hello, everyone. this is newsday. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: president trump's former campaign chief, paul manafort, found guilty of eight criminal charges, including bank and tax fraud. president trump gave this reaction. this started as russian collision, this is absolutely nothing to do — this is a witch—hunt, and it's a disgrace. and it doesn't end there: the president's former lawyer, michael cohen, pleads guilty to tax evasion and violating election campaign finance rules. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme: the returnees have to be sent back by bangladesh, and we can only welcome them at the border. aung san suu kyi, defends her government's handling of the rohingya crisis, and blames bangladesh forfailing to send back refugees. and the bicycle that's proved lucky for one south korean woman, who's travelled across 70 countries on two wheels.

live from our studios in singapore and london, this is bbc world news. it's newsday. thanks forjoining us. it's 8am in singapore, 1am in london and 8pm on america's east coast, where there've been significant developments in the legal cases against two of president trump's former senior aides. paul manafort — once his campaign manager — was found guilty on eight counts, including tax evasion. the charges against him could carry a prison sentence. also, the president's former lawyer, michael cohen, has surrendered to the fbi. he pleaded guilty in new york to fraud and violating campaign finance laws. this is what deputy us attorney robert khuzami, who is the lead prosecutor

in the case, had to say earlier. these are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time. they are significant in their own right, they are particularly significant when done bya particularly significant when done by a lawyer. a lawyer, hutu training and tradition, understand what it means to be a lawyer, to engage an honest and fair dealing and adherence to the law. mister: at disregarded that training, disregarded that training, disregarded that training, disregarded that tradition and decided that he was above the law, and for that he is going to pay a very, very serious price. —— mr cohen. for more on this, i've been speaking to our correspondent nick bryant in new york. what we saw today was quite remarkable. i was in court to hear michael cohen admitted guilt to those eight crimes, five of them about tax evasion, one of them about bank fraud, and then there was two really politically explosive crimes.

he admitted to paying two women, including a porn star, stormy daniels, money, which he said was at the direction of the candidate. he didn't mention the candidate's name, but the candidate's name of course was donald trump. so what's likely to happen next? well, michael cohen left courtjust a short while ago to chants of "lock him up" from a couple of new yorkers who had gathered outside the court. he has been sentenced today. part of the plea agreement with prosecutors was that he would get a more lenient sentence than he would have got if it had gone to trial, for example, saving the government the expense of a trial. but the judge in the case, this is what michael cohen got very nervous and his voice started to break, he said he didn't have

to regard, he didn't have to go by the plea agreement sentencing recommendation and he could impose a maximum sentence of up to 65 years. what is crucial to point out is what michael cohen did not do today, he has not agreed to co—operate with prosecutors, that was not part of this plea bargain. there had been a lot of speculation beforehand that he would flip, as it's called, that he would co—operate with prosecutors here in new york and co—operate with the mueller probe, that's headed out of washington. he has not done that yet, that is a crucial detail. he's admitted to those charges, and those two charges, to hear him say that the president of the united states, who was then a candidate, directed him to break the law on campaign contributions is rather extraordinary, but as i say, he has not flipped. he has not agreed to co—operate with persecutions. well, the drama does not stop there. president trump's former campaign chief, paul manafort, has been found guilty

on five tax fraud charges at his trial in virginia. he was also convicted on one count of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts and two bank fraud charges. the jury failed to reach a verdict on 10 charges, with thejudge declaring a mistrial on those. a short time ago, mr trump had this to say about the manafort case. i must tell you that paul manafort‘s a good man. he was with ronald reagan, he was with a lot of different people over the years, and i feel very sad about that, because it involved me, but i still feel it's a very sad thing that happened. this has nothing to do with russian collusion. this started as russian collusion, this has absolutely nothing to do — this is a witch—hunt and it's a disgrace. this has nothing to do what they started out — looking for russians involved in our campaign, there were none. i feel very badly for paul manafort. again, he worked for bob dole, he worked for ronald reagan, he worked for many, many people. and look at the way it ends up,

