welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is lewis vaughanjones. our top stories: donald trump's supreme court choice, brett kavanaugh says he won't step aside, after another allegation of sexual misconduct. i'm not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process, and we're looking for a fair process, where i can be heard defending my integrity and my lifelong record. speculation about the future of us deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, as a crunch meeting with the president is set for thursday. raised hopes of a second summit between north korea's leader, kimjong—un and the us. the white house says details to be announced "pretty soon. " and we speak to the people behind the pioneering electrical implant that's helping paralysed people to walk again. more allegations and more denials

are increasing the political drama surrounding brett kava naugh's supreme court nomination. a day after another woman came forward, accusing judge kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in college. he hit back, saying the allegations are smears and a character assasination. he and his wife ashley have been speaking to fox news. here's some of what he had to say. did you guys ever look at each other and say, "i'm out, this is enough, this just isn't worth it"? i'm not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process. and we're looking for a fair process, where i can be heard defending my integrity and my lifelong record — my lifelong record of promoting unity and equality for women, starting with the women who knew me

when i was 14 years old. i'm not going anywhere. the bbc‘s chris buckler is following developements as more allegations are expected. as they watch brett kavanaugh sit with his wife and give these denials, many will feel sympathetic towards him. others will feel sympathetic towards his accuser, or as it turns out now, his accusers. but what is really remarkable about all this is you're watching a man who is nominated to become a us supreme courtjustice, who now suddenly finds his character on very public trial, and that is what we're seeing here. he chose to give this interview to fox news ahead of giving evidence on thursday to the senate judiciary committee. of course he's going to testify, and we're also going to see one of his accusers, christine blasey ford, give evidence, as well. and essentially what they'll have

to do is test what she says against what he says. that is a very sensitive process, and the senators are very aware of that, but it's going to be watched very carefully. will and you have to say that really, even listening to that interview that took place with fox news, some of it was really quite remarkable, incredibly personal. they talked, for example, about when he lost his virginity, at one stage. and also, with this suggestion that there is a third accuser to come forward, michael avenatti, the lawyer who also represents stormy daniels, says he represents that woman, and he's planning to go public in 48 hours. he even had to deny allegations coming from michael avenatti that he may have been involved in gang rape. it's really quite an extraordinary interview, and an extraordinary set of circumstances. and of course, this is donald trump's choice, and he has come out and said that these allegations were totally political.

yes, and i think there is undoubtedly a political element to all of this. because the supreme courtjustice is incredibly important in terms of american law. mr kavanaugh is a right—wing — he's a conservative judge. he's somebody, who, for example, has very strong views on lgbt issues, on abortion, and that's partly why president trump has nominated him. so it's political in the sense that democrats and republicans have very defined views on him. but aside from all of this, this has become a deeply personal issue, and for an accuser and the accused, it's going to be a very difficult process whenever they face thisjudiciary committee on thursday. and chris, ijust want to change tack slightly. it is a mark of the political climate over there where i can rarely talk about one major story. but i want to switch to rod rosenstein, the us deputy attorney general — questions all day about his position. yes, and it gives you a sense of the many issues that are swirling

around the white house at the moment. rod rosenstein essentially went to the white house today with speculation that he was either going to resign or be fired, following comments he made in the new york times, or were reported by the new york times last week. it was suggested that in a private conversation with other members of the department ofjustice, officials, he had suggested perhaps secretly taping president trump to show that he was unfit for office. now, that's something he says is factually incorrect. there were others who are close to him who suggest that he was only joking, it was never intended to be taken seriously. but president trump, i suspect, did not find it funny, and it looks like he is now facing real questions about his future as deputy attorney general. already president trump was, i suppose, angry towards rod rosenstein because he's an individual who is currently looking after and overseeing this whole investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. as it is, they are set for a showdown on thursday as well. all eyes will be on washington that day. president trump has said he expects a second summit with north korean leader kimjong un to be announced "pretty soon", but that the location has

