welcome to bbc news. i'm maryam moshiri. our top stories: pressure on the white house. the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, is given a week to hand over documents relating to ukraine, as the democrats step up the trump impeachment investigation. meanwhile, the special representative to ukraine, kurt volker, has resigned after being named in the whistle—blower report. afghanistan steps up security as nine million voters choose their next president despite threats of violence by the taliban. 22 years on — prince harry follows in his mother's footsteps, with a visit to the minefields in angola.

democrats in the us house of representatives have stepped up their impeachment inquiry into president trump. the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, has been ordered to hand over documents to an oversight committee in congress. it's trying to determine whether president trump jeopardized national security in his dealings with the government of the ukraine. the committee has also ordered five members of mr pompeo‘s staff to give evidence. one of those is this man — kurt volker, who in the last few hours, has been reported to have resigned from his position as the us special representative to ukraine. he's not given a reason. we'll find out more about that in a few minutes, from the student journalist who broke the story. first, our north america, jon sopel reports on how president trump has reacted as the inquiry gathers steam. there's support, there's defiance,

but also there's anger. in a twitter fusillade this morning he took aim at the democratic house chair of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff, the person who will play a key role in impeachment hearings. the inspector general found that serious allegation of misconduct by the president credible. donald trump said of him... and then the whistle—blower who revealed details of the president's conversation with his ukrainian counterpart volodymyr zelensky. sounding more and more like the so—called whistle—blower isn't a whistle—blower at all. but everything in the whistle—blower‘s letter has been proved true. the call did take place. president trump did ask his ukrainian counterpart to investigate his democratic party rivaljoe biden. and the white house today confirmed the transcript of the call was moved to a more secure server. but when president trump asks ukraine to investigate corruption, the democrats want to impeach him...

but now in a slick counter blast, the trump campaign is firing back. they lost the election, now they want to steal this one. don't let them. i'm donald trump and i approved this... but the speaker of the house is unmoved. she says she was left with no other choice but impeachment following all of this. ..but this is about national security. this is about the national security of our country, and the president of the united states being disloyal to his own oath of office, jeopardising our national security, and jeopardising the integrity of our elections. and the woman donald trump beat in 2016 has also made a rare intervention to pile in. he has turned american diplomacy into a cheap extortion racket. he has denigrated and — let's be honest — stabbed in the back of the career foreign service officers who serve bravely and selflessly no matter the politics of the administration that they are working under.

the white house line on the whistle—blower is that it's all second—hand information and inaccurate. it's anything but. so far everything he's said has turned out to be true. republican lawmakers can say they don't really care and donald trump is free to do whatever he likes, much harder, though, to say there's nothing here. john sopel, bbc news, washington. david tafuri is an international lawyer at dentons. he is in our washington bureau. david, thanks so much forjoining us on bbc news. i mean, correct me if i'm wrong but it is pretty shocking to have to subpoena secretary of state for documents? well, it is, that's what congress does as part of its oversight, though. it request them and if it doesn't think it is going to get them it has to issue a subpoena. they are anticipating the state department was going to give them trouble and issued a subpoena.

the question is will they comply with that? there have been many insta nces with that? there have been many instances where the trump administration has refused to comply with subpoenas unless congress trying to figure out how to enforce those subpoenas. what does that mean if they don't provide those documents? what happens next? then the congress can try to take an action to court to try to hold the administration in contempt. this hasn't happened many times, so it's not exactly clear how the process works and what the ability of the judges to enforce a contempt order against the administration. hopefully we're not going to end up there and secretary and the state department will comply with the subpoena. think that would be wise to do so. and now where's that leave us to do so. and now where's that leave us in terms of what we know about the ukraine and that phone call and what the president's involvement