and it was not the original mission, believe me. it was something very much different. so, i had nothing to do with russian collusion, we continue the witch—hunt. thank you very much. our washington correspondent chris buckler told me more about the multiple fraud charges paul manafort had been found guilty of. paul manafort has been found guilty of eight charges. five counts of tax fraud, one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud. this all relates to his time working in the ukraine for pro— russian politicians there, working for oligarchs. the jury itself were not able to come to a conclusion on ten other charges and that's been declared, as far as those charges are concerned, a mistrial by the judge. nonetheless, the special counsel robert mueller will regard this as being something of a victory

because we have had the president throughout this trial really standing on the sidelines, rights of bringing —— really questioning the merits and the rights of bringing this case against paul manafort, a man who was his campaign chairman, a man who was the brains behind some of that campaign in 2016, but who has now been found guilty of all these charges of hiding millions and millions of dollars from the authorities, and it does go to a question ofjudgement potentially of president trump, but as you heard there, he is remaining extremely loyal to paul manafort. there will be people questioning exactly why that is. certainly, paul manafort was somebody who was with the campaign during a very crucial time, during that time whenever that meeting took place, for example, at trump tower between the campaign and some russians, whenever it seems that they had information which they were claiming that they had about the other candidate, i.e. hillary clinton. but president trump is determined, he says, to continue on saying that paul manafort he believes has

been treated badly and that this whole investigation into the allegations of russian collusion on the 2016 presidential election is a witch—hunt. it's not going to end there because the charges that the jury were not able to make a decision on, the opportunity for them to decide whether there will be a fresh trial in the coming days on that, and also of course a day to sentencing is yet to be set for paul manafort. well, it goes even beyond that because paul manafort actually faces another trial on separate charges, again brought by the special counsel robert mueller, and again that means the pressure is going to remain on him. as you heard, his lawyer has indicated that there is no indication that he's prepared to co—operate with the special counsel, but that pressure will remain on. at the same time, it's important to state that the president is right to say that all of these

charges have nothing to do with him. he is being careful in defending paul manafort, he has also distanced himself from him. he has made very clear that all these charges relate to the time before he worked for the trump campaign, nonetheless you can imagine that all eyes will once again be on paul manafort when he appears in court next month, and that includes the eyes of donald trump himself. more coming up on those cases later in the programme. our other top stories this hour — malaysian prime minister, mahathir mohamad, has cancelled three big infrastructure projects with china because he said the country couldn't afford them. the schemes — two pipelines and a rail link — were suspended last month. earlier, he also appeared to criticise china by warning against what he called a "new version of colonialism". beijing says more co—operation between the two countries is needed. also making news this hour: a major earthquake has struck the northern coast of venezuela. the us geological survey says

the quake — which was centered near the town of guiria — was felt as far away as the capital, caracas. it registered a magnitude of seven. the international nuclear watchdog, the iaea, says it has no evidence that north korea has stopped its nuclear programme, despite pyongyang's promises to do so. the iaea says the ongoing nuclear programme is a cause for "grave" concern. microsoft says it's blocked russian attempts to steal information from conservative groups in the us that promote democracy and cybersecurity. facebook is now saying that it has removed multiple pages and accounts linked to russian services. the de—facto leader of myanmar, aung san suu kyi, has defended her government's handling of the crisis in rakhine state. speaking on an official visit to singapore, she blamed bangladesh

forfailing to send the refugees back to myanmar. jonathan head has the details. this was a setpiece speech by aung san suu kyi in a country where she was guaranteed a sympathetic audience. singapore is one of myanmar‘s largest investors and trading partners. much of it dwelt on the troubled history of myanmar‘s political development, but she did talk about her government's efforts to deal with the rakhine crisis, paying tribute to the contribution of former un secretary general kofi annan, who died last week. however, ms suu kyi made no mention of the allegations of massive human rights abuses by the burmese military against the rohingya population, blaming what she called terrorism for the crisis, which she said still posed a threat. the danger of terrorist activities, which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis in rakhine, remains real and present today. unless the security challenge is addressed, the risk of intercommunal

