welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name's mike embley. our top stories: the uk's counter—terrorism investigation intensifies, as a couple come into contact with the nerve agent novichok. the site is just a few miles away from the location of the russian poisoning in march. we can confirm that the man and woman have been exposed to the nerve agent novichok, which has been identified as the same nerve agent that contaminated both julia and sergei skripal. training for escape in thailand — the boys trapped in a flooded cave get advice from the military on a possible plan to get them out safely. we report from syria on the plight of people in one of the last rebel strongholds under fire from government forces. hello.

in the last few hours, british police have confirmed that two people who've fallen critically ill have been poisoned with a novichok nerve agent. the couple were discovered in the town of amesbury in south west england. the town is a few kilometres from where the former russian spy, sergei skripal, and his daughter yulia were poisoned in march. police say the substance had been identified by chemical weapons research experts. duncan kennedy reports. four months to the day after the salisbury attack, and dawn sturgess and charlie rowley have become the new victims of nerve agent poisoning in britain. the couple were taken ill from their home on saturday are now critically ill in hospital. this is the moment the emergency unfolded on saturday night. the bbc has been given these phone images of the fire and ambulance services at the property. this man says he is a friend of the couple and saw what happened.

he was sweating, dribbling and he couldn't speak and was making funny noises and was rocking back and forwards, there was no response, he didn't even know i was there. it was like he was in another world, hallucinating. the nerve agent was identified in porton down near amesbury — the same place used to identify the novichok liquid in march. tonight the metropolitan police counterterrorism unit confirmed the latest findings. following the detailed analysis of those samples, we can confirm the man and woman have been exposed to the nerve agent novichok, which has been identified as the same nerve agent that contaminated both julia and sergei skripal. the latest update we have from hospital is that both patients remain in a critical condition. for the past four months, salisbury has been a scene of massive decontamination, after the poisoning of sergei and julia skripal

and a police sergeant. a number of sites were handed back to the public, but the cleanup is still going on in the places with the highest concentrations. everyone had assumed that cleanup would be the end of the contamination story, so the revelation tonight there is a fresh nerve agent incident will come as a shock to many people. although public health england have stressed again today that the risk to the public remains low. wiltshere police say five sites are being investigated in this latest novichok incident, including this church in amesbury and this park in salisbury. both of which, it is thought, the couple caught up in this latest poisoning had visited. they are being treated in the same salisbury hospital as the skripals were, dawn sturgess and charlie rowley now receiving world—class care to fight this deadliest of substances amid an extraordinary twist in this potent sequence of events. duncan kennedy, bbc news, in amesbury. more to come on novichok.

efforts are continuing in northern thailand to work out the best way to rescue the 12 boys and their football coach who've been trapped in flooded caves for 11 days. they're being given food, and the authorities are trying to put in phone lines so that the boys can speak to theirfamilies. but they say no attempt to rescue them will be made until it can be done safely, and that could take months. our south east asia correspondent jonathan head reports from the scene in chiang rai province. no longer alone. the trapped boys now have an army doctor treating them. they even manage a smile. they're being given foil blankets to keep them warm. they are painfully thin. "the food is coming", promises one of the divers.

up on the surface, they've been rehearsing for the scenario everyone here is hoping for — getting the boys out and off to hospital. but it won't happen soon. translation: we need to be 100% confident in order to get the boys out, and they don't have to come out at the same time. we are assessing the situation and if there is a risk, we will not move them out. the options confronting this rescue operation are just as tough as when they found the boys. they are healthy enough, but they say giving them some basic diving training and pulling them through the flooded tunnels one by one is feasible, and yet we've spoken to sources inside the thai diving team who say that's still too risky, that they may still have to leave those boys down there for the full four to five months of the rainy season. we visited the class of dom, the football team captain, and mick — both trapped in the caves. did they have a message for their classmates?

translation: i want them to get healthy, to be patient, and to come back safely so they can be with us again. come back quickly, there's lots of homework waiting for you! singing. other school friends have been down to the cave entrance to see the rescue effort and to sing them good wishes. spirits are high here. but the task of the divers, either in extracting the boys or sustaining them underground, is formidable. they will need all the help they can get. jonathan head, bbc news, tham luang caves, northern thailand. a short time ago, i got the latest from the bbc‘s sophie long, who is in tham luang,