was? well, we have a rough transcript of the phone call and, as in your previous segments, it was described accurately by the whistleblower. we now have the whole whistleblower. we now have the whole whistleblower complaint released publicly. and you can read all the things the whistleblower was reporting. some of those things he observed. most of them are things he learned from others in the administration stop at reports a number of concerning facts about how the present reacted with the president of ukraine and we are also learning some concerning facts about how the president was in dealing with other leaders, including leaders of russia. there is now some reporting related to the president meeting with the foreign minister of russia in 2017. apparently, according to the washington post,

the president told the foreign minister of russia that he shouldn't be concerned about the election interference by russia and said something to the effect of" we do that all the time, to". it is also a stunning fact, too, if true. all of this has been brought up by this whistleblower complaints, which alleges to suggest that there are many in the administration who are entirely concerned about how the president was interacting with foreign governments and that he was doing a number of different things that were jeopardising our national security here in the us. and, david, the committee has also ordered some of mr pompeo's staff to give evidence, one of whom is kurt volker, the us special representative to your grade. and he has now reportedly resigned. what does that mean in terms of him giving evidence in the future? well, it would be a little bit easier for him to give testimony and evidence if he is no longer a part of the

government ‘s. he wouldn't have to get permission from the government, for instance, to give testimony. we don't know if that's the reason why he resigned. and i don't want to speculate about that. but it is at least possible that he resigned in order to free himself from the yoke of the administration so he could testify accurately about what he observed. he is a centralfigure in the whistleblower complaint. he was acting as the envoy between the us and the ukraine. he met with the president of ukraine reportedly and he talked to the president of ukraine after that phone call between president trump and the president of the ukraine and explain what the president was asking for and help him deal with that. so that'll be fascinating testimony if he does in fact give it. ok, david tafuri, thank you so much for talking to us on bbc news. thank you.

here in the uk, it's been announced that a police watchdog will assess whether the prime minister boris johnson should face a criminal investigation over his relationship with the american businesswoman, jennifer accuri, during his time as mayor of london. it's alleged that mrjohnson allowed jennifer accuri to go on overseas trade missions, for which she'd previously been turned down, and that she received about $14,000 in sponsorship money. the prime minister vigorously denies the claims. downing street has released a statement saying "everything was done with propriety and in the normal way". 0ur uk affairs correspondent daniel sandford has more. the basis of the allegations is that jennifer accuri received £11,500 in sponsorship for events organised by one of the companies, which came from organisations linked to the mayor's office and also went on three overseas trips with borisjohnson which, originally, she'd been turned down for. now, the greater london authority monitoring officer has been looking at these allegations this week and so have we, in fact, and noticed that people

who went on the trips with jennifer accuri felt that she seemed a bit out of place, as her companies didn't seem as substantial as those of the other people that were on the trips, and certainly we know that borisjohnson‘s office intervene to make sure that she went on one of the trips and the greater london authority monitoring officer has now decided to call in the police watchdog, the iopc, to assess whether boris johnson, the prime minister, should be investigated for the criminal offence of misconduct ion public office. the iopc are involved because when he was mayor of london, borisjohnson was in charge of london's metropolitan police. borisjohnson has vigorously denied these allegations, saying to the bbc last night that people are barking up the wrong tree. his office insists that he's always acted with propriety. and he says very proud of his time as mayor of london. police in nigeria have freed some 500 people, many of them young children, from a building where they have been allegedly chained, tortured and sexually abused. to protect their privacy, we have concealed the identities

of the victims in this report from mayenijones in lagos. captives in chains, boys, teenagers, and grown men held in a so—called islamic school and unable to leave. police received a tip—off from relatives of children held here that suggested this place was not what it seemed. i say, "ok, take this loaf of bread and take it to them." so when we go back home now, we had a family meeting, so we said, "ok, the only thing that shall report this issue to the police station." exactly that is what we did. the police said this was no educational institution. we discovered that we have small, small children, today, underfive graduates. civil servants i hear. most of them are chained. chained! as far as i'm concerned,

this is modern—day slavery. millions of students are in islamic schools across nigeria. parents in this deprived region often have to leave their children in religious boarding schools. these institutions have been dogged with allegations of abuse. earlier this year, the government said it planned to ban them. but wouldn't say when. as the victims are treated and reunited with their families, this latest incident may be a reminder of the need for reform. mayenijones, bbc news in lagos. stay with us on bbc world news. still to come: 22 years on, prince harry retraces his mother's footsteps, walking through a partially—cleared angolan minefield.

