welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is martin stanford. our top stories: explosive devices are sent to leading democrats including barack obama and the clintons. president trump says such behaviour has "no place" in america. any acts or threats of political violence are an attack on our democracy itself. in our second special report on china's muslim minority, we hear from those who have fled the country, leaving families behind. the saudi crown prince vows to punish all the "culprits" responsible for the murder of writer jamal khashoggi in turkey. and america's growing addiction to drugs — we hear from those on the frontline of a public health crisis. hello.

president trump has described the sending of pipe bombs to leading democrats, including barack obama and hillary clinton, as an attack on democracy. but senior democrats believe mr trump's words ring hollow, because of his previous statements condoning violence. within the past half hour officials have said they're now trying to track down a suspicious package believed to have been sent to the home of the former vice—presidentjoe biden. the fbi is now working as a priority to identify whoever was responsible, as our north america correspondent, nick bryant reports. in the normally tranquil suburbs of new york city, the home of bill and hillary clinton. today encircled by a much larger security presence than normal, after a suspected explosive device was addressed to the former presidential candidate.

the package was intercepted by secret service agents during routine screening procedures. they said mrs clinton was not at risk of receiving it. we are fine thanks to the men and women of the secret service, who intercepted the package addressed to us long before it made its way to our home. then came news of a second suspected explosive device, addressed to the washington residence of barack and michelle obama. again, it was intercepted by the secret service, and didn't pose a threat to the former president. we're going tojump in, there's a fire alarm here and... the news organisation cnn was reporting these breaking developments when it found itself part of the story. its anchors forced to broadcast from the street, following the discovery of a suspect package in its new york headquarters. it was a package that was mailed to the building. as the nypd cordoned off this area opposite central park, reports came through of what these staff were fleeing from. a live explosive device, said police, addressed to the former

cia directorjohn brennan — a strident critic of the trump presidency, who's been a guest on the network. the devices were similar to a pipe bomb found on monday in the mailbox at a home of the liberal billionaire, george soros. a property in the new york suburb‘s not far from where the clintons live. the trump white house condemned the attacks, and from a president whose aggressive rhetoric has made american politics more vicious and more toxic came this call for national unity. we have to unify. we have to come together, and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the united states of america. as the bomb squad removed the explosive device from cnn, there were bipartisan calls for a return to civility in national life. but this is an era of american politics that's come to be defined by anger and division.

nick bryant, bbc news, washington. in the past few hours, president trump has been speaking at a rally at wisconsin, where he reiterated his call for unity in the wake of the threats but also said the media had a responsibility to help ease the antagonism in politics and society. as pa rt of as part of the larger national effort to bridge divides and bring people together, the media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and often times false attacks and stories. have to do it. for more, i've been speaking to our washington correspondent chris buckler. i began by asking him if he thought the president was being ironic in his comments about the media. i don't think he was being ironic. this was an attempt by president trump to take the moral high ground. in other comments, he also went

on to say that those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective and no one should carelessly compare political opponents to historical villains, which is done often. just to give you a sense of that, some of those have received these pipe bombs include maxine waters, who he regularly refers to in these rallies as "a low iq individual", another person was hillary clinton, who he constantly refers to as "crooked hillary". while trump is now calling for a more civil tone in politics, some would argue the president really needs to take his own advice. indeed, and one was reminded of the events when he actually praised the actions of a gentleman who attacked a reporter. greg gianforte, i think his name was. he actually body slammed a guy to the ground. "my kind of guy", says the president. if that is the tone of political discourse, america has a bit of a problem, doesn't it?

yeah, it goes beyond, as you say, just words, it also comes down to violence. he made those comments last week in which he specifically praised this individual who had body slammed a reporter for essentially asking questions, but it does leave you questioning what president trump's own body language will be in the next two weeks. we are weeks away from those crucial congressional mid—term elections and they are very, very important for the president. now, what he is doing is he is out on the road, he is at these rallies, he is trying to fire up his base. but especially, he has criticised the media, saying that they must watch their language and set a civil tone in the weeks ahead, and i think the president is going to watch very closely as to what he says in these rallies to come. thank you. let's get some of the day's other news. the head of a un investigation in myanmar says rohingya muslims still living there continue to suffer what he called genocide. marzuki darusman condemned the country's de facto leader,

