finances for hush money. it's after his former lawyer, michael cohen, told a court mr trump directed him to hand over the money with the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. china and the us meet for trade talks, with the hope of descalating their dispute over tariffs. and this video is trending on bbc.com. coconut oil's been branded ‘pure poison‘. one harvard academic says it's one of the worst food you can eat. the so—called superfood contains dangerously high levels of unsaturated fatty acids. that's all. stay with bbc world news. now on bbc news, hardtalk‘s shaun ley talks to nury turkel of the uighur human rights project.

hello, and welcome to hardtalk, i'm shaun ley. sense the party's though, obey the party's words, follow the party's lead. the words printed in red on a building at an interment camp in china. there are lots of those in xinjiang, one of the most wealthy provinces in china and also one of its most restive. it's home to the uighur ethnic group and there are reports of over a million people in detention. the government says the camps need to re—educate people. they say they are fighting islamic terror in the region. nury turkel is chairman of the uyghur human rights project. so is he being duped or is china duping the rest of the world? nury turkel, welcome to hardtalk.

can you describe for me the experience of being a uighur in xinjiang province these days? imagine you go to church on sunday and you have to go through body scans and imagine that you get up and one morning, the government wants you to marry off your daughter to someone, part of the oppressed ethnic group. imagine that you don't have anyone to confide in, even in your private life and imagine you are forced to denounce your religion and walk away from your centuries old tradition, such as the uighurs. what is happening in the uighurs‘ homeland of east turkestan is cultural revolution on steroids.

the chinese government has been so brutal, particularly in the last 16, 18 months, locked up more than 10% of the population according to various reports. we are talking about a population of 10 million people so you are talking about io%, i million uighurs in detention. the numbers could be higher. a human rights organisation published a report recently estimating 3.3 million people affected. the chinese government has been carrying out this internment camp, so—called re—education programme in three ways. one, they lock you up and impose a heavy sentence of 10—15 years. you basically go through jail time. the second group of people who have been subjected to this is daily re—education. you go there and come home at night. and the third one is the ones who are kept in high walls

and barbed wire. they go to a daily routine renouncing their religious background, studying the thoughts of xi. that is the president, xijinping? exactly. and watching anti—separatist video. singing chinese communist songs, stuff like that. you haven't lived in china for more than 20 years now. how can you know this apart from through second and third—hand accounts? i follow the news and i talk to people who are able to leave the country in recent years. i have done some asylum were and have spoken to some new generation uighurs in the united states. this is what people tell you as they get out? there is a description from a radio journalist who talks about what it means for her.

she works for the us funded radio free asia and says more than two dozen other relatives are missing, her brother was detained of and her parents both elderly and suffering, went missing. heraunt, cousins, children and more than 20 people swept up by the authorities. i found out later they had all been detained on the same day. i happen to know this family from my childhood years. this particular reporter's father is my father's friend. i saw him in real time as a child. he trained as an anthropologist. very well revered and respected. what the chinese government has a problem with people like him is the fact that they are promoting in a way through intellectual methods to make the uighurs feel pride, proud of their ethnic cultural heritage.

you were born yourself in a labour camp at the beginning of the 19705. you were in a labour camp because your parents were persecuted during the cultural revolution. is xinjiang going through something similar again? it is inconceivable that we talk about this in 2018. history is taking a very strange turn and repeating itself. i was born at the height of the cultural revolution in a similar re—education camp. them my mother was taken in when she was six months pregnant with me and we were released about 45 months after she gave birth to me. during that period, we both suffered a very difficult time, health issues, daily humiliation, physical and verbal abuses and it's just mind—boggling and hard to believe we are talking about similar situations taking place 47 years later. what does this mean to you personally? you haven't lived in china since 1995 but have family there.

like my fellow uighurs, i have been going through a very difficult time. simply because the chinese government effectively exported its oppression to uighurs who are living as a free person like myself, as a citizen of the civilised world. you try to have a normal life but you can't, thinking that your family members are suffering and you are physically and financially capable and yet you can't be at their bedside if they're suffering a health issue. what some of the uighurs are missing is funerals. my family situation, my mother has seven grandchildren. she was able to hold only two of them. you can't really talk about your current situation. that must even in itself be quite difficult. it is difficult in two ways.