in all russia's turmoil it has never quite come to this. president yeltsin said the day would decide the nation's destiny. the nightmare that so many have feared for so long is playing out its final active. russians are killing russians in front of a grandstand audience. it was his humility which produced affection from catholics throughout the world. but his departure is a tragedy for the catholic church. this man, israel's right winger, ariel sharon, visited the religious compound and that started the trouble. he wants israel along to have sovereignty over the holy sites. an idea that's unthinkable to palestinians. after 45 years of division, germany is one. in berlin, a million germans celebrate the rebirth of europe's biggest and richest nation.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: the united states' special representative to ukraine, kurt volker, has resigned after being named in a white house whistleblower‘s report. well, let's stay with that story now. andrew howard is managing editor of the state press, the newspaper for arizona state university, near phoenix. it was his paper that discovered that kurt volker had resigned. let me ask you first of all, how did a student paper find this information out? well, i think the most important thing to us as we a lwa ys most important thing to us as we always try to find a way to localise national issues. we wanted to see why this would be important to our community and we saw that, the

director of the mccain institute, which is an asu programme, kurt volker, was involved so we decided we would pursue it in the way we knew how and await affected arizona state university and our reporting let us do this. what has the university been saying, if anything? they haven't really commented other than saying they can't speak to matters of whether or not he will stay at the university and then confirming that he resigned from his duties as a special envoy. how significant do you think his resignation is in all of this? i'm not sure i can speak to the significance, i'm just here to do the reporting and serve the community in any way that i can for arizona state so i'm not sure i would be the best person to speak on the overall international significance of the issue. any other media approaching you? there must be a lot of demand? my phone has

basically been broke on all day, my twitter won't work anymore and i've had a few calls about how we did this. it's a great scoop for you already and you're not even out of university. it is very exciting, i'm only a junior this year, i'm not even 21 years old so it's very exciting. more exciting for the whole paper, i did not do this alone, we have an amazing staff and i'm gratefulfor all of alone, we have an amazing staff and i'm grateful for all of them are helping with all of this. andrew howard, thank you so much for joining us on bbc world news, great to talk to you. thanks for having me. within the next couple of hours, polls open in afghanistan — where more than nine million people are expected to cast their ballots to elect their next president. there are sixteen candidates — all of them men — including former warlords, ex—spies and members of the country's former communist government. jon ironmonger reports. after months of delays and continuing conflict, voting will soon begin in afghanistan's little presidential election. 100,000

security personnel have been deployed to guard polling station in light of a looming taliban threats. the militant group which still controls large parts of the country says there can be no free elections in the presence of foreign occupying forces and has spawned violence against anyone who participates. people are scared, according to this voter in jalalabad. they people are scared, according to this voter injalalabad. they want people are scared, according to this voter in jalalabad. they want the security forces to work to secure the situation. we are worried if we go to the voter centre, there will be explosions, this man says. most people can't go to cast their ballots. the poll is considered a two horse race between the current resident, ashraf ghani and his power—sharing rival, abdullah abdullah, the country's chief executive. the previous 2014 election was marred by massive corruption in this time the government is desperate to claw back some credibility with biometric

