this is bbc news, the headlines: new york state recorded its biggest one—dayjump in coronavirus deaths so far — 630. in total more than 3500 people in the state have died. governor andrew cuomo warned the worst is yet to come and hospitals aren't prepared. the two countries which have suffered the highest numbers of deaths in the coronavirus pandemic have both reported progress in tackling the outbreak. spain reported its lowest number of new infections in more than ten days. in italy, deaths linked to the virus have continued their downward trend. the government in the uk has urged people to stay at home, as the death toll from coronavirus rose by 700 in one day, including a five—year—old boy. there are indications that the spread of the infection in the uk is slowing because of the lockdown restrictions. sir keir starmer has vowed to lead the labour party "into a new era"

after a decisive victory to become labour's new leader. the former director of public prosecutions — who's only been an mp for five years — took 56% of the vote, defeating rebecca long—bailey and lisa nandy. sir keir‘s first task will be to respond to the coronavirus emergency and he has accepted an invitation from the prime minister to take part in briefings from next week. 0ur political editor, laura kuenssberg reports. phone rings no eager crowd, no hush of anticipation. instead, the ping of an e—mail, the bleep of a text, labour's new leader announced in lockdown. it is the honour and the privilege of my life to be elected as leader of the labour party. it comes at a moment like none other in our lifetime. coronavirus has brought normal life to a halt. under my leadership, we will engage constructively with the government, not opposition for opposition‘s sake, but we will test the arguments that are put forward.

we will shine a torch on critical issues. and where we see mistakes orfaltering government or things not happening as quickly as they should, we'll challenge that and call them out. sir keir starmer was in charge of labour's troubled brexit plan, but was ahead from the start of this long contest. a former lawyer before becoming a london mp, he's considered less left—wing thanjeremy corbyn, but he won twice as many votes as his nearest rival. back injanuary, these members in the marginal bury north gave him mixed reviews but today... i've been a supporter of keir for a long time and have in the past described him as sensible and steady, which weren't especially flattering adjectives, but i also think he's very trustworthy and inspirational. my current view is that he's a bit dull. if you could clone what a minister would look like, it'd be him, mid—fifties,

wears a suit, but maybe that's what the party needs at this time. it needs that strong and stable element about it. i think his track record shows him to be a fair and determined person. i'm also confident that he will be an effective and credible leader of the opposition. to become prime minister infouryears, though, jeremy corbyn left behind fewer labour mps than at any time since world war ii. the party shrivelled in many areas that it used to call home. i'm just sorry that we have let people down. the new leader has already given a grave apology to the jewish community after so many accusations of anti—semitism in the party. but on so many fronts, there is a huge job ahead. i understand the scale of the task, the gravity of the position that we're in. we've got a mountain to climb. where that requires change, we will change.

where that requires us to rethink, we will rethink. ultimately, labour needs to win the wider world, but after so much bitterness inside, there are wounds to heal. in the strangest of times, many in the party hope that this is a chance at a new normal. laura kuenssberg, bbc news. now on bbc news, for our world, umaru fofana investigates trade in trafficked rosewood worth hundreds of millions of dollars. i'm in southern senegal, near the gambian border, in the region of casamance. this is the sound of an environmental catastrophe. it is midnight in the forest in southern senegal, just a few kilometres from the border with gambia. it's a place rich in an extremely valuable timber known as rosewood.

bbc our world has been investigating the trade in this trafficked rare wood worth hundreds of millions of dollars. we are being led by these men, illegal loggers. it's difficult terrain and they have been scouting this ancient forest for weeks. this tree, over 100 years old, has been marked for felling. it's approaching 2am in the morning deep inside this forest. we have been here for several hours and we have seen so many stumps, some of them are freshly cut rosewood trees. here is one giant one, just about to fall.

it's dangerous work, but it's a risk many across west africa are prepared to take because of the prices this wood commands overseas. each trunk is cut into two metre logs. the loggers know that it will need to fit into a shipping container that will travel nearly halfway around the world to china.

these men are among the thousands of senegalese tempted into breaking the law. it's a trade that is corrupting communities and accelerating the destruction of their forests. our world follows the rosewood trail and turns the spotlight on those involved in this illegal trade. as a rosewood tree dies its unique red sap bleeds out from the cut of the axe.