yet to be determined. speaking during a meeting with south korean president moonjae—in at the united nations, mr trump said mr kim "wants to see something happen." it will be similar to the format we had before, most likely a different location. again, it will be announced pretty soon. i think a lot of progress has been made. i see tremendous enthusiasm on behalf of chairman kim for making a deal, and i think that's something that is very good. we're in no rush. the countries who are still part of the iran nuclear deal have announced that they will continue work to create a special mechanism to maintain trade with iran following the us withdrawal from the 2015 pact. the european union's foreign policy chief, federica mogherini, made the announcement after a meeting

of senior officials from britain, china, france, germany, russia and iran. in practical terms, this will mean that eu member states will set up a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with iran, this will allow european companies to continue to trade with iran in accordance with european union law, and could be open to other partners in the world. the united states says it has found evidence of systematic violence by myanmar‘s military against the rohingya minority, including widespread killings and rape. the report published by the state department said the scope and scale of the military‘s operations indicate they were well—planned and coordinated. the attacks by the myanmar military last year in the western state of rakhine saw more than 700,000 people driven across the border into bangladesh. at the un, the united states announced it would be doubling its aid for displaced rohingya muslims. at some point, the international community has to stop tap—dancing

around this, and they have to really hold burma to account. terrible things happened to the rohingya. the military are at fault. the fact—finding commission came out and gave pure examples of what happened. these are not terrorists. this was the military that did this to them. these people just want a place to live. that's all that they want, and that is not happening right now. for more on the un general assembly meeting this week and all our stories, just go to our website. bbc.com/news. let's get some of the day's other news. the prominent russian opposition figure alexei navalny has been detained, just moments after he'd finished serving a 30—day sentence. he's accused of violating a protest law and his spokesperson says he's been sentenced to another 20 days injail. mr navalny is a prominent critic of president putin and has accused his system of "sucking the blood out of russia." the hong kong government has banned

a political party that advocated for independence from mainland china, on the grounds of national security. it is now illegal to be a member of the hong kong national party and anyone who associates with it could face up to three years in prison and fines of up to $12,000. an american man who was paralysed from the waist down after crashing his snowmobile has made medical history by walking with the aide of an electrical implant. doctors in the us used an electrode to stimulate nerves in the spinal chord, allowing the patient to walk, by issuing commands from his brain. well earlier i spoke to, dr kendall lee, one of the neurosurgeons who co—led the research from the mayo clinic in rochester, minnesota. i asked him what this breakthrough would mean for people with spinal injuries in the future. i think this gives great hope

to really, over a million patients, at least in the us, who have spinal cord injuries, who are paralysed, to be able to in the future, regain at least some of their motor function back. and, feel free to be honest here, when you are going through this and designing it, we are in the early stages, did you think this would actually work? you know, this was a study that i think was quite, almost miraculous. no. to be honest, when we first initiated this study, we would have been very happy if all we got was for the patient to getjust a little bit of contraction with the control from his brain. but indeed, what we got was much more than what we expected,

which is that the patient was able to stand from the stimulation and take independent steps using a walker. and just tell us the reaction of the patient here. i think the patient was also extremely happy and certainly, of course, very emotional about this new finding. and just from the patient‘s point of view, is it a case of thinking and it happening, is that all that happens? yes. we have done numerous studies to verify that, that this is indeed that the patient‘s brain or mind is controlling the movement and not just simply the contraction of the muscle from the electrical stimulation. i see. and the way we can confirm that is that we ask the patient to do different kinds of movement,

controlled by either vision control, auditory control and simply us asking him to do different kinds of movements, which he was able to follow. and just very, very quickly, how widespread do you think this technology could be used? i think that the important thing is that this is still early to make sure that patients recognise that. however, the results are quite striking in that we were able to get a very functional response back with the electrical stimulations. what we have reported is that even the first day that we turned it on after the surgery, the patient was able to get voluntary control. another aspect of this study that was very important is that the patient continued to improve and the part that was important in that improvement, in addition to the electrical stimulation, was the multi—motor rehab, and the intense rehabilitation that he underwent at the hospital. and you can find much more on this new development on our website,