violence will remain. it is a threat that could have grave consequences not just for myanmar but also for other countries, in our region and beyond. she also blamed bangladesh for failing to send back the rohingya refugees. her government was ready to receive them, she said, it was up to bangladesh to decide when they should come back. the two countries have signed a repatriation agreement, but this stipulates that the refugees must return voluntarily. most refugees say they don't feel safe enough to go back. this can be decided only by our two countries working together. the returnees have to be sent back by bangladesh, and we can only welcome them at the border. that is part of our agreement. access to rakhine state for international organisations is still very limited. and the military has refused to acknowledge that its troops committed atrocities in what the un has described as a campaign

of ethnic cleansing. that report from our south east asia correspondent, jonathan head. let's get more now on our breaking story. paul manafort and michael cohen. joining me from washington is tarini parti, buzzfeed's white house reporter. we are calling it a bit of a nightmare david donald trump. what do you make of it? weasel two cases, one in virginia and one in new york where two former associates of donald trump face legal trouble. we saw paul manafort getting convicted of eight different counts and we sort michael cohen in new york pleading guilty to eight separate counts, and while all this is going on the president is currently

speaking in west virginia and telling his supporters to vote for republicans, as his former close associates continue to deal with this legal battle. what is, in your assessment and we look at these two cases, we will talk about paul ma nafort cases, we will talk about paul manafort first because donald trump responded to the case today, saying that it was a witch—hunt and that there was nothing to do with russian collision during the presidential election. is that something that you think is very clear to distance himself from and can he do that in the long run? so this is something that he has bought up as this trial has gone on, and he said that again as he got off air force won just a few hours ago. that the paul ma nafort few hours ago. that the paul manafort case had nothing to do with the russian collision issue, and he has also tried to distance himself from paul manafort as a person, even though paul manafort was the campaign chairman, he has said that paul manafort was someone who only briefly worked on his campaign and

has actually worked for other republicans in the past. so we will see the president continue to do this but at the end of the day, this was someone who is very high up in the campaign and also the president has repeatedly said that he only high as the very best people. now with paul manafort actually getting convicted, that is a line that his supporters have repeated, that is something that he has continued to say, even while he is at the white house and itjust is not ring true any more given what we have seen today. what then of michael cohen and the convictions that he has faced the campaign finance violation charge in particular, taught me to if you think how much that can damage the president himself. that is exactly right. so there is one of campaignfinance is exactly right. so there is one of campaign finance violation count that dracs the president pretty directly, we have seen the president tried to distance himself from both paul manafort and from michael cohen. —— drags. but in this case it is pretty difficult to distance

himself because we saw michael cohen same court today that he was directed to and acted in cooperation with the federal candidate, he did not name trump but of course, the federal candidate he was working for was trump. and this was as he was talking about the stormy daniels $100,000 hush payment we have heard so much about in the past few months. he said that the candidate directed him to make this payment, thatis directed him to make this payment, that is now allegedly a campaign finance violation. yeah, the candidate. therein lies the grey area for some, maybe. we will see how this unfolds but for now, thank you forjoining us. you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme: we will be keeping you right across all the latest developments as president trump's former lawyer michael cohen admits campaign violation, and his ex—campaign chief paul manafort is found guilty on eight charges of tax fraud, bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. also on the programme: seeing the world on two wheels. we speak to a south korean

woman who's travelled across 70 countries on a bike called lucky. washington, the world's most political city, is today assessing the political health of the world's most powerful man. indeed, i did have a relationship with miss lewinsky that was not appropriate. in fact, it was wrong. in south africa, 97 people have been killed today, in one of the worst days of violence between rival black groups. over the last ten days, 500 have died. chanting: czechoslovakia must be free! russia is observing a national day of mourning for the 118 submariners who died on board the kursk. we're all with them now, within our hearts. the pope has celebrated mass before a congregation of more than 2.5 million people, in his hometown of krakow. "stay with us, stay with us," chanted this ocean of humanity. "well, well," joked the pope, "so you want me to desert rome?" this is newsday on the bbc.