aung san suu kyi, and her government for refusing to acknowledge the problem. police in argentina have fired rubber bullets and tear gas outside the congress building to disperse a protest by thousands of people against cuts to social programmes in next year's budget. a parliamentary session to debate the budget proposed by president mauricio macri had to be suspended during the clashes. the european parliament has approved a proposalfor an eu—wide ban on single—use plastics. meps voted to ban items like plastic cutlery, cotton buds, and straws. it's hoped the measure will reduce the estimated 150,000 tonnes of plastic waste from europe which ends up in the sea every year. 2a hours ago we brought you a special bbc investigation that revealed the construction of a vast network of internment camps, in the western chinese region of xinjiang. china refers to these prison—like facilities as "vocational education and training centre," aimed at fighting radicalisation and terrorism. in the second of his reports,

our china correspondent john sudworth has been hearing the stories of some of those who have fled the xinjang region. you don't see long beards in xinjiang anymore. they've been banned. mosques have fallen silent, with no sign of prayer. but no—one dares to speak — the constant monitoring and following sees to that. some, though, have found refuge in turkey, a place with ties of language and faith to the uighurs — xinjiang's main muslim minority. just reciting an islamic verse was enough, this man says, to put him in a chinese detention camp. his family, he fears, are still in one. translation: i don't know where my mother and father are, or my brothers and sisters.

the chinese government wants us to renounce our beliefs, our ethnicity and our humanity. another former camp inmate says he was forced to sing communist party songs and recite china's new anti—extremism laws, under the threat of violence. translation: every day someone was beaten. there were two men, one with a belt, the other just kicked. if we fell down, they made us kneel again. those we've spoken to are the lucky ones. they fled to turkey in 2015. since then, there are very few reports of anyone being released from the camps at all. the testimony me we've heard here is impossible to independently verify, of course, but what's

striking are the consistencies. the descriptions of the routines in the camps, the brainwashing techniques, and most tellingly perhaps, the results. not love and loyalty for the chinese communist party, but a deep and lasting resentment. family as well as faith is being broken. when this woman fled xinjiang with her children, her baby daughter did not yet have a passport. her dad plans to bring her later, but now he too has been taken away. translation: if my daughter could hear me now, i'd say nothing but sorry. there's nothing worse than not knowing where she is,

whether she's alive or dead. are they gonna turn us back here? back in xinjiang, we tried to visit a camp where we've heard 10,000 people may be held. but in front of us, the police close the whole highway — for repair, they say. we try other routes, but every time, at roadblock after roadblock.... we're not gonna get anywhere close to it. ..there's no way through. the point where we are forced to give up is just a short distance away from a large new camp, with the watchtower clearly visible. the chinese police have a long reach, it seems. this man, a british uighur living in london, says they are pressuring his family in xinjiang because of his campaigning work.

all my family members have been harassed by the police, security forces, asking them to put pressure on me to keep my mouth shut, do not say any single words against the chinese government. this is another british uighur, who received a message last year saying her mum had been taken away. the 66—year—old is thought to have been in a camp ever since. the chinese government, they want to to hide this from the world. we need foreign governments to act as soon as possible before it's too late. uighurs are not missing, says china, they are being educated. but whole extended families have been taken away, and a culture, a religion and a people are in crisis. john sudworth, bbc news, xinjiang. you'll find lots more detail about the suspected internment camps on our website, including maps and eyewitness accounts.

just go to bbc.com/news, or download the bbc news app. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: the toll of america's opioid addiction. we have a special report on a public health emergency. a historic moment that many of his victims have waited for for decades. the former dictator in the dock, older, slimmer, and as he sat down, obedient enough. dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside korem, it lights up a biblicalfamine, now, in the 20th century. the depressing conclusion — in argentina today, it is actually cheaper to paper your walls with money. we've had controversies

in the past with great britain. but as good friends, we have always found a good and lasting solution. concorde bows out in style. after almost three decades in service, an aircraft that has enthralled its many admirers for so long taxis home one last time. this is bbc news, the latest headlines: president trump has said there is no place for political violence in the united states, after several low—grade explosive devices were sent to barack obama and hillary clinton. the bbc has been speaking to members of china's muslims minority who have fled the region of xinjiang, leaving families and communities behind. saudi arabia's de—facto leader, crown prince mohammed bin salman, has described the death of the journalist jamal kashoggi

as a "repulsive crime that cannot be justified". in his first public comments on the killing, he told an investment conference in riyadh thatjustice would prevail and all culprits would be punished. the crown prince has faced international criticism since mr khashoggi died during a visit to the saudi consulate in istanbul. the conference has been boycotted by many big companies and governments because of the killing. earlier i spoke to abdul—aziz almoay—yad — a saudi dissident living in exile in dublin. he's part of an online activist network called the ‘bee army‘ which, he explains, helps saudis access information which might counter the state line. supporters join our telegram group. then we send them some instruction in how to be safe and how to deal with these cyber security with knowledge and being covered from government eyes.