one, the chinese government has created a fear of appraisal reprisal in uighur citizens of western world's mind not many uighurs would be willing to come and tell their family stories because you never know, oppressed people and very repressive governments, you never know what they will do to your family and doing the things like i have been doing is a conscionable thing to do. i'm feeling proud to be a voice for the voiceless, millions of voiceless uighur people back home. you told us as one of the examples is what you see as the kind of repression of uighurs in china, that they are being told to study the thought of xi jinping, and one uighur, a former inmate of a detention camp, in august was quoted by the wall streetjournal saying, we should give thanks not to allah but xijinping.

that's not unusual. all around china, people are told to study the thoughts of the president. the president is almost deified in china now. that's not special to the uighurs. how does that count as oppression? let's talk about what the chinese government's motives and intentions are. can you answer that question? the chinese government is using east turkestan, uighur lives as a laboratory for total surveillance, brutal repression and if we are not careful, and i'm saying this to the chinese citizens in other parts of china. this will be exported. similar methods have been implemented in tibet. and the new sheriff in town who is running the show

in east turkmenestan used to be the head of the communist party. that's your explanation that in the last 18 months, things have become that much harder. he has brought the techniques he developed in tibet to his newjob in your province. the chinese government has pilot programmes. they apply and implement in one region. if it works, they start enforcing it in other. tibet and east turkestan has been a kind of playground for the pilot programme. you use the phrase east turkestan and i'm talking about xinjiang. there is a basic difference here for you and some other uighurs, you don't really accept that this chinese province is part of china. you want it to be part of a separate uighur state in east turkestan. east turkestan is an historic name for the uighurs, it has a tremendous significance. the uighurs have had two republics, the first in 1933 and the second in 19114. but they didn't last very long, did they? about a year for the first and at the most five years for the second.

a very short period in a very long history. but because of that proud history that uighurs cherish, they like call their homeland as east turkestan but xinjiang can be translated as "new dominion", and "new frontier", and that is a name that has been imposed by communist china and the uighurs resent that name. that is what china says, a lot of this is about problems that have been caused on the ground by uighurs and they give examples. they say there is nothing arbitrary about the detention camps. there are vocational training centres. there is no such thing as re—education centres in xinjiang and they say the relocation of people, [161,000 people at the beginning of the first three months of this year, to quote the global times newspaper, is to improve social stability and alleviate poverty. those are good ambitions. that is a bogus claim at best and here is why. the chinese government

has unstated goals. xijinping is the1—man show in the country. he does not want to be blamed for anything that results in political disaster because it will have a domino effect in his leadership role. and there is some racism in this. the chinese government believes that uighurs‘ national identity, they will present a political threat in the future so they want to take a preventive measure to forcibly assimilate the uighurs. that's not what the chinese say. china's foreign ministry says that anyone of all ethnicities in xinjiang live and work in peace and contentment. but they have to say that because they have to find a way to justify the brutality when they implement it. how would they be able to justify locking up more than 10% of the population? we know that the re—education of what? the re—education of someone transferring from one ethnic group to atheist or non—

religious believer? what are they trying to do? this term itself is problematic. it is propaganda. the chinese government can say anything but making that kind of statement three times does not make it true. let's talk about another reason that the chinese give for the actions they take. they warn about those being deceived by religious extremism. they'll be assisted by resettlement and be education, that is how the chinese delegation to the un in geneva puts it and when you say again this incredible figure, and nobody would argue with this, the incredible figure of 21% of all arrests on china being in xinjiang which is only 1.5% of the whole population, but they then point to the violence and the violence there that has been considerable, hasn't it? i will give you some examples. it will be interesting to hear your response. a bomb and knife attack at urumqi

south railway station. 2 dead, 79 injured. 31 killed and 90 more injured when two cars crashed through an urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. a knife—wielding gang attacks a police station and government office in yarkand, 96 dead. 50 die in blasts in luntai county, outside police stations, a market and a shop. all those attacks in one year alone. there is violence in that province and it's not coming from the government. that does not give the chinese governmentjustification to lock up poets, university professors, scholars, musicians, athletes in concentration camps. the british government did it in northern ireland in the 19705. "we are worried some of these people might turn to violence so we'll put them in prison." we should learn the lesson from history. the united states have done it but it does not make it right. the chinese government has done three things very skilfully. they have been effectively playing into people's emotions in the west. the uk, european countries,

the united states... i do want to deal with that because it is important, but let mejust deal with the emotions of people who live in that region and fear that kind violence. when the government says to them, we hold onto the belief that keeping to all away from xinjiang is the greatest human right, you wouldn't dispute that, would you ? you are a human rights advocate yourself, keeping people safe, letting them feel that they are not in danger when they walk out their front door is actually a fundamental responsibility. that is a theory, that is what they say that they are doing. you don't believe them? i don't believe it because they are trying to create a total surveillance state, they are trying to forcibly assimilate the uighurs. if anyone stands in the way, we'll end up in concentration camps. last april, they introduced the draconian ‘deextremification' measure, that sanctions some of the most acceptable and normal behaviours in society — the growing of a beard and adhering to a halal diet, and naming children with religious names.