with more information from the university of louisville. just log on to bbc.com/news stay with us on bbc world news. still to come: a lucky ecape. the indian yachtsman rescued, over 3,000 kilometres off the australian coast during the golden globe race. benjohnson, the fastest man on earth, is flying home to canada in disgrace. all the athletes should be clean going into the games. i'm just happy that justice is served. it is a simple fact that this morning, these people were in their homes. tonight, those homes have been burnt down by serbian soldiers and police. all the taliban positions

along here have been strengthened, presumably in case the americans invade. it's no use having a secret service which cannot preserve its own secrets against the world. and so the british government has no option but to continue this action, and even after any adverse judgement in australia. concorde had crossed the atlantic faster than any plane ever before, breaking the record by six minutes. this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: donald trump's supreme court choice, brett kavanaugh, says he won't step aside, after another allegation of sexual misconduct. earlier i spoke to richard painter, who was the chief white house ethics

lawyer for president george w bush. he is now a law professor at the university of minnesota. he gave his reaction to donald trump's support for his supreme court nominee, to be confirmed as soon as possible. well, the way to do that is to have the fbi continue its investigation. the fbi does an investigation on the background of any nominee of the president for a senate—confirmed position, including a supreme courtjustice. and we dealt with many such nominations when i was in the bush white house. indeed, brett kavanaugh was the staff secretary. if an allegations such as this, indeed if these multiple allegations come

up, the fbi is called and they immediately start to investigate, figure out what happened at that party in bethesda back in 1982, or what happened at yale and whether the accused's story is accurate or not. the fbi investigation may not reach conclusive, — you know, a conclusion that's decisive. but it's going to be a lot better than what we have right now, which are a lot of accounts in the press, there are witnesses who don't want to be identified, corroborating witnesses on both sides that don't want to be identified, and varying accounts. the fbi investigates. they can do this quite quickly, in a matter of days, if president trump would just tell them to investigate we would have a lot more information going into this hearing, and i think there would be a lot better chance, if brett kavanaugh is innocent of these charges in particular, of his being confirmed.

but, unfortunately, i don't think the republicans on the committee or the white house understand the importance of the fbi investigation being undertaken. sorry to jump in there, but that sounds extraordinary. if what you're saying is that this would happen as a standard practice when you were there, how unusual then it is the fact that this isn't seemingly being allowed to happen now? well, it's not unusual for the trump administration, because they don't want to do business the way the previous administrations have. once again, in the bush administrative, we had fbi background checks on every single nominee, and if something like this came up, we would have someone get on the phone with the fbi and update the investigation. and the fbi can do that very quickly, but for some reason, some people don't seem to want to do it. they don't seem to want to investigate. that's unfortunate. it has been a theme of this administration. with respect to the russia investigation, what's going on here, they don't trust the fbi, they attack the fbi. the democrats do the same.

they are covering for their own. we've got keith ellison, a congressman from minnesota with allegations. and the democratic party bosses out here won't investigate. it is notjust the republicans... but the republicans — some republicans, and donald trump especially, dismissing this as politically motivated. that is why, presumably, he doesn't want this process to go through as you are describing. well, the best way to deal with politically motivated accusations is bring in the fbi, because anyone who lies to the fbi commits a criminal offence under the false statements statute. that's the statute that robert mueller has already prosecuted some people under. so there'd be a lot less horsing around if the fbi investigation proceeded. people who want to lie to falsely accuse somebody will certainly think twice about it, and so will people who lie in order to protect someone from a true allegation. but it's very, very unfortunate that politicians don't want to allow the fbi to investigate these types of mattes.

