welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is lewis vaughanjones. our top stories: taken to safety injordan. israel evacuates at least 100 white helmet volunteers and their families from syria. donald trump rejects fbi claims that his former adviser, carter page, was recruited as a russian agent. the brexit secretary says he's confident the uk won't crash out of the eu without a deal if brussels shows ambition. how is aid in the war in yemen, threatening this unesco world heritage site? we have a special report. this is a poor island in a poor country, and the arrival here of rich donor nations is prompting some people to question whether the island is being subtly colonised. and mesut ozil says he'll no longer play for germany because of the attacks on him and his turkish heritage. hello.

the british founder of the syrian civil rescue force, known as the white helmets, says he's delighted that more than 100 hundred of them have been led to safety by israeli troops. there were fears the group and members of theirfamilies were about to be captured by syrian government forces. the white helmets describe themselves as volunteers trying to save lives, the assad regime says they support rebels and jihadists. mark lowen reports from neighbouring turkey. rescuing the rescuers — syrian civil defence volunteers and their families evacuated intojordan, and to safety. these pictures, filmed by the israeli army, show its troops escorting the white helmets from the syrian

border, escaping assad regime and russian forces. israel's prime minister said it was an urgent international operation. translation: the lives of these people who have saved lives were now in danger. i therefore authorised the transfer via israel to other countries, as an important humanitarian gesture. they will now be resettled in britain, canada and germany. the foreign secretary, jeremy hunt, called the white helmets the bravest of the brave, adding, "in a desperate situation, this is at least one ray of hope." in the hell of syria's war, the white helmets have often been the first on the scene, pulling victims from the rubble of air strikes, administering first aid when hospitals are bombed. nominated for the nobel peace prize, the volunteers say they have saved over 115,000 lives. 260 white helmets have been killed. but president assad calls them jihadists. as syrian government and russian

forces surround opposition areas of south—west syria, civilians and fighters have been bussed to rebel—held idlib in the north. but the regime refused to let the white helmets join them. as assad forces backed by russian air power close in on south—west syria, resistance is crumbling, and the medical lifeline of the white helmets has been cut. mark lowen, bbc news. let's get some of the day's other news. finance ministers from the 620 group of the world's largest economies have called from more dialogue on trade and tariffs, saying current tensions are threatening global growth. in recent months president trump has unilaterally imposed tariffs on imports from china and the european union. a former security aide to president macron of france has been charged in connection with the beating of a demonstrator during may day protests in paris. alexandre benalla was sacked on friday after video emerged which showed him assaulting a man.

mr macron‘s opponents accuse him of involvement in a cover—up. the cuban parliament has approved the first draft of a new constitution after a two—day debate. it drops any reference to building a communist society and recognises private property. the final document will be put to a national referendum. the far—right brazilian politician, jair bolsonaro, has officially announced his candidacy for the presidential election in october. mr bolsonaro, a former army captain, wants to loosen the country's gun controls to tackle crime. carter page, a former adviser to donald trump, has dismissed allegations that he collaborated with the russian government as ridiculous. documents containing the claim have been made public by the fbi in response to a freedom of information request.

the cache contains 412 pages of heavily redacted material. in the documents, carter page is refered to as an agent of foreign power. they also state that the fbi believes page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the russian government. earlier i spoke to david kris, founder of culper partners. he previously served as assistant attorney general for national security at the us department ofjustice. i asked him what evidence the fbi had that they thought carter page may be involved with the russian government. well, there is a good deal of evidence that's revealed in the applications that were released, including the fact that carter page spent time in russia, that he had an energy consulting business and met with a number of russian government officials, including intelligence officers. and then, of course, there's the information gathered by christopher steele, the former m16 officer