i'm rico hizon in singapore. i'm babita sharma in london. our top stories: donald trump's former campaign chief, paul manafort, is found guilty of eight criminal charges, including bank and tax fraud. it's the first trial stemming from the inquiry into alleged russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. in a separate case, president trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, has pleaded guilty in a manhattan court to violating campaign finance laws. let's take a look at some front pages from around the world. we start with the japan times and they‘ re leading

with an election story. the ruling liberal democratic party injapan has set september 20 as the date for its presidential election. a recent poll has predicted prime minister shinzo abe will win, effectively extending his prime ministership by up to another three years. the strait times features a story on myanmar‘s state counsellor aung san suu kyi. ms suu kyi is in singapore for a four—day working visit and delivered a lecture. in it she said her country hopes to work with bangladesh "to effect the voluntary, safe and dignified return of displaced persons from northern rakhine". and finally the arab news features a story on eid. more than two million muslims took part in the symbolic stoning of the devil on tuesday. its the last major ritual of the hajj pilgrimage that heralded the start of eid al—adha. let's return to our top story.

and there've been significant developments in the legal cases against two of president trump's former senior aides, paul manafort and michael cohen. earlier, i spoke to carol leonnig from the washington post. she explained which of the two cases could be most the damaging for the president. in some ways, both of them are very bad for the president optically, because these people were if not best friends with him, very close to him on the campaign, and he trusted them with very senior positions, though he's said otherwise at times. in terms of legal repercussions, it seems as though mr cohen points the greatest finger, i guess, at mr trump, by saying that he worked in co—ordination with donald trump to violate campaign finance laws in the fall and the early summer — late summer, forgive me, of 2016. mr manafort‘s charges are almost entirely about his own actions, long before he met mr trump. the issue there has always been that the special counsel

who is investigating russian interference in the election in 2016, the presidential us election here, the special counsel's goal in prosecuting and pursuing mr manafort always seems to have been to get him to co—operate in his probe, and thus far has been unsuccessful, but has been successful in prosecuting him on these very old charges. can you remember a time where you have seen anything like this before? whoo, no. but, you know, the last year has been whoo, no. there's almost nothing to parallel what happened today, and it was as we described here just non—stop news. and sort of breathtaking that — and eerie that in both instances, a jury found one trump confidant

guilty of eight counts, and in a few moments' time agreed to allow a second trump confidant to plead guilty to eight counts of felonies. just very quickly, before i let you go, what is the headline going to be in the washington post? manafort convicted, trump confidant pleading guilty to paying off women to try to interfere in the election of 2016. a 31 year old south korean woman bought a bicycle seven years ago and named it ‘lucky‘. she decided to use the bike to explore the world, and has since cycled through 70 countries, ridden 66,000 kilometres and made it to five continents. jinjeong says there have been some hairy moments along the way, and she's also captured some amazing pictures of her adventure. jinjeong joins me for her first—ever interview shortly, but first, let's take a look at some of the places she's visited. aspurtojin

a spur tojinjeong and she explained what inspired her to cycle the world. —— earlier. —— earlier i spoke tojin the world. —— earlier. —— earlier i spoke to jin jeong. well, my dream was to travel the universe, so before going to the universe i want to see my planet earth first, so i decided to cycle around the world. i think car is too fast and walking is too slow, but bicycle is a good speed. but it has taken such a long time, seven years, and you have covered five continents. what is the next continent you want to cover? 0ceania. 0ceania, all right. after that, antarctica.

