hello. i'm kasia madera with bbc world news. our top story: north korea has cancelled planned talks with south korea in protest at military exercises with the united states. pyongyang also warned washington to think carefully about whether next month's summit between kim jong—un and us president donald trump could go ahead as planned. the united nations security council's held a minute's silence for the 60 palestinians who were killed by israeli forces over the past two days. two more palestinians were shot dead in gaza while the emergency session was taking place. and this video is trending on bbc.com. it's of a rare blue diamond, which has sold at auction in geneva for $6.7 million, after spending the last 300 years in european royal houses. it sold after just four minutes of bidding, passing its previous estimate. that's all from me now. stay with us here on bbc world news. it's now time for hardtalk.

hello and welcome to hardtalk. i'm shaun ley. brazil was one of the success stories of the early 21st century. under president lula, rapid economic growth combined with radical redistribution of money to the poor. dilma rousseff, who was tortured under the military dictatorship, succeeded him, but under her presidency, the economy faltered. in 2016, she was forced from office, accused of fiddling the figures to boost her chances of re—election. well, now she's here in london drumming up support for lula's bid to be re—elected president — only he's currently in a prison cell in brazil having been convicted of corruption. so are they the saints or sinners of brazil's political class? dilma rousseff, thank

you for speaking to hardtalk. you are travelling the world, you are in london at the moment in support of your predecessor, the man all brazilians know as lula. why are you so confident that he could be president again? let's deal with two things that you have raised there. the first is you have talked about the reality. the reality is he is in prison at the moment, he is serving a prison term for corruption, and the courts, at the highest level, have said that his appeals have been exhausted. he cannot, if he is a convicted prisoner whose appeals have been exhausted injail, be a candidate. that's the reality under the brazilian law. how can it be a coup if all the procedures of the law have been observed 7 you make two questions. i must interrupt you. he was not tried by the media, he was tried by the courts.

no! the supreme court, ultimately. if there was really no case, the supreme court would not have supported this conviction, it would have overturned it. a supreme court, incidentally, of which the vast majority of members were appointed either when president lula was in office,