who is a source of information in the document. but even with today's releases, as you pointed out, a good deal of information remained unavailable, blacked out or redacted from what was released to the public, presumably in order to protect ongoing investigative efforts and intelligence sources and methods. so we don't know everything the government presented to the court, and indeed, there's quite a number of pages that have been blacked out, so we don't know quite a lot of information. of course, but let's deal with the information that we did get. donald trump and his supporters will say that part of the information that was relied on here by the fbi was paid to be dug up the democrats. yes, well, that's a reference to your man mr christopher steele. christopher steele indeed was hired to do political research on donald trump and his connections to russia. he was hired by the

democrats to do that. and president trump and a number of others are claiming essentially that the fbi misled the court when they applied for the wiretap by not revealing christopher steele's potential bias, given that he was hired by the other political party, the democrats. the difficulty with that claim is that, in fact, the fisa application did reveal steele was hired by trump's political opponents, so the claim that the fbi misled the fisa court is itself quite misleading. so you're questioning and denying trump's denial, which is slightly complicated. what about his other allegation that he has been tweeting out, that there's a suggestion that his campaign could have been being spied on, possibly illegally? well, that is just a repackaging of his basic claim that he doesn't like the fact that carter

page was wiretapped. but, you know, again, if the government met the standard, and we don't know everything, but there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that it did here, then there's really nothing proper to complain about. so the president, you know, is doing what he usually does, but it's not always rooted in fact and law, as conventional people understand those terms. and very quickly, we've just got 30 seconds or so, carter page of course has dismissed this completely, saying it's ridiculous, it's a joke. how worried would you be if you were him at the moment? if i were carter page, i would be quite worried. 0n the other hand, carter page is a very different person than most of us. he is obviously quite comfortable with a lot of uncertainty and strange activity in his life. so i'm not sure he's worried, although he perhaps ought to be. that was the former assistant

attorney general, david kris, with his analysis there. at least 1a people have been killed and more than 60 injured in a blast outside kabul international airport. the attack coincided with the arrival of afghan vice president, abdul rashid dostum. he had returned to the country following a year of self imposed exile in turkey. so—called islamic state says it was behind the suicide bombing near the airport's main entrance. a witness described what he saw. translation: an ordinary person came along. he looked normal, just like me. he was wearing black clothes. he talked to the police, and i thought he was a suicide bomber, and suddenly an explosion happened. general dostum was unharmed in the attack. he went on to receive a red carpet welcome, and was met by thousands of cheering supporters. the vice president denies the raft of accusations against him, which include allegations of brutality and human rights abuses. britain's new brexit secretary, dominic raab,

has accused the european commission of acting irresponsibly by trying to increase the pressure on the uk in negotiations. mr raab was commenting on a warning from brussels that citizens‘ rights would not be guaranteed if the talks failed. he said the british government would do everything it could to mitigate disruption if no agreement could be reached. 0ur political correspondent, chris mason, has more. laughter it sounded like they all agreed, but at the cabinet meeting last week, some around the table were still unsure about the prime minister's plan for brexit. that is according to the new brexit secretary. but he is sounding confident a deal can be done with brussels. i'm striving every sinew, with our department, with michel barnier, who i think is a man that wants to do a deal with us, tremendous pressures on his side, to get the best deal.

but we've got to... i think it's only the responsible thing to do to be prepared if those negotiations, and the energy and the ambition and the pragmatism we're showing, are not reciprocated. so that's the responsible thing to do, whether it's the allocation of money, preparation of our treaty relations. we're hiring extra border staff. the energy that we're going to bring to these negotiations, the ambition and the pragmatism, we get a deal done in october. the labour leader, jeremy corbyn, has spent the day in dorset, at the left—wing gathering the tolpuddle martyrs‘ festival. he is scathing about what he sees as government dithering. it's two years and a bit since the referendum. surely they should be in a better position now to know what kind of arrangements we're going to have in the future. and i just get the feeling that the tail is wagging the dog in the tory party. those that want no deal seem to be ruling the roost, and they're pushing for that. no deal would be a very, very bad situation. if the arguments about the uk and the eu sound just a tad familiar... reporter: morning, mr major! ..this man was furious with conservative eurosceptics a quarter of a century ago, and he still is. if we crash out without a deal,