fingerprint readers and better training of election officials. in spite of the security concerns, 5000 polling stations are expected to open, including in remote hillsides where donkeys have been used to transport ballot boxes. a strong turnout is needed to give this election legitimacy but fearfulness and apathy could make that unlikely. jon ironmonger, bbc news. a huge crackdown by egypt's security forces has prevented mass protests from taking place in the capital, cairo. there were online calls for demonstrations against alleged corruption by president abdel—fattah al sisi. instead, it was the leader's supporters who staged rallies in his defence. human rights groups say nearly 2,000 people have been arrested since protests began last week. sally nabil reports from cairo. it has been a quiet day in cairo so far, although there were calls for huge anti—government protests. but it seems that the people are too scared to take to the streets,

like they did briefly last week. security presence has been beefed up all around the city. cars are not allowed into tahrir square, only pedestrians. we've seen security personnel stopping passers—by, checking their mobile phones and looking for their id cards. 0nly small—scale protests have taken place in a couple of cities in the south of the city and one neighbourhood in cairo. 0n the other hand, thousands have taken part in pro—sisi gatherings in eastern cairo. the president himself has downplayed the significance of the protests that called on him to step down, making it clear egypt is strong and there is nothing to worry about. it's a nervous time, and many are waiting to see what will happen in the coming hours. half a million schoolchildren, university students and adults marched through the canadian city of montreal on friday,

in another climate strike inspired by the swedish activist, greta thunberg. the city centre was turned into a sea of demonstrators and placards — organisers said it was quebec's largest ever gathering. earlier, ms thunberg had met the canadian prime minister, justin trudeau. she told him — and other world leaders — that they were not doing enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions. protests also took place in other cities around the world. these pictures are from new zealand, where it's estimated that some 40,000 schoolchildren and students got involved. there was also a show of protest in the hage in the netherlands. 0ur correspondent anna holligan was there. what do we want? crowd: climate justice! some schools here in the hague have actually cancelled classes and brought the pupils out to protest instead, building climate consciousness into the real life

curriculum. too many people, there is no oxygen there. this is the only chance we have. so we need to take our chance and make the world better. of course the netherlands has a lot to be conscious of, with almost a third of the country lying below sea level. they are super aware of those rising tides. this country of course has a reputation — clean, green living, cycling, windmills, renewable energy. but actually its record has a lot to be desired. children here in the netherlands have the highest instances of asthma caused by pollution anywhere in europe, and they are struggling green to reach those targets of reducing emissions by 49% by 2030, still struggling compared to 1990 levels. so the message here in the hague is clear, and it is reverberating again all over the world today. we are here, this not good what the world is doing,

and now we hope that's the, um, the rechter, we do for the world, and we're doing for the world, that's better. these are the superheroes of the future. their relationship with the environment today will determine what it looks like in the future. pakistan's prime minister imran khan has warned of serious violence in kashmir once the curfew there is lifted. the indian—administered part of kashmir has been under lockdown, since new delhi scrapped its semi—autonomous status in early august. speaking at the un general assembly, mr khan also warned of the consequences if his country was blamed for what he called a home—grown attack. what is going to happen when the cu rfew was

what is going to happen when the curfew was lifted will be a bloodbath. the people will come out, there are 900,000 troops there, they haven't come to, as narndra modi has said, done this for the prosperity of kashmir. —— kashmir. this is supposed to be for development. these 900 troops, what are they going to do when they come out? there will be a bloodbath. more than 20 years ago, diana, princess of wales, walked through a minefield in angola to highlight the threat posed by landmines — you may remember the famous footage. on friday, her son prince harry, retraced her steps, returning to the spot, to see how much has changed, and what still needs to be done to combat the problem. 0ur royal correspondent nicholas witchell sent us this report. minefields. .. a massive problem in angola, and an issue with a particular resonance for harry — in memory of his mother's efforts to make the world do something to deal with them.