outside the cave entrance. there it is a huge amount of activity here. military vehicles are coming up and down this steep hill. throughout the night, this is round—the—clock, they are trying to bring down the water levels. they are pumping outi0,000 bring down the water levels. they are pumping out 10,000 litres an hour around the clock. they hope to reduce the water levels. the safest way is to come out the way they went in. it is almost impossible at the moment. the weather conditions are good at the moment. it is likely to change. we are expecting big rain at the end of the week, monsoon rain, where a water will fall and create flash flooding conditions that caused this problem in the first place. the boys have spent 12 nights

in the cave. it is cold and dark. they have, as you saw in that report, medics with them. they are not alone. 0ne report, medics with them. they are not alone. one thing they are trying to do is established communications so to do is established communications so the boys can speak to their pa rents. so the boys can speak to their parents. a very emotional time for them. they spend nine days not knowing if they were alive. huge euphoria on monday. still we don't know how to get them out. what they are trying to do is to keep the boys healthy, physically and mentally, so ifan healthy, physically and mentally, so if an opportunity arises they will be physically capable of taking that opportunity. it is hoped it a communications line can be installed they can speak to their families and that will be a big boost to their maroua. there are factors on their side. —— morale. they have their coach with them. they are going through this together. that is all good. but really we expect a press briefing in the next hour to see if they are closer to making a decision

about how they are going to get the boys out and how long it might take. we might have more details on that later this morning. it is a real possibility that they might have to stay down there and try to wait out the monsoon season stay down there and try to wait out the monsoon season and hope that they survive and that the airport that they are in survives? -- air pocket. that was the initial warning, they could be in forfour months. the monsoon hasjust begun. even the waiting game is not without dangers. as you say, the monsoon season dangers. as you say, the monsoon seasonis dangers. as you say, the monsoon season is unpredictable. if there is a large amount of water, there could be implications for that little sheh be implications for that little shelf that they are gathered on at the moment. so while some say it is the moment. so while some say it is the safest way to go about this, to keep them well and healthy and have a communication line, and to wait it out, it that option is not without danger. the other thing they are looking at is drilling into the cave

from another cavan, and that sounds simple, but to get heavy drilling equipment needed to do that, they would have to build new roads and even then we don't know if that would work —— cavern. it is very thick rock in this complex that they find themselves in. it could be a waiting game. the other option we heard about is that they might teach the kids to dive. many of the boys can't swim and they have no diving experience. even the diving experts, the britons who found them on monday, they said it was complicated and problematic. very narrow passageways. you can't fit two people in at the same time and some means it would be difficult to get an oxygen tank in. if you think about the boys who have been in for about the boys who have been in for a long time. they don't have diving experience. visibility is very poor. it isa experience. visibility is very poor. it is a very thick mud. the visibility is very poor. even if they like the way with a full face

mask there is still a problem with that. any panic would be very bad, not just dangerous for them, that. any panic would be very bad, notjust dangerous for them, but that. any panic would be very bad, not just dangerous for them, but for the people trying to rescue them. sophie long for us. let's get some of the day's other news. there have been clashes between palestinian protesters and israeli police in the occupied west bank over the planned demolition of a bedouin village. israel's supreme court has approved proposals to evict more than 170 palestinian bedouins. officials describe their homes as illegal. police in new york have removed a woman who climbed onto the base of the statue of liberty in an apparent protest against president trump's immigration policy. the area around the statue was evacuated. earlier, a group climbed the pedestal and unfurled a banner reading "abolish ice", a reference to a us immigration enforcement agency. new zealand's court of appeal has ruled that the internet entrepreneur, kim dotcom, can be extradited to the united states. the founder of the file—sharing website, mega—upload, faces criminal charges of breaching copyright laws and racketeering. kim dotcom's lawyer said that his client would appeal to new zealand's supreme court. still to come: from roof

top to shop floor, how one supermarket in belgium is taking care of supply and demand by growing its own fruit and vegetables. china marked its first day of rule in hong kong with a series of spectacular celebrations. a huge firework display was held in the former colony. the chinese president, jiang zemin, said unification was the start of a new era for hong kong. the world's first clone has been produced of an adult mammal. scientists in scotland have produced a sheep called dolly, that was cloned in a laboratory using a cell from another sheep. for the first time in 20 years, russian and american spacecraft have docked in orbit, at the start of a new era of cooperation in space. challenger powered past

the bishop rock lighthouse at almost 50 knots, shattering the record that had stood for 34 years. and there was no hiding the sheer elation of richard branson and his crew. this is bbc world news. tthe latest headlines: british police say two people who've fallen critically ill were exposed to the same type of nerve agent used in the attempted murder of a former russian spy and his daughter. let's stay with that story now. martin boland is a senior lecturer in medicinal chemistry at charles darwin university in australia. hejoins us now via web cam. this comes after the initial