the people who have least are going to be hurt most. it would be a terrible betrayal of the interests of everyday people, who really are not political. sirjohn cited a government forecast suggesting the north—east of england, which endorsed brexit, would take the biggest economic hit in the uk if there's no deal struck with the eu. he also said another referendum would be morallyjustified. so do people in middlesbrough agree? probably reconsider another referendum, due to the fact that they might not want to leave ‘cause quite a lot ofjobs would be lost. i think basically, what we should do is, if we get no agreement on brexit, we just walk away. everybody's so mixed up about it. nobody really understands it, and i think that's... if it was explained a bit more, people would have a better choice, and they would know what they were doing.

a new referendum just means that there‘s an opportunity for it to go back to how it was, and i think we could do with change. accommodating the variety of views, here and elsewhere, the central challenge for the government. chris mason reporting there. expertly taking us through the latest on the brexit negotiations. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: tens of thousands of israeli protesters rally against a law denying surrogacy to gay couples and single fathers. 0k, coming down the ladder now. that‘s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. a catastrophic engine fire is being blamed tonight for the first crash in the 30—year history of concorde, the world's only supersonic airliner. it was one of the most vivid symbols of the violence and hatred that tore apart the state of yugoslavia. but now, a decade later,

it's been painstakingly rebuilt, and opens again today. there‘s been a 50% decrease in sperm quantity, and an increase in malfunctioning sperm, unable to swim properly. thousands of households across the country are suspiciously quiet this lunchtime, as children bury their noses in the final instalment of harry potter. this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: israel has evacuated at least 100 of syria‘s white helmets civil defence volunteers and their families to jordan. the operation was the result of international cooperation. donald trump rejects fbi claims that his former adviser carter page was a russian agent and collaborated with moscow during the 2016 election campaign.

the war in yemen is now in its fourth year, with big regional powers drawn into the conflict. one of those is the united arab emirates, which is believed to be using the war to expand its influence. there is a uae presence in a string of neighbouring countries around the horn of africa, including eritrea and the remote yemeni island of socotra. 0ur security correspondent frank gardner has this exclusive report on how the war in yemen is threatening socotra, a unesco world heritage site. remote, mysterious, and home to some of the world‘s rarest plants and creatures, it has been called the galapagos of the indian ocean. this is socotra, a yemeni island just off the horn of africa.

and today, its isolation is ending, as big regional powers come to the aid of its poverty—stricken people, possibly bringing agendas of their own. a noisy reception for a shipment of aid delivered to this village by government charities from the uae, the united arab emirates. they‘re filling a vacuum left by a yemeni government that socotrans say has largely ignored them. this is soft power in action. these are garments flown in from abu dhabi and handed out to the villagers in this very poor village here in socotra, in yemen. it‘s a bit controversial because clearly this is aid. clearly everyone is very happy to be receiving these gifts. but some socotrans have said to us that the uae and other gulf countries are buying people‘s

loyalty, and that they‘ve got designs on this island, strategic designs. the boots on the ground are yemeni, but they‘ve been trained by the emiratis. this is socotra‘s local defence force practising riot control. the island has so far been spared the war ravaging mainland yemen, where uae forces are helping to fight the houthi rebels. but the emiratis have been expanding their presence here and elsewhere around the horn of africa. translation: the uae brothers supported us by giving us vehicles and motorcycles. they also supported us financially and psychologically. they are still with us in this special forces camp. up in the mountainous interior, i found islanders suspicious of any grand designs by regional middle eastern powers. they wanted aid, not troops. they also want to continue their traditions, like harvesting these dragon‘s blood

trees for their sap, used for both medicine and lipstick. socotra‘s culture and its ecology are unique. they‘ve developed in near isolation from mainland yemen over the centuries. but this is a poor island in a poor country, and the arrival here of rich donor nations is prompting some people to question whether their island is being subtly colonised. explorers and occupiers have been here before. the portuguese, the british, then later, the russians. socotra remains a tempting prize for anyone looking to build up their presence in this region. translation: the presence and support of any foreign country should not include taking parts of yemen‘s territories. no, it shouldn‘t happen like this. it‘s about humanitarian aid, in the end, as yemen goes through a miserable time.