so tell us, what is the most favourite place that you have visited among the five continents? there are so many places in my mind, in my memory, and a really amazing place was bolivia. it's a salt desert, so there's no trees, no animals, sometimes a tour car passing, but it was very, very quiet. and of course, there are now closer relations between south korea and north korea. would you want to cycle through north korea? actually, this is my dream. i have dreamt about north korea for a long time, because we've had the same history for a long time, and it's just next to my country. so i really wish i could cross, and i applied to get permission later. and, in your seven—yearjourney, you have only had one bike. i have so many friends who cycle only in the philippines, but have about three or four bikes. how were you able to do this, and how were you able to fund this journey? so my bicycle is named lucky, i was so lucky to have only one bicycle. and i have a blog, so i put donations, so people sometimes donate, and also i wrote for my cousin, so i survived somehow. it looks fantastic. i think we

should do it, around the world on a bike. i will psycho -- cycle with her. iam rico bike. i will psycho -- cycle with her. i am rico hizon in singapore, wife are now. —— bye for now. hello. well, in the last few days it's been pretty warm across the uk, with temperatures in the high 20s across the south. we've got another fine day on the way on wednesday across central and southern areas of the uk. you'll probably see scenes like this from tuesday, lovely weather there around the docklands in london. but there is change on the way. this weather front will cool things off over the next few days, but initially, the cooler air will be reaching scotland and northern ireland. but ahead of it, we still have warm air coming in all the way from the azores, from the subtropics here, so that's why it's so warm outside.

in fact, temperatures overnight around the mid—teens across much of the country. now, the weather front will be moving across the uk through the early hours of wednesday morning. it's already been wet across scotland, parts of northern ireland too have seen quite a bit of rain, and that's just about moving into south—western scotland now. to the south of that, it's dry. where the skies clear, there might be a little bit of a chill in the air, 13 degrees for norwich. but generally, where we have the cloud, it's around 15, 16,17 degrees. so this is very warm and humid air over us first thing in the morning. here is the weather front. this is a cold front, or a cool front, you can call it in the summer. behind it, the cooler air comes in, much fresher air, so scotland and northern ireland in the afternoon will be quite a bit cooler. you can see those yellow colours here indicating those lower temperatures in the north atlantic, mostly around the teens — 17 in belfast, only 1a in stornoway, but to the south, we've got temperatures in the high teens. and then this central bit here, around northern england and wales, that's where the weather front is moving through, so the chance of catching, i think,

some rain during the course of wednesday. now, wednesday into thursday, these weather fronts, in fact a succession of them, start moving through the uk. and then, behind it, and the forecast has been the same for the last few days. we have this much fresher air coming in off the north atlantic and iceland, so that cooler air starts invading the uk on thursday. 0ne weather front moves through the south—east earlier in the day, so possibly some rain. again, more weatherfronts and showers moving into scotland and northern ireland, and also a bit of a breeze. these are winds in miles per hour. you can double these, so winds gusting perhaps to 30 mph there off western scotland, but cool already on thursday. you can see temperatures in the low 20s in the south, in the mid—teens for belfast, glasgow and for edinburgh. how about the next few days? well, it looks like the temperatures might pick up a little bit, but not awful lot, and cardiff might be up to 19 by monday, possibly 21 in london by monday, but it will be quite changeable. bye— bye. you're watching bbc world news. i'm babita sharma. our top story: dramatic developments in two separate court trials in the us, involving figures who have been close to president trump. a jury finds his former

campaign manager, paul manafort, guilty of eight charges relating to tax and bank fraud. president trump calls it a "witch—hunt". and in new york, the president's former lawyer, michael cohen, pleads guilty to tax evasion and election campaign finance violations. we'll have all the latest developments here. stay with us. and this story is trending online on bbc.com. danny boyle has announced he'll no longer be directing the nextjames bond movie. he's blaming "creative differences" for his decision. the next bond film is due for release next year. stay with us. more to come here on bbc world news. remind