they'd rather play politics, and litigate everything on fox news, or whatever. a sailor stranded in the indian ocean for several days has been rescued. abhilash tomy, from india, injured his back when his boat hit 80 mph winds nearly 2,000 miles off the coast of western australia. he was picked up by a french patrol vessel, despite concerns that bad weather would delay his rescue. rachel wright reports. a confident, capable sailor, this was abhilash tomy as he set off on the golden globe race back in july. i'm very relieved to be at the start of the golden globe race. it is his second time in the 30,000 mile challenge, which he completed back in 2013, becoming the first indian to circumnavigate the world. but on friday, his yacht hit a storm and rolled 360 degrees, breaking the mast and leaving him in agony.

it triggered a new race to reach the stranded sailor, who was found still conscious and able to talk. today, just a few hours ago, there was an indian aircraft, navy aircraft overhead. a french fisheries surveillance vessel arrived on scene. they launched two zodiacs. made it to tomy, the conditions were pretty good. there were 2m seas, 25—knot winds. they got on board, they applied immediate first aid to tomy, and were able than to put him into the zodiacs, get him back to the ship. the rescue mission was an international operation, co—ordinated here in australia, some 2,000 miles from the damaged boat. it's one of the most remote areas on the planet, almost equidistant from any of the search—and—rescue facilities, so the fact we've got something there as quickly as we have is really good news. the rescuers also picked up the irish sailor gregor mcguckin roughly 30 miles away, who'd been on his way

to help his co—competitor, after his yacht was also damaged in the storm. both men will be taken to hospital on nearby amsterdam island. only then will the full extent of abhilash tomy‘s injuries become clear. but, for now, the sailing fraternity is simply relieved that he has been found alive. rachel wright, bbc news. conservationists in nepal have some good news. they have announced an increase of almost a fifth in the country's tiger population over a four—year period. that is the finding of a recent camera trap study conducted by the nepalese government wildlife conservation agency and a number of international organisations. bear in mind that fewer than 3,900 tigers remain in the wild across the globe. drjohn goodrich is tiger programme senior director from panthera, the global wild cat conservation organisation. speaking to me from fort collins, colorado in the united states, he explained the reasons for the good news. there's been an increase in tigers

in nepal because the government of nepal is doing some really good work there. they've ensured tigers have three things that they need — inviolate habitat, prey, and protection from persecution. so they've set—up top—notch protection systems to ensure the tigers are not in direct competition with people, and they have thousands of soldiers patrolling those areas to make sure that tigers and their prey are not approached. this is really important because the black market value for tigers is greater than any other species. so you can think of tigers as maybe bags of diamonds walking around in the forest, and they need staunch protection because they're worth so much. they use the military to basically protect the protected areas, and as i understand it, that is sort of a training operation

for the military, so hopefully that is sustainable over the long—term. a huge chunk of a popular queensland beach in australia has collapsed and sunk into the sea, not far from where another sinkhole appeared a few years ago, that swallowed up a caravan, car and tents. this time the large hole, at inskip point near rainbow beach, hasn't injured or damaged any property. this footage taken by a local helicopter tour company shows the beach collapsed back to the tree line. police are used to emergency callouts, but they usually involve human beings. in peru, officers have come to the aid of two rather different creatures, found lost and bewildered in a rural town. lebo diseko has the story. a sea rch—and—rescue of a different kind. police in peru on the trail of two runaways — a pair of humboldt penguins found wandering the streets of the town of chimbote, and taken in by someone who lived nearby. translation: when i found the penguins, one had wire wrapped around its foot. i kept them at my brother—in—law‘s house for three days, but they aren't eating anything

and i don't have time to be watching them, so i called the local police. the officers collected the two rather disorientated—looking birds, who locals nicknamed after cartoon penguins in the film madagascar. it is not the first time penguins of this kind have been found on the streets of this area. chimbote is on the coast, just by the pacific ocean. but this pair certainly seem to have made a lasting impression. they were taken to alternative accommodation, given something to eat and a bit of tlc. they're now being looked after by officers from the national forest and wildlife service, before being released back into the wild. lebo diseko, bbc news. the duke and duchess of sussex showed off their sporting skills when they took part in netball exercises at loughborough university. prince harry and meghan markle joined british tennis star

