welcome to bbc news, i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: donald trump lashes out at the british prime minister and the uk ambassador to the us, following leaked memos criticising his adminstration. the wealthy american fiancier jeffrey epstein pleads not guilty to charges of trafficking underage girls for sex more than a decade ago. footage of eight international climbers swept away by an avalanche in the himalayas is released by the police. and a balancing act for the planet. we have a special report from the amazon on the vital role played by its trees, as more and more are cut down.

president trump has accused the british prime minister, theresa may, of making a mess of brexit. in a series of tweets, he also said the us would no longer deal with the uk's ambassador in washington. it comes after e—mails from sir kim darroch were leaked in which he described trump's administration as inept. our north america correspondent nick bryant reports. at a personal level, it has always looked more like an awkward rather than special relationship — the reserved vicar‘s daughter alongside the brash manhattan tycoon. and, although this isn't the first time donald trump has

criticised theresa may, it is his most brutal assault yet. he fumed on twitter. the ambassador he is referring to, of course, is sir kim darroch, britain's man in washington, whose leaked secret messages to london describe donald trump and his administration as inept, insecure, and incompetent. yesterday, the president singled out the ambassador for criticism.

now, he has broadened his attack. his tweet tirade came just hours after theresa may said she had full faith in sir kim, but did not agree with his views. her spokesman described the leak as absolutely unacceptable, and said downing street had made contact with the white house. meanwhile, a whitehall whodunnit as the foreign office mounted an investigation to find out who leaked the e—mails, and just as importantly, why. as for sir kim, he seems safe in a job that he will soon leave anyway, after four years in washington. it's a personal view, and there'll be many people in this building who don't agree with that view, and indeed, i don't agree with some of the views that we saw in those letters. i've said i think the us administration is highly effective, and we have the warmest of relationships, and a partnership

based on standing up for shared values. during his state visit to london before tea at clarence house with the prince of wales... hi again. ..donald trump shook hands with the ambassador he has now made persona non grata. clearly he still has fond memories of all the pageantry at the palace, when he went out of his way to show respect for the british monarch. but rarely has an american president displayed such public disdain for a british prime minister. nick bryant, bbc news, washington. in the last few hours, we have been hearing that sir kim has been disinvited from a dinner at the white house. more on this from freelance journalist max kutner. it certainly does. those are the latest reports, that the ambassador was disinvited from this event that was for the emir of qatar.

and so yes, it does seem that the fallout from this is happening immediately. this is notjust twitter rhetoric, this is actually happening. and i did speak with an expert in diplomacy at stanford university, and he told me, sure, the president does have this power. the president can say we're cutting ties, and then follow through with it. a receiving country, as it's called, does not have to honour the — and welcome the ambassadors of another nation. it doesn't say much about the special relationship, then, does it? well, it doesn't. and as, you know, your programme said moments ago, the us and england have had this, you know, hot—and—cold relationship. certainly president trump and prime minister may have had this relationship. there have been negative tweets by president trump about the prime minister before. they have also been positive ones, and the state visit, weeks ago, obviously seemed to go very well, at least seemed publicly to go well. but these things have

gone hot and cold. it's been dysfunctional, as other reporters have described it. trump at one point has reportedly referred to the prime minister as — "she'll be my maggie," is what he reportedly said. so the relationship has ebbed and flowed. earlier on in his tweets, president trump said of the ambassador he is not liked or well thought of. that's not really true, is it? half of his staff at his parties, we hear. right, this has been questioned throughout the past few days. there are certainly photographs that i was reviewing moments ago that — it was from an inauguration event that the british embassy in washington held two days before president trump was sworn in, in january 2017. and you saw some people who are very close to the president at that party, including former campaign manager corey lewandowski, newt gingrich, chris christie, his lawyer, former new york city mayor giuliani.

so these are all trump associates who were all at this party, photographed with the ambassador, and the reports go beyond that party and beyond those people. the acting attorney—general at the time, matthew whitaker, was reportedly dancing at the embassy on new year's eve, just months ago. let's get some of the day's other news: the son of a former south korean foreign minister who defected with his wife to north korea has reportedly followed his parents footsteps and moved to the north. north korean state media released this footage of choe in—guk arriving at pyongyang airport, in what could be a rare defection from the south to the north. france's president, emmanuel macron, is sending a diplomatic advisor to tehran in an effort to de—escalate tensions between iran and the us. tensions have continued to grow in the year since the us pulled out of the iran nuclear deal. tehran announced earlier it had reached limits on uranium enrichment, calling on european nations to live up to their side of the agreement.