incident back in march. it seems unusual to be completely unconnected that people should fall ill several months later. the authorities are trying to work out whether this is some kind of second attack. whether they've come a distant containerisation that wasn't found. —— coming to some contamination. that seems to be the working theory at the moment. looking into the report that was prepared after material was sent from british

authorities, they said that the material which was found was very pure so it implies that it probably wasn't mixed in the uk, it was sent to the uk is what we call a unitary weapon. it wasn't mixed once it arrived in the uk. it seems a little bit strange. tell us more about novichok. it's intended to kill very quickly all at the very least have permanent effects, leave people permanently invalid. the compounds are designed to stop you from breathing. this particular ones seems to have quite a long time between being exposed and actually causing the person to start exhibiting symptoms. it seems from

the report that the two people involved fell ill at different times. that could be that they were exposed at different times and both took the same length of time to succumb to the poison. the other possibility is that they were both exposed at the same time but to different amounts of material. the one with less material would fall ill slightly later. i am sure you know, if it was novichok, you would not have to look far to find a lot of people who think it was from russia but also porton down. what do you say to that? that is a long bow to draw. these materials were developed in the old soviet union, starting in the mid—1970s. they were exposed, not revealed by the russian

government. exposed by a defect in the early 1990s. the best of most ‘s understanding, they were not developed for research to extensively in the west because at the same time as they were revealed, the same time as they were revealed, the world governments were signing the world governments were signing the chemical weapons convention. that seemed to put a lid on the whole idea of chemical warfare forever. it seems now, 2030 years later. thank you very much. heavy fighting has continued in southern syria, as government forces try to recapture deraa province — one of the last rebel strongholds. the un says at least 270,000 people — a third of the population — have fled their homes since the assault began

two weeks ago. many of the displaced have gone towardsjordan and the israeli—occupied golan heights — but the border crossings remain closed. 0ur middle east editorjeremy bowen reports from the region. here in damascus, the atmosphere has felt very different, much more peaceful, ever since syrian forces, with the help of the russians, eliminated the last rebel enclaves around the city back in the spring. now they are on the march again, down in the south of the country, and they seem to be heading for another decisive victory. these are stirring times for supporters of president assad. the offensive is hard for us to report, as the authorities here haven't allowed the bbc to travel to the south. the main objective is the city of daraa. it's strategically important, on the border with jordan, and it's a vital symbol because it's the place where demonstrations against president assad started in 2011. the syrian army is making steady progress with overwhelming

firepower and russian help. some rebel groups posting pictures of the fight say they won't surrender. the americans, who armed and trained some of them, have told them not to expect any help. 0ther armed groups are negotiating surrender deals brokered by the russians. civilians have been killed. this is believed to be the aftermath of an air strike on the village of musayfrah last week. local reports say 22 people, including 12 children, died. the living were alongside the dead as they rushed them to hospital. reports say hospitals have also been bombed. funerals are being held quickly and unceremoniously. since these bodies were buried this

area has been captured. huge numbers of people have been displaced by the offensive. the un and other humanitarian groups have issued grave warnings about their safety. jordan is allowing aid through its border, but with more than a million syrian refugees already, it won't let the new arrivals in. refugees have gathered near the battlefield's other border with the golan heights, syrian territory occupied by israel. the israelis have sent in aid, but their borders are closed too. the syrian army held a victory rally in a captured town. it won't be the last. regional powers and the americans seem to have accepted that the syrian army and the russians will win the battle of the south. the war isn't over. but president assad is firmly in power in this country, and, one by one, he's destroying his enemies. jeremy bowen, bbc news, damascus.

now to a concept that's turning food production upside down. 0ne supermarket in belgium is sourcing some of its supplies from its own roof. andy beatt reports. for the freshest, most local produce, look to the skies. this brussels supermarket literally going green with its own rooftop garden. the urban farm is producing a range of fruits and vegetables without use of pesticides, while cutting distribution costs to zero. the products are harvested in the morning at 8am and an hour later they are in the store. clients appreciate the freshness of the product, they even tell us that they can keep the products for longer in their fridge, so it is a very short chain. the farm uses distilled rainwater, solar panels and heat recirculated