harry was taken into one of the minefields being cleared by britain's halo trust. he saw the painstaking work of the mine clearance teams, combing the ground metre by metre. explosion he detonated a mine which had been found a few days ago. and then on to huambo, angola's second city. it was here 22 years ago that diana, princess of wales, was filmed walking along a safe corridor through a minefield. it brought the whole issue to the world's attention and led eventually to an international ban. today the spot which had once been a minefield is an anonymous street, but a place for a proud son to visit and to reflect on what his mother had achieved. to walk in her footsteps is clearly quite emotionalfor me, but i think as much as she did then, there is still so much to do, but without question, if she hadn't campaigned the way that she did 22 years ago, this could arguably still be a minefield, so i'm incredibly proud

of what she's been able to do. fully 17 years after the end of angola's civil war, people are still suffering life—changing injuries. harry visited and officially named the princess diana orthopaedic centre where the victims of landmines are treated and are fitted with prosthetic limbs. 22 years after diana died, and there are still more than 1,000 minefields here in angola. harry's message, expressed today — let's finish thejob. nicholas witchell, bbc news, huambo. some use from deep in space where the first time a black hole has been caught on camera. it's the work of this nasa satellite known as tess, some 375 million light—years away. you can see how the shape is sucked

into an oval before the gravity of the massive black hole, the big circle on your screen, rips it apart. more news on our website. thanks for watching, from me and the team. goodbye. hello there. if you are out across the northern half of the uk in the next few hours, and you have clear skies, you may be treated to the northern lights. but it has been a very turbulent end to the week, and it is going to be a rather wet and windy weekend for many of us, and there is growing concern with this next deep area of low pressure now developing, that more rain on already saturated ground, with river levels high, will result in further flooding. as well as that we are going to have some strong winds around this low pressure system coinciding with high tides, because of the new moon, the full moon, so there could be coastal flooding too. a band of rain moves across northern ireland,

northern england, southern scotland. any mist and fog to the north will clear away. the showery rain across northern areas does tend to ease, the showers or showery rain further south eases away, so a day of sunny spells and showers, probably not as heavy showers today as we saw yesterday, but nevertheless, they are still around, still wet. it should feel pleasant enough, though, with light winds sunshine, but as the day progresses, the afternoon progresses we are in for a big change, there's more tropical air tied in with this area of low pressure, so there will be widespread, heavy intense rain, some thundery rain in there as well, and strong to gale—force winds blowing in that rain and coinciding with high tides. we could have coastal inundation. so really wet and windy through the night as we move into sunday. and that rain is really slow to clear, could be scotland and northern ireland escape the worst of the rain, and as the day goes on we change our wind direction and pick up a colder north—north—westerly, but that will have a sting in its tail, you can see for england and wales, we've just got more rain re—entering around the area of low pressure. so temperature really academic

on sunday but feeling colder in the north, and later in the day as the winds switch direction they may have a sting in the tail, we would have strong to gale—force winds crossing into wales and later into england and down the north sea coast, potentially corresponding or tying in with high tides here, so we'll concern ourselves with some coastal flooding here as well late on sunday. so lots to keep our eye on, it certainly looks really unsettled through the weekend. heavy rain, gales. there are warnings out from the met office, they're on the website, and those high tides as well. further afield, we're expecting rain for the rugby which continues into the weekend, japan—ireland on saturday, potentially having some heavy downpours around here, and for australia and wales, i wouldn't like to rule out downpours either. it is much cooler, though, as we go into the new week back home, as you can see, and it remains unsettled, perhaps a respite in the middle of the week. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the us envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, has resigned. it comes after a whistleblower claimed donald trump put pressure on ukraine to investigate the former vice presidentjoe biden. it's claimed that mr volker tried to arrange meetings for mr trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, in the country. in washington, the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, has been ordered to hand over documents to an impeachment inquiry looking into mr trump's dealings with the ukraine government. mr pompeo will have a week to comply with the subpoena. and 22 years on, walking in his mother's footsteps, prince harry has visited a partially—cleared minefield in angola. the landmines were planted during the 27—year civil war which left thousands displaced and disabled. the duke of sussex described the visit as "quite emotional".