the forests of senegal are one of the last remaining strongholds of the majestic west african rosewood tree. it is protected by an international conservation agreement and, at least on paper, the senegalese government has gone even further by making it illegal to fell or export it. i'm surrounded by rosewood trees. despite their protected status, the exploitation of these trees continues unabated. there are warnings that unless there is a drastic change, seeing them alive, this could be a thing of the past. casamance, in west africa, is the front—line in the fight against deforestation. its foot soldiers are prepared to risk everything.

this man is part of a group of volunteers who know first—hand the devastation caused by logging. he patrols his local area on his rickety motorbike, he is searching for signs of loggers. he has been attacked, but is determined to continue.

he is one of many local activists recruited by a former senegalese minister of environment. he has dedicated his life to conservation. the northern border lands of casamance and an area he patrols, even though it's

a three hour journey. in what used to be a thick forest, this is all there is left. without enough tree cover, the landscape soon turns to dust. we are following him now. intelligence sources have told them there are active depots, we are going there to see what it's like. very soon we spot a blue truck in the distance. it's likely to be a buyer picking up logs just outside a local village. clearly activity is going on. i can hear boom, boom as the logs are being loaded on to the truck.

for security reasons we can't go past this post, but we will fly the drone to get a better understanding of what's going on there. there you see a lorry and a group of men loading piles of rosewood. many senegalese villages decide to cash in on the trade. they chop down their own trees and sell them to the smugglers. but it's a poor payday. tens of dollars for logs that will eventually sell for thousands. with that, the deforestation accelerates. the forests of casamance, senegal‘s green zone, are the lungs of the country, but they are as important spiritually as they are environmentally.

for the people of casamance the forest supports them, but hold the shrines and spirits of their ancestors. at a festival for the traditional king the forest is celebrated in combat, rituals and prayers. this woman is the traditional head of the women in this area, the lady of the sacred forest.

under a tree in the king's sacred forest we showed him our footage of the deforestation. it's the first sign he's seen, such convincing evidence ofjust how much has been lost to illegal logging. we have made four trips over the last year to bear witness to the scale of timber trafficking. the plunder of the senegalese forests are now going on night and day and attracting loggers from all over west africa.

rosewood is now one of the most trafficked wildlife commodities on earth. the worldwide trade in its timber now supports the largest criminal wildlife market on the planet. although the journey begins in senegal on humble donkey carts down forest tracks, it is heading for the neighbouring gambia — a place that has decimated its own forest so much that rosewood trees have all but disappeared. in the jigsaw of countries

on the african continent's west coast, senegal and gambia are locked together in an awkward embrace. other than its border with the ocean, gambia is surrounded on all sides by senegal, and the gambia border runs deep into senegal‘s forest interior. we filmed the rosewood crisis along a 170 kilometres section of the border and we identified at least 12 depots full of rosewood and other timber using local informants, drones and satellite imagery. all of these depots fall within gambian territory. more stumps.

in 2017, the west african rosewood tree was given international protection. it was listed under the convention on the international trade in endangered species, known as cites. its code of conduct — to protect the living environment that both senegal and gambia have adopted. both the gambian and senegalese presidents adam barrow and macky sall have made public declarations about working together to stop the trade in rosewood. but the reality on the ground is a world away from those good intentions. over the last year, the pace of destruction in these forests has remained unchecked.

entire forests of senegalese timber then make a second lorryjourney down the road to the gambian capital banjul and its atlantic port. it's shocking and surprising in almost equal measure that one can find logs virtually everywhere in the gambia these days. i've been coming here for well over ten years and i've never seen so many logs in so many places. exports of illegal rosewood are estimated to be worth about 10% of gambia's gdp and half of its total exports.

gambia is now in the top five largest global exporters of rosewood — a strange accolade for a country that depleted its own supply of home—grown rosewood years ago. this man, the former gambian president yahya jammeh, is accused of amassing huge wealth from this trade. and it hasn't slowed up. under the current government, over 300,000 tonnes of rosewood have been shipped from gambia to china. 0n the road to banjul is a farm estate that was once owned by former president jammeh. it's now in the hands of the government of his successor, president adama barrow, who came to power three years ago. behind this wall is what used to be called the kanilai farm, owned by the former president yahya jammeh.