from the store's cooling systems, to produce the most sustainable produce possible. we are very conscious about the foods that we buy, fruit and vegetables and we wonder where it comes from. for people who want to buy local, more local than this, it is impossible. for these people it will be good. but high—rise horticulture brings its own challenges. team of gardeners has had to work within tight weight restrictions, while biodiversity on rooftops isn't the same as in the field. translation: there is a danger we could get overwhelmed by pests or diseases as we cannot rely on the surrounding nature to help, but we have tried to create an island of nature to do permaculture, but in a completely urban way. if the project really gets off the ground,

the supermarket chain says are the stores could soon see their own rooftop revolution. the french president, emmanuel macron, says the european union's plans to set up centres in north africa to process asylum claims won't work unless the countries there lead the initiative. on a visit to nigeria, mr macron said solutions had to come from the continent. it can fly, if some african governments decide to organise it. have any african countries agreed? i am in the same situation. no. i am in the same situation. it is always very easy to decide for others. at the european table we should decide for ourselves first. on his visit, emmanuel macron took in some cultural delights too. at the africa shrine, he was introduced to a very talented young artist. 11—year—old kareem waris 0lamilekan

attended the special event in lagos where he drew a portrait of the world leader injust two hours. kareem say‘s he's inspired by artists such as michelangelo and fellow nigerian portrait painter, arinze stanley egbengwu. we went to meet him. i draw castles, comics. i get my inspiration from something going on at home, especially my family. i want to be like isaac and michelangelo. that is myself among great artists. my best work is this because of the title. that's it.

my family, work hard for me. impressive, just 11. a reminder of our top story. british police say two people who've fallen critically ill were exposed to the same type of nerve agent used in the attempted murder of a former russian spy and his daughter. a police spokesman said the use of a novichok nerve agent had been confirmed by chemical weapons research experts. he said there was no evidence that the couple had been deliberately targeted. the bbc‘s security correspondent, gordon corera, says one theory is that they were contaminated by some of the substance discarded following the attack on sergei and yulia skripal in salisbury in march. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter — i'm @bbcmikeembley. hello there.

29 degrees celsius was the high yesterday. that was in northern ireland. there will be a dramatic dip in the temperature here during the day ahead. we had and will have a dramatic drop in temperature for parts of scotland. you can see we had a few shower clouds yesterday. we had a few light showers across the southern half of the country. a smattering of rain for some of the gardens. we will see perhaps a little bit more during the day ahead. the change in scotland and northern ireland was brought about by this band of cloud. the odd spot of drizzle. the noticeable change is a dip in temperature. for many of us, temperatures are higher than wednesday morning. a bit more comfortable for sleeping, i'm sure. this weather system is not bringing much weather. just a line of cloud. most of the rain is further north. but it is bringing the fresher atlantic air in. you can see the delineation between the hot air

and that is the atlantic influence. that is why temperatures in scotland and northern ireland could be 10 degrees lower than those yesterday. there should not be as much weather on that system. more cloud as it goes gradually east through the day. things will brighten up. cloud is building for the south to be a few showers in the pennines. more likely in the southern half of the uk, parts of wales in southern and central england. they could well be heavier than yesterday. thunder, given the heat building. it looks like the heat will be higher on the temperatures by a degree or two for the bulk of england and wales to be a contrast after the 29, only 18 or 19 during the day ahead. there will be a refreshing sea breeze around the coast. thursday and friday. the change in the wind on thursday today should see the low cloud shift away from the east coast more quickly. early—morning mist will burn away.

then it's a lovely day. the odd shower in the east. temperatures gradually starting to recover across scotland and northern ireland as we lose the atlantic influence, building the heat by the day and therefore by night. it will be uncomfortably hot. many of us once again with temperatures in central and southern areas getting towards 30 degrees. high pressure ensures lots of dry weather through the weekend. the fly in the ointment is more cloud at times, producing patchy rain on these weak weather fronts towards the north and west. temperatures recovering and hot further south. refreshing sea breezes around the coast. still strong sunshine. looks as though fine weather will last into the early part of next week. this is bbc world news. the headlines: british police say two people who've fallen critically ill in south west england were exposed to novichok, the same type of nerve agent used to poison the former russian spy sergei skripal and his daughter, in salisbury, just about 12 kilometres away. officers say there's no evidence the couple

were deliberately targeted. in thailand, 10,000 litres of water an hour are being pumped out of the flooded cave complex where 12 teenage boys and their football coach are trapped. the hope is they can be rescued before the monsoon rains start within days. otherwise they may have to wait underground for up to five months. there's been more heavy fighting in southern syria, as government force try to recapture daraa province, one of the last rebel strongholds. un officials say at least 270,000 people, a third of the population, have fled their homes. it's just gone 3:30am in the morning. you're up to date on the headlines.