nearly 1,000 miles away lies abu dhabi, the uae‘s prosperous capital. that country has close family links to socotra, and its minister insisted its intentions are benign. we have no colonisation ambitions over socotra. we have no need for ports over socotra. it‘s developmental, it‘s humanitarian. there is no doubt that the emiratis and others are raising living standards on socotra. this hospital, for example, depends entirely on the uae support. the challenge for the future, though, is to do this without infringing on yemeni sovereignty, and without destroying the very balance of nature that makes this island unique. frank gardner, bbc news, socotra, yemen. you can find more detailed information about the conflict in yemen on our website. there is anaylsis, as well as reports from our correspondents based

in the region. go to bbc.com/news, or download the bbc news app. the roman catholic cardinal of nicaragua, leopoldo brenes, says the church is being persecuted by the government of daniel 0rtega. church leaders have been attempting to mediate during months of anti—government protests. the un says more than 300 people have been killed. churches have been vandalised in recent weeks, and cardinal brenes said he had been manhandled by the security forces. british police are continuing to investigate a suspected acid attack on a three—year—old boy in worcester. the youngster‘s face and arm were seriously burned when the liquid was thrown on him on sunday afternoon. a 39—year—old man has been arrested in connection with the incident. detective have released security camera footage in the hope of determining exactly what happened. sweden is appealing for international help to tackle dozens of forest fires

raging across the country. firefighters are continuing their struggle to put out the wildfires, after a protracted period of exceptional heat and drought. aircraft support to tackle the blazes has already been provided by italy and france, and more is being offered by germany, poland and denmark. tens of thousands of israeli protesters have rallied in tel aviv against a law denying surrogacy to gay couples and single fathers. demonstrators say men wanting a family will be forced to continue seeking surrogate mothers abroad, for large sums of money. activists say the strike was not only about the law, but the place of the gay community in israeli society. georgina smyth has the story. rainbow flags fly higher, as thousands push for equality in israel. it is the end of a day—long strike in protest to the exclusion of gay

men from surrogacy legislation passed last week. we came here today to say to the government, no more. we want equality, and we want equal rights for everyone. previously, only heterosexual married couples were able to use a surrogate. under the changes, women can access a surrogate. but prime minister benjamin netanyahu didn‘t extend that to single men and, by extension, men in same—sex relationships. he says the entire bill would have otherwise been blocked in parliament. on one side, we have areas in tel aviv, in the centre, and some parts ofjerusalem even, that we feel that it‘s very liberal and that we can be open, and love who we want to love, and be who we want to be. but there are a lot of places in israel where it‘s still not that situation.

the new law has touched a nerve in israel, which does recognise same—sex unions performed abroad. however, gay relationships are still considered taboo among religious conservatives. georgina smyth, bbc news. one of germany‘s star football players, mesut 0zil, says he will no longer play for the national team. in a long and heartfelt statement on twitter, he also accused the german football association of racism. 0zil, who plays for arsenal and is of turkish origin, has been widely criticised in germany for being photographed alongside the turkish president at an event in may. aaron safir reports. he plays at the heights of european football at british premier league side arsenal. he has 92 caps and has scored 23 goals for his country. in 2014, he was part of germany‘s world cup winning side, but a lot has changed since then. in may this year, 0zil and another player were photographed with turkey‘s president. recep tayyip erdogan later used to that photo in his election campaign. 0zil says they only discussed