that sort of stuff has been — so the chinese government has been paving the way for today's nightmare for some time. let me repeat that point, and that is that the chinese government believes that there are groups who claim to be uighur campaigners who are prepared to use violence. there was an attack in beijing in october 2013 in which half a dozen people were killed, several dozen people were injured. it was claimed by the east turkestan islamic party. that was formed by uighurs who had fled china for afghanistan and pakistan, and it said it was responsible for the attacks. an american analytical company said claims may be exaggerated, but the threat the turkestan islamic

party poses cannot be ignored. the chinese government can say the same thing 15 times. that's not the chinese government. that's american analysts. the source of this information is the chinese government because tip or etim, all of it was enlisted in a terrorist designation list at the request of the chinese government. well, the us government said that the east turkestan islamic movement, which uses the name tip, as you know, these groups are all quite overlapping, is the most militant of the uighur separatist groups. that is 12 years ago. so they have reformed, have they? no, they didn't reform. china is showing its true colours. china is...one of the countries that effectively utilised 9/11 to their benefit is the chinese government, perhaps the most effectively utilised government is the chinese government. yeah, but you told me i was out of date.

i'll tell you, though, 15 years later, the british government listed both organisations, or if it is one organisation, as a terrorist organisation. islamic terrorist and separatist organisation. this isjuly 2016, quoted by reuters, trying to create an independent caliphate. that kind of rhetoric has been floating around without hard evidence. so you think the west is being duped? duped, yes. it's a political decision. when you talk to western government officials, this is one of the problems i'd like to highlight here. because of the chinese government's strategic approach to creating hysteria, some of the good people in the national security intelligence communities in the uk and the united states and elsewhere have tapped into the chinese rhetoric, believing that china and the west are fighting a similar type of fight against terrorism, which defeats the logic. trouble is, i mean, whether or not you accept that some uighurs

in exile are keeping some very unpleasant company, a study said they are forging strategic alliances with leading jihadist organisations affiliated with al qaeda and the taliban. there was a report only this week, mid—august 2018, that the chinese special envoy to syria is worried about uighurs having gone to fight there. even if you say that all that is propaganda, for people living in china, they will believe, won't they, what the global times, the state—owned tabloid says, that the crackdown in your province, your home province, has salvaged it and it has avoided the fate of becoming china's syria or china's libya? as you know, there are sizeable western individuals who joined the forces in syria. but none of the western governments have been setting up internment camps for anyone who might be having tendencies to take up arms against the western interests.

do you know what china means by an abnormally long beard? that is...i've seen religious figures in christian and jewish communities, especially in new york, when you walk around some parts of new york, you will see a jewish individual with a long beard. that sort of beard is considered a sign of extremism in china. so these are among the measures that have been, particularly in the last year and a half or so, introduced? that includes growing a beard for style. but it is aimed, in your view, at visible identification of somebody as a uighur? yeah, because that would make you look different than the chinese. another reference has been to dissuade people who cover their bodies and veil their faces from entering railway stations and airports. that is happening too, is it? uighurs are easy to identify.

most uighurs look eurasian. they have a high ridged nose, are fair skinned, and can easily be identified by anyone in china. that actually makes them more vulnerable in society for racial discrimination. last october, president xi told the party conference that it must uphold the principle that religions in china must be chinese in orientation and provide active guidance to religion so they can adapt themselves to the socialist society. the truth is it's notjust muslims who experience that, is it? it's christians, it's other religious denominations. they are not singling out the uighurs. that is the exact point that i want the audience to know. there is a clear and present danger that this brutal policy will be extended. they're testing the ground. the uighurs‘ homeland, and their lives have been a testing ground for future policies,

oppressive policies will not only stay in china, but will be exported to china—related countries around the world. president trump sees president xi jinping as an ally. he has gone so far as to call him a friend. angela merkel, the german chancellor, has been to china i think 11 times in 12 years. on no occasion has she raised the plight of the uighur. do you have any hope at all that the trump administration is going to act on your concerns? the trump administration have already acted. vice president mike pence raised the deteriorating uighur rights situation in a speech, and the us ambassador un ambassador kelley currie has regularly been raising it. she testified a couple of weeks ago at the united states congress, highlighting the worsening uighur human rights situation. we know that president trump doesn't always do the same as his colleagues. he told fox news last year, "some people might call xijinping the king of china, he is a very powerful man, i happen to think he is a very good person."