laura robson, athlete paula radcliffe, and met with apprentice coaches ahead of the coach core awards. the scheme gives sports coach training to 16— 2a—year—olds who aren't in education or employment. and, before we go, traditional celebrations have been held to mark the mid—autumn festival in hong kong. an ornate dragon stuck with hundreds of incense sticks was carried by volunteers, shaking its head in front of doorways. it is meant to bring good luck and health to residents. the dragon dance is thought to date back hundreds of years, when it was invented to chase away plague. a reminder of our top story: president trump's choice for supreme courtjustice has president trump's choice for supreme court justice has been president trump's choice for supreme courtjustice has been forced to defend himself again in public against accusations of sexual assault. he insisted he was com pletely assault. he insisted he was completely innocent and he would not step aside. this is bbc world news. hello.

for a time this week, temperatures will be on the rise. not just yet. it's a cold night for much of england and wales, under clearer skies. meanwhile, this stream of cloud in the atlantic continuing to extend across parts of northern ireland, northern and western scotland, strengthening the winds through tuesday and also bringing outbreaks of rain. but away from the far north and west, after a cold start, there will be plenty of sunshine. some early—morning mist and fog to clear. that will soon lift, and then for much of england and wales, plenty of sunshine to be found. just light winds, and very little cloud, even into the afternoon. somewhat different further north and west. more on that in just a moment. here's a closer look at a:00pm on tuesday afternoon. as you can see, lots of sunshine, very little cloud, temperatures generally across england and wales between 15 and 17 celsius. but notice how our wind symbols are turning to black. this is indicating the strength of the gusts across northern ireland, western and northern scotland through the afternoon. quite widely a0 to 50 mph, with outbreaks of rain

pushing their way eastwards. perhaps dryer across the far east of scotland, with some sunshine, but still a windy day here, and temperatures not much higher than 13 or 1a celsius. and it's this area, really, from northern ireland, northern and western scotland, which will keep further outbreaks of rain and some strong winds into tuesday night and through into wednesday morning. eventually, some of that rain just sinking its way further south and eastwards into the far north of england. ahead of this, not quite as cold a night, but some rural parts of southern england perhaps getting down to two or three celsius. through the middle part of the week, we've still got high pressure across much of england and wales, those fronts still to the north and the west bringing strong winds and outbreaks of rain, again slowly starting to sink its way south and eastwards. so a bit more cloud, with the odd spot of rain across northern england, maybe the far north of wales. still quite cloudy for northern ireland, the lion's share of the rain across scotland. and still quite windy here. these are average speeds, gusts will be higher. holding onto the dry,

sunny weather across southern and eastern parts of england and wales, where temperatures on wednesday could get up to around 20 or 21 celsius. and that front continues to make its progress south and eastwards through wednesday and into thursday. as it runs into our area of high pressure, all that becomes left on it isjust a band of cloud. but what it will do later in the week is slowly start to replace the warmth that we found for a time across england and wales with something much cooler further north and west, so some changes to come through this week. some warmth for a time through wednesday and thursday, but slowly being replaced by something cooler and fresher, but mainly dry by the weekend. bye— bye. this is bbc news. the headlines: president trump's choice for supreme courtjustice, brett kavanaugh, has been forced to defend himself again in public, against accusations of sexual assault. judge kavanaugh, insisted he was completely innocent, and that he would not step aside. mr trump says he hopes the confirmation will happen quickly. amid intense speculation about the future of us deputy

attorney—general, rod rosenstein, the white house has announced the president will meet him on thursday. mr rosenstein was reponsible for appointing robert mueller to head investigations into allegations of russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. hopes of a second summit between north korea's leader, kimjong—un and the us. have been raised after president trump said he expects a further meeting to be announced "pretty soon. " the president was speaking during a meeting with south korean president moonjae—in at the united nations. now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk.