, in their second match in christchurch, losing 74—6, with the kiwis scoring 17 tries. scotland are bottom of their group having already lost against tonga in the opening match. real tough night, congratulations to new zealand, i thought that they we re new zealand, i thought that they were outstanding, they showed times last week that they are at their

best. and it was always a threat, if we did not turn up, and if