we have to separate what president trump says or views about the leader of china. the united states has a panel of experts in the united states government who work on china. so i don't know where president trump's mind is heading to when it comes to china and xijinping, but i do believe he has a good team of experts in the government who understand the issue. one last question. murat uyghur, who now lives in finland, says of the internment camps, "they're like a black hole, people go in, they do not come out. i am afraid of the worst now." what are you afraid of? i am afraid of mass murder because we do not know — other than a few key individuals who managed to leave the camps, people are not leaving. where have those 1 million people gone? what are they being charged of? it's basically a no rights zone, as the un official perfectly pointed out. you have no access to lawyer, you have no access to judicial

process, and there is no access to family members, there is no access to proper medical care, that's why we've seen people leaving as a dead person from the camps. so i am worried, and also there's an important part of my worry is that the chinese government has been building a crematoria... crematoria. crematoria, and they're hiring people to work on those facilities. why are they building, all of a sudden, in such places? in — traditionally american academics, if i may finish, have been very careful in their criticism of the chinese government. recently, one of the well—respected american academics said publicly, twice, that he worried there will be a mass murder in those camps. and you worry too. nury turkel of the uyghur human rights project in washington,

dc, thank you for being with us on hardtalk. thank you very much. thank you. good morning. the bank holiday weekend fast approaching and there is a change to come with the feel of our weather over the next few days. but just look at what we had yesterday. beautiful blue sky and sunshine in lincolnshire. highs of 27 degrees, 81 fahrenheit. we are not going to see temperatures like that certainly over the bank holiday weekend. a cooler and fresher feel. the reason being is these weather fronts pushing in from the atlantic they are introducing slightly fresher air with it.

that said, first thing this morning in the south—east it will still be quite a humid start to the day, with overnight lows still sitting at around 16 or 17 degrees, and there will be some rain. further north and west, it is already a cooler starting your thursday. let's try and put the detail on it, then. behind the second front is when the really cool air starts to push down from the north and west, and that is going to move its way across the country as we push into the bank holiday weekend. so, for thursday, we start off with some rain that was slowly clear away from the midlands, the south coast, east anglia, the south—east corner. some brightness behind, a scattering of showers into wales and north—west england and rain pushing into the north—west. so, in terms of the temperature profile, it is going to feel cooler here, with the greens, the yellows, the warm russets in the south—east, 23 degrees the high, and in the showers we are looking at 1a to 16 degrees for much of scotland and northern ireland. now, those showers will continue into the north—west overnight, but elsewhere we will see some clearer skies, and the cooler air starts to push further south, so it is going to be a much more comfortable night for sleeping in, that is certainly the good news.

we will see single figures into the north at perhaps around nine to 12 degrees in the south—east corner. now, on friday, it looks as though we are going to see a rash of showers developing into northern ireland, down through north—west england — anywhere south of the midlands and wales will see dry and bright weather. look at the feel, 1a to 19 degrees the overall high. we start off the weekend on a dry and sometimes sunny note, but the temperatures will still be set to struggle, 13 to 20 degrees, way down on what we've been used to just recently. a little ridge of high pressure that builds overnight saturday into sunday, that's going to allow temperatures to fall away overnight. a chilly start on sunday morning. a touch of frost in sheltered glens of scotland before the next whether front pushes in from the atlantic. so it looks likely sunday into bank holiday monday will see some rain around, drying up, but not

particularly warm with it. take care. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: "the president did nothing wrong". defiant words from the white house, despite claims donald trump ordered his former lawyer to make hush payments. there are no charges against him. just because michael cohen made a plea deal does not mean that implicates the president. there are no charges against him. just because michael cohen made a plea deal does not mean that implicates the president. australia's prime minister clings onto power, but for how long? malcolm turnbull faces another leadership challenge. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme: from the frontline of a global trade war, us and chinese officials sit down to try and resolve their differences. and the second separation for korean families, briefly reunited after decades apart.