football, but the photo op caused an uproar. the german football federation said the players had let themselves be manipulated for erdogan‘s election campaign, and a prominent turkish—origin mp in germany called it a cruel foul, saying the players were posing with a despot while erdogan carried out repression at home. the controversy followed 0zil to russia and this year‘s world cup, where the defending champions were knocked out early on. now, 0zil says he has been made a scapegoat. the 29—year—old says he‘ll no longer play for germany because of racism and disrespect. he talks about racist verbal abuse, hate mail and threats on social media. 0zil was born in germany, so why, he asks, is he called german—turkish? 0zil said he would have been disrespecting his ancestors‘ routes if he hadn‘t posed with

the turkish president in may. other european footballers who play for their national teams but have heritage from a different country might sympathise with that. for now, though, those tensions have proved too much for 0zil, who says he can no longer wear germany‘s colours with pride. aaron safir, bbc news. the hills are alive with the sound of music. this is with the world‘s biggest alphine horn festival, in switzerland, of couse. thousands of spectators watched and listened to the 200 performers dressed in traditional attire. the instruments, which are made from wood, are assocciated with the traditional swiss agrarian culture. don‘t forget you can get in touch with me and some i‘m @lvaughanjones.

temperatures got up to 30 degrees on sunday, and the heat is going to continue over the next few days. if anything, it‘ll turn even hotter across parts of southern and south—eastern england. temperatures may actually even get up to 33 celsius. now, on the satellite picture, we have a few weather fronts moving through, but they are very, very weak. they‘re not bringing an awful lot of rainfall, just about nudging into north—western parts of scotland and northern ireland. to the south of that, this is where the heat is, across spain, portugal, france. in fact, all of that heat through monday will be expanding right across europe, and all the way into scandinavia, where incidentally it‘s been a record—breaking summer, lack of rainfall there, as well, and temperatures into the 30s — very unusual. now, cooler air is trying to tuck into north—western parts of the country, and actually, parts of scotland and northern ireland will be among the coolest places

in europe over the next few days. but this is what it looks like first thing on monday morning. very warm — 20 degrees, that‘s the overnight low in london. 16, 17 degrees there for the lowlands of scotland and for belfast. so here‘s our very small, weak weather front here, bringing a few spots of rain. and you can see itjust pretty much falls apart, brings some rainfall to northern ireland and maybe some western isles there during the course of monday, but that‘s pretty much it. to the south of that, the heat is on. temperatures widely in the high 20s, and in excess of 30 degrees there in the south—east and east anglia. so a very hot day for some of us at least on monday, but not necessarily in the north—west of the country. and you can see through monday evening, it‘s a very slow—moving weather front. it probably will stall somewhere around the irish sea as we head into tuesday. so there is a possibility of perhaps a bit more cloud, maybe one or two showers around northern england, possibly wales into tuesday, but that‘s pretty much it. it looks like that hot air will continue to pump in from the south and spread across france, germany,

into scandinavia and poland as well. so we‘re just on the edge of the heat here, actually. that‘s why it‘s only going to be hot across these eastern counties, the midlands and the south—east. many western areas here will be under the influence of that less—hot air coming off the atlantic, but still temperatures of 20 in belfast, 2a in plymouth, and easily 30 degrees or more on tuesday. in fact, temperatures this week could get up to about 33 celsius. so a very hot week on the way, but further north it will be just that little bit cooler, more pleasant, with a spell of rain heading to northern ireland, i think, sometime midweek. that‘s it from me, bye—bye. this is bbc news, the headlines: at least 100 members of the volunteer syrian civil defence force, known as the white helmets and theirfamilies, have been rescued by israeli troops from southern syria. they‘re now safe injordan along with three hundred members of theirfamiles. donald trump has rejected fbi claims that his former adviser, carter page, was a russian agent

and collaborated with moscow during the 2016 election campaign. documents containing the claim have been made public by the fbi in response to a freedom of information request. the brexit secretary, dominic raab, says he‘s confident a deal can be reached with the european union, in time for the mid 0ctober deadline. he‘s due to return to brussels for more talks later this week. mr raab also said it was right to prepare for the possibility of no agreement. now on bbc news, hardtalk‘s stephen sackur speaks to the australian writer, tim winton.