and also we provide them with a... numbers to activate their twitter accounts so they can be 100% safe that nobody will get their information even if twitter was breached by technology, or one of their employees decided to leak some information, as happened before. at least there's a story leaking about some leaking of activist information. so you are in the business of putting an alternative view to that as pushed out by the official saudi media. when you hear the story, as we are today, that mbs denied any involvement in this murder and he would capture the culprits, what do you make of that? it's a cover—up, just like the other lies he's been saying since this issue started. i think mohammed bin

salman is responsible. personally i believe he's responsible firsthand, but even if he wasn't, he's at responsible by being a lousy leader and being in a place that he doesn't know how to run. somebody killed in a saudi embassy, and he said in his country for 1h days that he went out from the other door. even if he wasn't a killer, which i really believe he is, he's not fit to rule saudi arabia, he's not fit to be in that situation. does your network of contacts spread to people still living in saudi arabia, and if so, what information are you hearing from them? do they believe the official line? i think people in saudi arabia are afraid.

if you are... let's say, a journalist, for example, in the washington post, and you're living outside saudi arabia because you say you're afraid from the regime, you could be killed like mrjamal. so could you imagine a person living inside saudi arabia? but, yes, people don't believe that. people feel betrayed. even the minority who used to trust this government or mohammed bin salman you can see the feeling of betrayal. you don't even need a connection to feel that there's a lot of figures on twitter from our figures, who can see that there's a lot in their speech changed after the incident ofjamal, especially when the saudi government said we did it, that was the tipping point for a lot of people. thank you very much indeed for talking to us today.

president putin has warned russia will respond "in kind" if new us nuclear missiles are placed in europe. the russian president said any european countries hosting us missiles would be at risk of russian strikes. nato has said it is unlikely to deploy more nuclear weapons to europe should an arms control treaty between washington and moscow collapse. president trump has signed into law a series of measures designed to tackle the surge in opioid addiction in the united states. drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death in america for people under the age of 50. more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses last year — and darren conway has been to meet people on the frontline of america's war against drugs. a warning his report contains distressing scenes. my addiction took my self—worth, my dignity, my self—respect. my health, my friends and family, my education, money. it took my family, my friends, my freedom.

it took everything. most of my family consider me dead. if heroin‘s the devil, i would say fentanyl is the horseman of the apocalypse, and it's the one named death, because itjust brings death. it's now referred to as the worst public health crisis in american history. alex is just one of the 70,000 active heroin users currently living in philadelphia, and he embodies the evolution of opioid addiction in america. after being prescribed painkillers for an injury, he became addicted, and then turned to a cheaper alternative when the pills ran out. heroin. now his body craves something stronger. i hope that it's fentanyl because heroin that's actually heroin will not get me well. fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that's 50 times more

powerful than heroin. i'm not doing nothing except sticking a needle in my arm every day, all day long. waste of time, waste of energy, waste of money. it's a waste of everything. with no increase in budgets or personnel, manchester fire department now spends 70% of their time responding to drug—related calls. since this crisis has hit, we go out on these types of calls over and over and over again, all day long. hey, doug, can you get up? you gotta! you can't stay here! this is obviously overdosing on opiates. he admitted to using fentanyl. fentanyl?

fe nta nyl, yea h. he said he had half fentanyl, half heroin mixed in a bag. so the little baggy that he has, where's that? probably threw it on the ground, a kid plays with that, sees it as a candy, whatever. it's that whole... from my personal standpoint, it's frustrating, because you see it all the time, every single day. leela? leela, leela? wake up! he's going to give her another narcan. this will be the second one we put in because she didn't respond to the first one, so we're going to put in a second one. narcan is used to block the effects of opioids in an attempt to reverse overdoses and save lives. part of today's landmark legislation today is to make it more readily available. if this crisis right now doesn't worry you, then there's something wrong, you're not paying attention to it. working with local law enforcement, the drug enforcement administration agents have identified dealers operating from a park. he's getting into that blue bmw.

he's picked up, he's looking around. so you can see how this works. we're set up in the park, we're sort of at a position where we can see what's happening. we see customers coming in. he's coming into the park. hide your plates. they're getting served, they're getting back in the car. 0ur guys are calling it out to the surveillance units, surveillance units are taking them away to a place where... whether‘s it's in new hampshire or massachusetts, we can safely make these traffic stops. new hampshire, as of this morning, hasn't had a heroin overdose death. it's not heroin that's killing our people, it's fentanyl. for these cartels, they don't have to worry about opium any more. they can mass—produce this stuff in the same labs that they have set up that they used when they were making methamphetamine or any other drug, and they're able to manufacture it faster and cheaper. we're up here in new hampshire now. we just stopped a car we saw pick up from that same park.