staff of deutsche bank have been handed redundancy notices and sent home in europe, asia, the united states and australia, as the bank begins to shed 18,000 jobs. the bank is losing a fifth of its global workforce after failing to recover from the global financial crisis a decade ago. the wealthy american financier jeffrey epstein has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking. mr epstein once counted president trump, bill clinton and queen elizabeth's son prince andrew as friends. he is accused of luring underage girls to his homes in florida and new york. the prosecutor outlined the charges. this conduct, as alleged, went on for years, and it involved dozens of young girls, some as young as 14 years old at the time that they

were allegedly abused. as alleged, epstein was well aware that many of his victims were minors, and not surprisingly, many of the underage girls that epstein allegedly victimised were particularly vulnerable to exploitation. the bbc‘s nada tawfik in new york has more details. this was basically a hearing to determine mr epstein‘s bail, and so prosecutors were putting forth evidence to show that he should remain in detention. on saturday, they raided his manhattan mansion with a search warrant, and there at the mansion they said they found credible, explicit evidence that matched victims‘ testimony. so for example, many of the victims said that mr epstein lured them into a private room with a massage table, where they were told to give him a massage, but to undress, before they were then molested by him.

well, investigators at the home found that room, found that massage table, saying it wasjust as it was 15 years ago. they also found in his safe multiple cds that contained hundreds if not thousands of nude photographs of females, many of them underage girls. and they had very explicit labels on them. they had the victims‘ names, they said "young nudes". so these were some of the things that prosecutors, if the case goes to trial, will have to support their case. ijust want i just want to bring you ijust want to bring you some live pictures from hong kong, where carrie lam is holding a press conference. a short time ago she said the controversial extradition bill, which of course has sparked huge protests, and indeed some violent protests in the last few weeks, she has said that that bill is now dead, and that the work on

the bill has been a total failure. let's just have a listen into carrie lam. we will adopt a new governance style, in order to ensure that we are able and capable of listening to views from different set is, before we implement policies. so i want to make some concrete follow—ups to those suggestions. 0ne make some concrete follow—ups to those suggestions. one is we will listen more extensively to people of different backgrounds, with different backgrounds, with different ideas, so that we have a better grasp of public opinion. this work will be carried out not only by myself, it's also to be carried out by my political team, including the principal officials, the undersecretary is to political assistance, and also by my senior civil servants, whom i have met over the last few weeks, and they are all very willing to help by displaying that same sincerity to consult and

listen. as for the role of the executive council in this particular aspect, i will enhance the role of executive council, that is nonofficial members of the executive council, so that they also shoulder the important responsibility in gauging public opinions and reflecting those opinions to me. the second concrete measure is we will reform the existing consultative machinery, which basically comprises large numbers of consultative advisory committees, with members appointed by the government into these committees to offer us advice. i feel that we need to be these committees to offer us advice. ifeel that we need to be more innovative. in other words, sometimes we may not need a formal committee. we should build more open platforms to facilitate dialogues in a very frank exchange manner, and to make sure that whoeverjoins the

committees or these dialogues comes from different backgrounds, so they are not homogeneous, of one group. they should come from a more diverse background, so we can receive views from a wider spectrum of society. 0ne from a wider spectrum of society. one of the important committees that will undergo, i would say, a one of the important committees that will undergo, iwould say, a major overhaul, will be the youth development commission, because this commission was set up to co—ordinate initiatives relating to young people, and to address young people's concern. so i hope that the ydc will undergo a change over to a more open dialogue and platform, to listen to views from young people of various backgrounds. the third concrete initiative is, when i said that in rolling out policies the government should have more far off deliberations, we should not be guided just by executive efficiency, oi’ guided just by executive efficiency, oran end guided just by executive efficiency,

or an end date for achieving a particular target. so i have invited all my principal officials to revisit and re—examine some of the controversial policy initiatives under their respective jurisdiction, and consider whether we should redo oi’ and consider whether we should redo or enhance the consultation and discussions with the people, so that at the end of the day, we could have an initiative which has more broad—based support. and in doing so, i hope we could restore some of the trust of the government amongst oui’ the trust of the government amongst our people. and finally, i said on firstjuly that i would reach out to more young people of different backgrounds, to hear them out. and that's why last week i contacted the presidents of two universities, the hong kong university of science and technology and the chinese