it has now been transformed into a massive depot of logs. there are soldiers manning the entrance. they refuse us permission to film. the gambian government, like senegal, does not permit the export of rosewood. there is an outright ban and numerous public declarations condemning the trade, coming directly from the ministry of environment. but from time to time, this changes. that same ministry were very keen to show us they have been clamping down on the illegal trade by seizing containers of rosewood at the port of banjul. can you tell us whether they are from the gambia or where they are from? you know, it's hard to see a place within this country, within the gambia, where such a log of such size can come from. i mean, the gambian forests are very depleted. we don't have big enough logs

or trees that can really match this. so, as a result, i would assume that they come from outside the gambia. lamin dibba is gambia's current gambian environment minister. he is the man responsible for impounding the containers we were shown. i, lamin b dibba, do swear that i will execute the functions of the office of the minister of forestry, environment, climate change and natural resources of... but we have obtained undercoverfootage, shot by the washington—based environmental investigation agency, which points to high—level gambian government complicity in the illegal timber trade. the footage shows a meeting with rosewood smugglers who speak

of a very different relationship with gambia's environment minister. the export deal these traders want to make is completely outlawed under the cites environmental rules. our world cannot independently

verify the trader's claims, but in a statement, gambia's environment minister said the allegations regarding his conduct were false and clearly unsubstantiated. he said the current export ban would continue to be extended and enforced vigorously. he denied that gambia was being used as an export corridor and a clearing house for the illegal rosewood trade. gambia works with senegal, he said, to block illegal trading routes. those arrested have been diligently prosecuted and forced to pay hefty fines. rosewood that leaves gambia is overwhelmingly going to a single buyer, china, whose insatiable appetite is driving this trade. according to chinese import data, in 2019, the gambia exported over 100,000 tonnes of rosewood — a fourfold increase on the year before. and this is where all

the rosewood ends up — in the high—class furniture emporiums of china. in january this year, we returned to gambia hoping to challenge those involved in the trade. but on the first day there, just hours after we made the first contact, this happened. we crossed the border into gambia last night, very late last night, around midnight, after a very long delay there. and now this morning, the immigration officials have called us to report back to the border. whilst we have been trying to sort it out to go there,

three of them have just arrived at the hotel, waiting for us outside. it soon became clear we were going to be escorted out of the country. a port official has gone past our vehicle, telling his colleagues that the immigration officers are here and have asked them to take us on the ferry across to leave the country. we are still on the ferry, making it across to the other side. 0ur driver has just been told by the two senior—ranking immigration officers they are under orders to take us across and then they will hand us over to the other gambian immigration officers to make sure we go across the border into senegal. although we had a call from the minister of information saying we were free to return to the gambia, we were only given our passports back after we had been stamped out of the country. in the past six years, the gambia has exported over

the equivalent of1 million rosewood trees to china. the total value of this trade is estimated to be almost us$300 million. by value and by volume, rosewood is the most trafficked wild product in the world. in gambia, the international protection of this endangered species has proved meaningless. this truckload of rosewood logs was filmed snaking through banjul traffic in february. the timber traders call rosewood the ‘ivory of the forest‘ and the stockpiling of its wood continues remorselessly. soon, it may all be gone.

hello there. 17 degrees was our top temperature on saturday. i think sunday will bring temperatures into the low 20s for some of us. plenty of sunshine across the uk. it will be breezy, especially in the west, where we will also see some outbreaks of rain arriving later in the day. but a lot of sunshine around through the day for many places. sunshine perhaps turning hazy as some wispy high cloud spreading from the west, and later, we see rain into northern ireland, western scotland, perhaps cornwall and pembrokeshire. windy for all of us, but could see gusts of 50mph or more in parts of northern ireland

and western scotland. but with those wind coming up from the south, yes, it will be warm, 21 in london, even further north, glasgow likely to get to 18. however, that rain in western areas will push its way eastwards as we go on through the night. could see heavier bursts returning to the far south—east corner through the early part of monday morning. very mild through the night. double digits for many. monday, a slightly cooler day for many, rain clearing the south—east, it then warms up again as we head through the week.

this is bbc news — i'm simon pusey with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. new york state records its biggest one—day jump in deaths so far. more than 3,500 people in the state have now died. spain and italy, the two countries which have suffered the highest numbers of deaths in the coronavirus pandemic both report progress in tackling the outbreak. people in the uk are urged to stay at home, amid another large rise in reported deaths. the queen will praise the uk's self—discipline, and quiet good—humoured resolve in response to the crisis, when she makes a rare television address later on sunday.