the two main candidates in zimba bwe‘s presidential elections have addressed large crowds of supporters in the capital, harare. president emmerson mnangagwa of the zanu—pf party faces a challenge nelson chamisa of the opposition mdc. it's the first presidential poll since robert mugabe was ousted from power in november, from power in november. what's the perfect way to celebrate your 80th birthday? how about a trip around the world on a private plane? that's exactly what one couple from cheshire have decided to do, but they won't be travelling on a luxuryjet. jim jones will be flying the small two seater aircraft himself, and his wife dot will be navigating. mark edwardson has been to see them before they set off. jim has been a pilot for more than 50 years. right, 0k, everything all right, yeah? fuel on. and he understands the importance of checking and rechecking. dot is navigating.

as a fallback in case something goes wrong and the electronics aren't working. their odyssey will start at liverpool airport, it will head across europe to turkey, central asia and china will follow. from russia it's a hop to alaska, canada and the united states, before heading back to liverpool. all flying of this type is described as hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror. that's a good description. jim and dot have been daredevils most of their lives. they're accomplished dirtbikers. jim, a former champion, only gave up last year. i cartwheeled the bike at about 65 on rock and i thought time to take up darts or bingo. and my son said, "well, what are you going to do?" and i thought, i'll fly around the world. that was a couple of years ago when i decided i would do this flight.

jim and dot have already been on a round the world trip. however, that one took them seven years in a minibus and on motorbikes. this one, a mere a0 days. well, the motivation, really, is the fact we're old but we just don't want to sit at home and watch telly. we'll have some arguments, we'll have some discussions and we'll have a few laughs. but most importantly, we want to enjoy ourselves. jim and dot want to raise a £250,000 for the alzheimer's society in memory of a close relative who suffered dementia. flight sponsors will will have their names displayed on the fuselage. ideally, we'd love a company to come along and say, "well, can we have the whole plane, that would be wonderful." realistically, people are just making small donations and as they say, every little bit helps. wouldn't it be lovely if you said i'll fly around the world as 100. no, it's out of the question. if you do it, i promise you i'll come with you. 0k, oh, that's that.

is that a deal? yeah, i'll take you up on that. because i'll be 70. preparations are well under way forjim and dot‘s world tour. smooth bureaucracy and a strong tail wind is what they need now. mark edwardson, bbc news. now on bbc news, our world. i will be back at the top of the hour. it was a murder that sent shock waves around the world. a prominent russian journalist has been shot dead. arkady babchenko was an outspoken critic of president vladimir putin. just weeks after the novichok poisonings in salisbury, another apparent attack on foreign soil. but a day later arkady babchenko was back from the dead. tonight, for the first time, the inside story of the fake murder. translation: they put pigs' blood in my mouth and then when i was shot, i fell to my knees and coughed to make the blood splatter.

babchenko's wife tells her side of the story. translation: you just can't believe it. you don't want to believe it. and we track down the hit man. it's a tale worthy of a spy thriller, but in an age of fake news, was the truth the real casualty? i'm jonah fisher. for the last few weeks i've been on the trail of an extraordinary murder mystery. it happened here in kiev, the capital of ukraine. and at the heart of it is one man. babchenko is a russianjournalist.

he fled moscow last year after receiving death threats and got a job with the ukrainian tv station. he's an outspoken critic of vladimir putin. translation: he's a usurper, a little dictator who lives completely in his own world. he wants to be like napoleon. collecting together all russian lands. but ukraine, which sees itself as being at war with russia, can be a dangerous place for putin's opponents. in the last two years, several dissident russian journalists and politicians have been killed in kiev. exactly who was behind the murders remains unclear. 0ur story begins earlier this year.

was arkady babchenko about to become the next target? very nice to meet you. welcome. how are you doing? i'm glad to see you. i'm happy to see you too! crazy times. yeah. tsymbaliuk tells me how in april this year he met an old contact, an arms manufacturer called borys herman. tsymbaliuk claims herman was looking to arrange the murder

of arkady babchenko, on behalf of a wealthy client. and when he told you that he wanted you to kill babchenko, what did you say? and did you plan to go through with it? tsymbaliuk agreed to carry out herman's request. but at the same time, tipped off the sbu, ukraine's intelligence service. they suspected russia could be behind it and decided to stage the killing of the journalist.

the sbu's boss is vasyl hrytsak. why was the decision taken to fake arkady babchenko's murderer? translation: because we were told that there were several units in ukraine and that this assassination is just a test run for others. only by staging this crime could we get the list of targets. we had to know more about who was involved in preparing and commissioning this terrible crime. what was the price for killing him? did you discuss how the murder would be carried out? it was time to let

arkady babchenko know that there was a price on his head. sbu agents told him of their audacious plot. they wanted to stage his murder to flush out those who had ordered the killing. translation: my first thought was not to trust them, that maybe it's a setup. ijust wanted to grab my family and flee somewhere like australia or antarctica where they can't find us. but then it became clear to me, why should we run? here are people who came to kill, and we have a chance to stop them. we need to do this. why should we do nothing? now arkady babchenko had to let his wife, 0lga, in on the plan. translation: my first reaction was not shock but fear.

