$z/startfeed. this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm mike embley. our top stories? hackers target twitter — joe biden, jeff bezos and apple just a few of the names whose accounts were ta ken over by scammers. america's top expert on coronavirus, dr anthony fauci, says white house attempts to discredit him are ‘bizarre‘. china's economy appears to bounce back into growth, up 3.2% in the second quarter after a record slump. a team of scientists from around the world say they've found "unequivocal evidence of climate change" after a major piece of research.

good evening. twitter says it still hasn't restored a full service for all users, after a major hacking attack on the network that targeted high profile figures. the head of twitter, jack dorsey, said the company felt terrible about what had happened, and was investigating the incident. the hack was directed at famous figures and companies including barack obama, jeff bezos, kanye west and uber. alanna petroff has the latest. famous tech billionaires can buy themselves almost anything, but it seems no amount of money will help with cyber security. elon musk, jeff bezos and bill gates were all victims of a major hack on twitter. their popular accounts were used to promote a cryptocurrency scam,

sending out tweets like this. i'm giving back to my community, due to covid—19. all bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. if you send $1000, i will send back 2000, only doing this for the next 30 minutes. enjoy. high profile political figures were also targeted, including barack obama, joe biden and former presidential hopeful mike bloomberg. married mega celebrities kim kardashian and ka nye west were mega celebrities kim kardashian and kanye west were also compromised. this was not about fraud, i don't think, i think it was more about doing the hack. in the hacker community we would actually call this type of hack a little bit lame. twitter quickly took action, the scam tweets were removed, the scam tweets were removed, the company posted this. we are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on twitter and we are investigating and taking steps to fix it. this is

a serious security issue for twitter. they are power users, people let people come to see and read, people like elon musk, joe biden, kanye west, joe biden, they use the platform on a daily basis. and the fact that twitter could not keep that secure is a massive issue for them. experts say they can see more than $100,000 worth of bitcoin was deposited into the scam account. once it is there, victims cannot get it back. the twitter sphere blew up back. the twitter sphere blew up about the hack. the incident began trending, tens of thousands of posts used the hashtag hacked. i spoke to ryan kalember, executive vice—president with the cyber security firm proofpoint and asked him what he made of the hack. the vulnerabilities of those exploits would have been worth untold numbers to people who could use it for insider trading or disinformation, obviously. but, that said, they seem

to have been used in a fairly amateurish way and for that i suppose we can be thankful and twitter did respond quite quickly here. so, what do you think the point of it was? well, in this case, there was a very clear desire to commit a very basic form of financial crime. financial crime is actually quite hard, if you're going to, say, rob a bank, or get large numbers of people to do insider trading on your behalf. you have to figure out how to move that money and then hide all of the movements of that money. bitcoin presents none of those challenges, so if you have this sort of access and you are not necessarily a sophisticated financial criminal, this is one of your better options. these were big names, won't they? they were verified blue tick accounts, will a lot of serious people be quite worried about the security of twitter? well, they certainly ought to be and this is not the first time this has happened. administrative compromises at twitter go back a number of years and we have even seen nation states like saudi arabia actually sort of suborn internal twitter engineers in the pursuit of actually spying on political dissidents. it is really a good time to reflect on just how much

we depend on new sources like twitter and how a lot we depend on news sources like twitter and how a lot of it is quite untrustworthy, not to mention that things that we think are private, like direct messages on twitter, really are not private, when the sort private, when these sort of attacks can occur and that is the sort of thing that we can see, a reprieve of the 2016 issues with e—mail on social networking platforms. ryan, with all your experience, what is your best guess about what happened here? well, it seems in this case that an administrative tool that can generate a token, that represents someone's access, the same token that you would use in a web browser or a mobile app if you are using your own twitter account, regardless of how you are authenticating to it, it seems to have been compromised. we are seeing, actually, some of the underground forums sharing screenshots of a tool that looks pretty convincingly like that administrative tool and that sort of access would be exactly the sort of thing that would allow you to do this across a wide range of twitter accounts, with effectively the same message and effectively the same time. there appear to be fresh tensions between the white house and america's

top infectious diseases expert, anthony fauci. dr fauci, a key figure in the white house coronavirus task force, has given an interview to the magazine — the atlantic. in it, a journalist asks: you are the government's top health adviser, and the government you're trying to advise is actively trying to discredit you. how do you work like that? doctor fauci responds: well, that is a bit bizarre. i sit here and just shrug my shoulders and say, "well, you know, that's life in the fast lane." 0n wednesday, president trump was asked for his view on doctor fauci. we're all on the same team, including dr fauci. i have a very good relationship with dr fauci. and we're all on the same team. we want to get rid of this mess that china sent us. so, everybody‘s working on the same line and we're doing very well. we're doing well in a lot of ways and our country's coming back very strong. when you look at those job numbers — we've never had job numbers like we have right now. so it's coming back very strong.