this woman too had the stuff stuffed inside her body cavity. she's pulling it out for the troopers. here's the evidence here that they just removed from this female. again, fentanyl driving up into new hampshire to pollute our communities. the dealers are now mixing fenta nyl with everything. we're seeing an increase of fentanyl mixed with cocaine, fentanyl mixed with methamphetamine. they don't want to kill anybody, they don't care if they do. they're driven by greed. they've killed more people than war has. darren conway with that special report the duke and duchess of sussex have been in fiji, as they continue their royal tour of the south pacific. harry and meghan were honouring a british—fijian soldier who was killed in the battle of mirbat, in 1972. the couple are flying to tonga where they'll meet the tongan king and queen. on wednesday prince harry announced scholarships to study climate

change, which he says is a daily threat for the people living in fiji. if every drivers might there. going under a bridge that realising too late at your vehicle is too big to get through. this happened to a driver who ran into trouble in perth. at least two range rovers we re perth. at least two range rovers were crushed causing thousands of pounds of damage. the bridge... it was unscathed. president trump has called on politicians and the media to adopt a more civil tone after bombs were sent to high—profile democrat and the headquarters of cnn. ina democrat and the headquarters of cnn. in a rally of supporters he bowed to catch the perpetrator and that the media had to stop what he called false attacks. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter — i'm @martinstanford. hello there.

sunshine on wednesday took temperatures very close to 20 degrees, but you can expect those temperatures to drop away over the next few days. and also through the day ahead, thursday, we're going to see a bit more cloud around in many areas. for most, it will stay dry, but not for all. 0n the earlier satellite picture, you can see the way the cloud has been streaming its way in from the north and west. there will still be some breaks in the cloud and where we have breaks to start the day, particularly down to the south, there could be the odd mist patch around as well. as we go on through the day, areas of cloud coming in from the north—west with the best of the sunshine to the east of high ground, maybe the east of the pennines, parts of east anglia and the south—east, all the while, outbreaks of rain setting in to the north—west of scotland, some of this turning heavy late in the day, and those temperatures a little bit lower than on wednesday, 9—15 degrees. this rain across scotland will start to push its way south—eastwards as we go through thursday night into the early hours of friday. not much rain around actually as we see this weather system

sliding into england and wales, but behind it, quite a big change in the feel of the weather. the winds switch round to more of a northerly direction, and as you can see, we're going to start to tap into some pretty cold air for the end of the week. that air coming from a long way north. so things are going to feel decidedly chilly. the remnants of our band of cloud and rain, a cold front continuing to slide across south—eastern areas early on friday. then we will see spells of sunshine, but in areas exposed to this keen northerly wind, there will be some showers, and yes, those showers will start to turn wintry across high ground in the north. temperatures 6—10 at best. we stick with that chilly feel as we head on into the weekend. a biting northerly wind. a mixture of sunshine and showers, some of those showers wintry over high ground in the north and the risk of frost and some ice. so let's take a look at saturday. we'll see some sunshine, yes,

but some showers pushing into across parts of eastern of england. one or two for west wales, the south—west of england, a few up to the north—west as well. one or two showers inland. many inland areas should stay dry with some sunshine, but temperatures of just 7—10. then we add on the strength of the keen northerly wind, this is what it will feel like. it will feel like one, two, three degrees in some places. not much change on sunday, but again we will see spells sunshine. the winds switch around to more of a north—easterly direction, that means most of the showers will be in eastern areas, not as many further west, but temperatures still struggling, with highs of 7—10 degrees. this is bbc news. the headlines: president trump has said there is no place for political violence in the united states, after several low—grade explosive devices were sent to barack obama and hillary clinton. several other democratic party politicians and officials also received them, as well as the broadcaster cnn. there's "serious and growing concerns" about the human rights

situation in xinjiang where the bbc has uncovered fresh evidence of china's campaign to detain and re—educate muslim uighurs. 0ur correspondent has been hearing the stories of some of those who have fled the region. saudi arabia's de facto leader crown prince mohammed bin salman has described the death of the journalist jamal kashoggi as a "repulsive crime that cannot be justified." in his first public comments on the killing, he told an investment conference in riyadh thatjustice would prevail and all culprits would be punished. a so—called celebrity hunter has provoked anger after posting