that awful fear when you realise, this is not a movie or tv. this is really all happening right now to your family in your house. and you just can't believe it. you don't want to believe it. sbu agents had arranged a make—up artist for the murder scene. when i was lying on the floor, the make—up artist used pigs blood inside the bullet holes. my lips were smeared, they poured blood into my mouth. they poured it underneath me. fake assassin 0leksiy tsymbaliuk and i retrace his steps from that night. babchenko's wife 0lga had been waiting in the wings. now it was time for her to take centre stage. translation: after the killer left,

i waited a little while. then i called an ambulance. i explained the situation that i'd come out of the bathroom and found my husband in a pool of blood. translation: the police arrived quickly, after about five minutes. the first officers were aware of the special operation, but they also brought with them lots of other policemen who didn't know. my wife told them, i'm a russian journalist, and they all said, "oh, here we go again." paramedics were also soon on the scene. they had been briefed on the fake murder plot. and were ready to play along. translation: they started to treat me. because there were other people there who could see us through the window. we drove for a while and then, as planned, i began to die. now the fake murder plot moved

into its next phase. starting with a message to arkady babchenko's old friend and boss, tvjournalist, aider muzhdabaev. translation: i took the car and immediately began to look for him in hospitals. his wife told me he was wounded and had to be taken away. 0n the way, i got the tragic news from police that he had died in an ambulance, so i went straight to his apartment. it's a huge loss forjournalism because he was one of the few individuals who wrote the real truth about russia and that's why he was killed. translation: aider arrived first.

it hurts to remember how he wept like a child whose mother had just been killed in front of him. i've never seen a man cry so much before. he just howled. and how did that make you feel? because of course, you knew that it was all fake? translation: to watch those close to you suffering is unbearable. translation: we arrived at the morgue. throughout all this, i had to act like i was a murdered man. because there were

journalists waiting outside. the strangest two to three hours of my life was when i was sitting in the morgue, wrapped in a sheet like gandhi. smoking and watching tv news about what a wonderful guy i was, and next door a pathologist was sawing a skull, performing an autopsy. what were you thinking about while arkady was at the morgue? translation: i envied him because he didn't have to talk to anyone. i thought he was probably in a peaceful place at this point. and i was stuck in this agony. that night the sbu leaked this

picture of the fake murder scene on to social media. news of babchenko's death was about to go global. the fake assassination took place just weeks after russia was blamed by the british government for poisoning the skripals, in salisbury. now russia was being accused once again. this time of involvement in the plot to kill babchenko. we are sorry to hear accusations of our country being involved in this crime as it was presented by ukrainian officials. within a couple of hours we were trying to plan how we can present the truth. because we are accused of doing all evil on earth. meanwhile, in kiev sbu agents had the middleman,

borys herman, under surveillance, hoping it would provide conclusive proof that russia had ordered the killing. translation: yes, we had a plan to wait for longer to allow things to develop. the next day borys herman was supposed to pay off tsymbaliuk for the completed job. but there was lots of noise around the case. all the media was talking about it. at that point we found herman had bought a ticket to leave ukraine so we had to take some steps. sbu agents swooped on an unsuspecting borys herman. 20 hours after the murder, the sbu called what seemed

a routine press conference. no one expected this. babchenko was back. screaming. watching on, his colleagues at the news channel atr, who had been reporting on his death all day. translation: when i saw him i felt a huge sense of relief that he was alive. iran outside and just lay on the grass for over an hour looking at the sky. it felt very good. translation: first, i would like to apologise for what all of you had to experience, for what you had to go through. i have buried friends and colleagues many times

and i know the sickening feeling. newsrooms across the world backtracked fast. archive: tonight at 10:00, the russian journalist reported to have been murdered in ukraine is alive and well afterall. but the questions soon mounted. why had a self—styled truth teller agreed to play the starring role in a fake news story? translation: when they tell you someone has paid to have you killed, do you say, no, i refuse help because it will violate the ethical standards of journalism ? if you do that people will be murdered because this network will not be exposed. go on, then, but i won't be part of it. so will we ever know the full truth about who wanted to kill babchenko? the sbu say that when they arrested

borys herman they found a hit list which had been sent from russia. but they have yet to produce clear evidence of a link to russia's security services. translation: the role of the russian security services in preparing the assassination of a russian citizen and journalist, babchenko, will be proved by us in court, i am sure of that. russia crossed a red line a while ago. russia is using illegal methods. russia is trying to kill its opponents on foreign soil, to intimidate those opponents who are still in russia. this is ridiculous, this is absolutely absurd. russia as a state has nothing to do with arkady babchenko. he is a free man in a free world, he can do whatever he wants. and actually before that case nobody even...

i mean the international community on a high level, nobody has no idea who is arkady babchenko, honestly. if there is a russian link, as ukraine claims, it leads through the only man who has so far been arrested. the middleman. this is a court hearing for borys herman, the man allegedly at the centre of this plot. it is a chance for him to put his case and try and explain his role in this bizarre episode. borys herman admits plotting both with the fake assassin and a contact in russia. but his defence is that he too was playing a role and was also working with ukraine's sbu.

mr herman, why should we believe that you didn't want to kill arkady babchenko? mr herman, what this ultimately boils down to is are you working as an agent for russia? mr herman's story has changed several times and, despite repeated requests from the bbc, he has been unable to back up his claim, that he was working with the sbu. so what are we to make of this extraordinary tale, where nothing is quite as it seems? translation: we definitely believe the operation is a success. even if you just save the life of arkady babchenko, it is a success. thanks to this operation

we have also got a list of 47 potential targets — journalists, activists past and present, citizens of the russian federation. why should i believe what you are telling me now? i went out there and i reported what your organisation told us that night. it turned out to be lies. now you are speaking to me again. is this the truth this time? this murder was being prepared for real. real money was being paid. other units were working for real and the list of 47 potential victims is real. so the ends ultimately have justified the means? definitely. but in the context of the propaganda war with russia could this end up being a massive own goal? did they realise what they did?

because nobody will trust the ukrainians and the ukrainian government any more in any sort of future cases. the show over, its leading players are now trying to move on. what is next for you after this, 0leksy? what does your future hold? translation: of course i am worried. we do not feel safe. at the moment, yes, we are in a safe place. but eventually it will be necessary to go out into the wider world and what will happen then? we don't know. translation: i do not

control my destiny any more. everything has gone down the drain, life is once again broken. and still you dare ask me why i criticise putin so much? that is why i don't like them. why the hell do they have to come here and kill people? the world is in the grip of an information war, a battle of facts against fakes, truth versus fiction, with trust a priceless commodity. babchenko survived, but the work of those fighting for the truth has become that much harder. hello. we saw a drastic change to

cool hello. we saw a drastic change to cool, wet and conditions across the uk and that is all because our jetstrea m uk and that is all because our jetstream position has moved. it is now northwards, dipping through the atla ntic now northwards, dipping through the atlantic and is circulating over the uk, helping to develop areas of low pressure and bring in that cool and from the north atlantic. two centres to our area of low pressure as a go into sunday and both will be focused on strong wind. some heavy rain, particular across the north—west highlands of scotland but developing quite widely across england and wales copy we will see winds as we have done for a while, 40, 50 miles

per hour. the heavies on the hills, some areas seeing over two per hour. the heavies on the hills, some areas seeing over two inches of rain. a bit dry to the east of england. some range in northern ireland but generally at friday compared to what we saw on saturday. wet across the south. much of central and northern scotland will be dry and after a wet start, it is getting better. the wind will gradually ease. the rain should ease as well. turning letter across a good part of scotland through the day, persistent rain spreading eastwards a ci’oss day, persistent rain spreading eastwards across england and wales turning into sunshine and showers for the afternoon and while we could see a shower or for the afternoon and while we could see a shower or two for the afternoon and while we could see a shower or two in the east, a much drier day in prospect. britches much drier day in prospect. britches much lower than they have been, for many, lower than what they should be at this time of years. 1622 degrees. into sunday night, showers will fade but clout increases across the west into the morning. south—westerly breeze, a desperately chilly night on the temperatures on the mild side, down to single figures in

rural areas across the north, at best of the morning sunshine. another weather system works its way across, low pressure driving things in the north atlantic. not as windy sunday, not as wet either, sporadic bursts of rain spread across the country into the morning, heavy and boundary showers in the afternoon, largely dry with only one or two showers in the south. a bit more sunshine around, less of a breeze and it may feel warmer. into tuesday, warmer across the south, fewer showers in the forecast across the north and the west, really it is a story of starting fresh in the beginning of the week, some retailers later. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is nkem ifejika. our top stories: at least five are dead as a huge wildfire sweeps across northern california. 0fficials warn residents must evacuate if they're asked. the worst thing that happens is people refuse to leave,

and then the fire is coming and then firefighters are placing themselves in harm's way. final campaign rallies in zimbabwe ahead of the first election since robert mugabe was ousted as president. pope francis accepts the resignation of a prominent us cardinal following allegations of historic sexual abuse. and a feat of spirit and stamina. celebrations as the first female skipper and her amateur crew win the round—the—world yacht race.