university of hong kong, to seek their help in arranging smaller sessions, closed door sessions, so that we can listen without any sort of constraints. i realise that this idea is not welcomed by the student unions. they instead counter propose that we should have an open dialogue. i now readily welcome and i agreed to do this open dialogue with our student representatives, and we will follow up. i hope this open dialogue will be conducted without any prerequisites on my part on the part of the students stop to conclude, i want to say this really, from the bottom of my heart. five yea rs from the bottom of my heart. five years ago, i was from the bottom of my heart. five years ago, i was one from the bottom of my heart. five years ago, i was one of the principal officials involved in 0ccu py principal officials involved in 0ccupy central. now, five years later, as the chief executive, i was overseeing this fugitive offenders

ordinance amendment. both exercises have caused a lot of grievances, unhappiness and tensions in society. i believe they reflect not only one incident, but some fundamental and deep—seated problems in hong kong. five years ago, we finished 0ccupy central, we moved on, without addressing those fundamental problems. but this time, i don't think we could continue to ignore those fundamental and deep—seated problems in hong kong society. i hope, together with the hong kong community, we could really go deep into those fundamental issues, and try to find solutions. so, in recent days, several university presidents, religious leaders, and social and committee leaders have spoken to me on their idea of creating an open,

constructive, interactive platform for dialogue with people from different backgrounds, especially with young people, with a view to jointly understand and identify those deep—seated issues, with a view that they could identify also some solutions for us to move forward. i certainly welcome this idea, which i hope will not only provide some relief to the current tense situation in hong kong, but also help to mend the rift in society. so i support this piece of work, and hope that it could be started as soon as possible. but, since the proponents tell me that they preferred this dialogue to be created through community efforts, the government will not go into direct how this dialogue should be established. but whenever i and my officials are needed to take part in the dialogue, we are very happy to

do so. while the dialogue is being established, meanwhile, the hong kong government and myself will continue to address the social, economic and livelihood problems in hong kong, with a view to resolving some of the current difficulties. that was the chief executive of hong kong carrie lam there, speaking, making a conciliatory tone there, talking about listening, consulting, a new governing style, addressing the concerns of young people and reaching out to more groups in order to listen to public opinion. of course that comes off the back of weeks of demonstrations and last week, some violent protests. that was sparked by controversial extradition build with mainland china, the people were so about, and

just before we started listening, she did see that —— she did say that legislation is now dead. still to come, we have a special report on the amazon on the vital role played by the rainforest in halting the rise of global temperatures. central london has been rocked by a series of terrorist attacks. police say there have been many casualties, and there is growing speculation that al-qaeda was responsible. germany will be the hosts of the 2006 football world cup, and they pipped the favourites, south africa, by a single vote. in south africa, the possibility of losing hadn't even been contemplated, and celebration parties were cancelled. the man entered the palace through a downstairs window and made his way to the queen's private bedroom. then he asked her for a cigarette, and on the pretext of arranging for some to be brought,

she summoned a footman on duty, who took the man away. one child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. education is the only solution. applause this is bbc news. the latest headlines: donald trump lashes out at the british prime minister and the uk ambassador to the us, following leaked memos criticising his adminstration. the wealthy american fiancier jeffrey epstein pleads not guilty to charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, more than a decade ago.

over the last week we've been looking at the threat deforestation poses to the amazon rainforest. it is one of the biggest sources for capturing carbon dioxide on the planet. but just how significant is the rainforest in helping to limit the rise in global temperatures? 0ur science editor david shukman has been meeting the scientist who's spent the last decade finding out. this must be the hardest way to investigate why the trees of the amazon are so important — climbing right up into them. down on the ground, a scientist, erica boehringer, is asking for samples of the leaves. her assistant, way up above, cuts away a few branches and throws them down. according to erica, understanding the forest is vital. for me, it's really important because the amazon cannot speak up,

the trees cannot speak up. they cannot say that they are worth it and they have a value, they are really important. so i made this my life. erica has studied the same batch of trees for ten years now, measuring exactly how they're growing and how they affect the climate. they're helping us, forfree, to remove carbon from the atmosphere and put it in the forest and lock it up in here. this matters to the whole world because of the sheer size of this forest. we've used graphics to show how the billions of leaves are breathing in carbon dioxide, a gas which is heating up the planet. as human activity keeps adding more and more carbon dioxide into the air, magnificent trees like this pull a lot of it in. but chop it down and burn it

and all the carbon that's been stored inside over the many years is suddenly released back to the atmosphere, which of course increases the speed of global warming. in the last few months, the rate of deforestation here has suddenly increased. the new government of brazil wants to encourage development, creating fields where there used to be forest. so, erica's research is all the more urgent. in this lab, she studies the leaves collected from the forest to work out how much carbon the amazon holds. it's the equivalent of america burning fossil fuels for nearly a century. in 97 years of the us fossil fuel emissions, that's how much carbon there is in this place. because a big tree might store three tonnes of carbon, four tonnes of carbon. it's a lot of carbon. but the forest is about more than carbon and climate change. it's home to an extraordinary variety of creatures, and it's unique. it's so wonderful, it's so full of life, it's so full... just so beautiful. and to lose it, it's never going to come back again, we're never going to be

able to build an amazon. it's going to be gone forever. so once it's gone, it's just gone. all that's left where forest once stood — a stark reminder of what's vanishing and of consequences for the rest of the world. david shukman, bbc news, in the amazon. reminder of our top story. the leader of the hong kong government, carrie lam, has told a news co nfe re nce government, carrie lam, has told a news conference that a controversial d raft law news conference that a controversial draft law that would have allowed extradition to the chinese mainland is dead. she admitted that the government's work on the bill had

been a totalfailure. government's work on the bill had been a total failure. that bill of courses sparked huge and at times violent street protests and plunge the former british colony into turmoil. in mid june, carrie lam responded to the protests by suspending the bill that that move failed to mollify critics who continued to demonstrate against the bill and call for her resignation. with just reiterating what she had to say. she said there are still lingering doubts about the government's sincerity or worries about whether the government will restart the process, with the legislative council, so i reiterated there is no such plan, the bill is dead. very clear words there. speaking in the last half—an—hour. that is the story we will keep following. we are watching bbc news.

you can reach me on twitter — i'm @duncangolestani. hello. this time last year, we were on a run of five days with temperatures sitting 30 celsius or above somewhere in the uk. great news if you don't like heat like that. there is nothing like that on the immediate horizon. high pressure being squeezed to the south, rain—bearing weather fronts moving in, mostly across the northern half of the uk, average temperatures for most of us this week. it's a warmer start, though, in the morning compared with where we've been over recent mornings, but a lot of cloud around and some outbreaks of rain. this is what it looks like at 8am in the morning, with outbreaks of rain running eastwards across scotland. a few heavier bursts within this. still some patchy rain for northern ireland and northern england. it's at least a damp start for some of us here.

some of this rain will fringe north wales, through the midlands and even push onto parts of east anglia but it is going to be lighter, more patchy than it is to the north. south of that, a lot of cloud around but there will be some brighter sunny spells to be had here. let's take a look at how wimbledon is shaping up for tuesday's play, a rather uninspiring look at cloudy skies. a few brighter spells out there, maybe the slight chance of a shower but dry for a full day's play once again. this is how tuesday goes. scotland and england and northern ireland will see most of the rain at times, drier interludes but we could see an area of heavier rain running eastwards as we go on through the afternoon. again south of that, it is mainly dry. some sunshine, cornwall down to the channel islands, a few spots in the 20s, most of us 19s or low 20s. the next spell of rain could turn things quite wet at the end of the day in northern ireland and southern scotland and northern england, clears overnight. and into wednesday, another spell of rain running

into northern ireland and north—west england and western scotland later in the night, and the nights are getting a little warmer. it's getting rather humid for many of us as we go through the week. for wednesday then, another spell of rain pushing east to start the day. this may end up digging a little further south to parts of eastern england. sunny spells follow, particularly to england and wales. a lot of cloud in scotland and northern ireland, and a few more showers following on as we go through the day. let's take a look at thursday, because we could well see some quite heavy, thundery downpours developing in parts of northern ireland, scotland and northern england. by no means everybody will see, them but where they do pop up, that could lead to some disruption in some spots. england and wales seeing a few showers moving from west to east as well, and still a few sunny spells as well. going into the weekend, the showers slowly fade over the weekend. it turns drier, sunnier and a little warmer.

this is bbc news. the headlines: in the last few minutes, the leader of the hong kong government, carrie lam, has told a news conference that a controversial draft law that would have allowed extradition to the chinese mainland is dead. the planned legislation had prompted mass protests in hong kong. donald trump has announced that he will no longer deal with the uk's ambassador in washington, sir kim darroch, following the leak of e—mails written by the diplomat criticising the president's administation. mr trump also attacked the way, the british prime minister, theresa may, has handled brexit. the american financier jeffrey epstein has pleaded not guilty to trafficking dozens of underage girls for sex more than a decade ago. the 66—year—old appeared in a new york court and was ordered to remain in custody until a bail hearing on thursday. voting is now underway for more

than 160,000 conservative party