the row all comes as the number of cases continues to rise across the country. a further 67,000 cases and 900 deaths have been recorded in the last 2a hours. there are new outbreaks in alabama nevada and north carolina who are all beginning to report a jump in cases. 0ur north america correspondent, david willis, says there is no doubt the white house has tried to discredit dr fauci. at the weekend, mike, the white house sent out a briefing note, basically putting the case that dr fauci shouldn't be trusted. the us trade representative doubled down on that today in an opinion editorial in usa today. asked about that, president trump said that he did not agree with the opinions expressed by his trade representative, but nonetheless he is known to have been very critical of doctor anthony fauci in recent weeks and one of the reasons for that, mike, is simply this, that dr fauci is the person

that more americans trust to navigate their way out of the current crisis. more trust him than do donald trump in that regard and dr fauci, at 79 years of age, is somebody who has navigated americans through the sort of thing before, under no fewer than six presidents, republican and democrat both. so, what do you think they suggest, david, for the immediate future, as the pandemicjust continues to rage across the country? well, it does indeed, and we are now approaching 137,000 deaths, mike, so it is surreal, isn't it, that we have this feuding going on between the white house and the top infectious diseases expert. cases of the coronavirus are on the rise in no fewer than 38 states. you mention more than 60,000 new cases, 10,000 alone in the state of florida and this is one of the points

that anthony fauci has consistently returned to, to the chagrin of the white house. making the point that many of these states, like florida, simply reopened their economies to quickly and he has urged pushing the reset button, as he puts it, in an attempt to basically try to end the current surge in coronavirus cases here. let's get some of the day's other news. president trump has demoted his campaign manager, brad par—skal and replaced him with senior advisor, bill step—ee—en. this in the wake of what was seen as a disappointing campaign rally in tulsa, and as opinion polls suggest the democratjoe biden has a significant lead ahead of november's election. police in new york have released cctv showing a person hitting officers with a large stick as they attempt

to arrest protestors. three officers were injured in the clashes on the city's brooklyn bridge. the incident occured after a peaceful demonstration calling for an end to gun violence was disrupted by cou nter— protestors. indonesian officials say at least 20 people have died after heavy rains caused flash floods on sulawesi island. hundreds of buildings were buried in thick mud after three rivers burst their banks. over a thousand people have been evacuated to temporary shelters. police in moscow have detained around a—hundred protesters who'd taken part in an unauthorised gathering against recent constitutional amendments which allow president putin to stay in powerfor another sixteen years. there were chants of "putin, go!" from sections of the crowd. a reservoir behind ethiopia's disputed grand renaissance dam on the river nile has started filling with water. satelite images showed water levels rising a day after talks with egypt and sudan ended without agreement. sudan and egypt both fear the four billion dollar dam could lead to water shortages in their own nations.

the latest figures on china gdp's growth are out. china's economy grew 3.2% in the second quarter from a year earlier. the growth was faster than the 2.5% forecast by analysts and followed a steep 6.8% slump in the first quarter. mariko 0i who's in our asia business hub in singapore, gave me more details. it seems like china's economy is on track to have a v—shaped recovery, remember a lot of economists have been forecasting at least for the rest of the world that we may see a very slow u—shaped recovery or an l shaped, not exactly a recovery, but according to the latest data from china, in the first three months between april and june, the economy grew by 3.2%, as she said, it was much better than what economists had been forecasting and definitely a lot better than the contraction that we saw in the previous quarter when the economy shrunk by almost 7%. so, it seems like all

the stimulus measures that the authorities announced as the economy emerged from that lockdown seem to be working, so factories are getting busier and we also saw industrial production numbers coming out of some 4.6%, but one sector that still has not recovered as quickly as they had hoped, is the retail sector. retail spending is still down by some 2% and that will be the challenge for the authorities, to get people to start spending money again. after weeks of relentless rainfall across south asia, more than a hundred people have died, and millions have been affected. in bangladesh, bhutan, india, myanmar and nepal monsoon floods and landslides have destroyed homes and submerged entire villages. sophia tran—thomson has this report. monsoon season. at this time of year it is an annual occurrence in many parts of asia. already

this year at least 50 people have been killed and more than 2 million affected in the indian state of assam alone. heavy rain has submerged villages and hundreds of relief camps have been set up to shelter the many thousands of evacuees. and this year there is the added challenge of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. so far in assam there have been 17,000 recorded cases. translation: we have two challenges here, one is covid—19 and the other is the flooding. still our personnel are working here day and night to save lives. in india's kaziranga state more than a million people have had to flee their homes. most of the national park is under water and hundreds of animals have needed rescue. including this 1—horned rhino calf separated

from her mother. many others have not survived. in neighbouring bangladesh, around a third of the country is submerged and more than a million people have been displaced. this farmer says all the houses in his village are underwater and when he left his home, it was chest deep. and in nepal, at least 50 people have died in landslides in floods triggered by the heavy rains in recent weeks. bangladesh has flood forecasting centre says the consequences of this monsoon will be the worst in a decade and warned that with more rain to come, the river which runs through tibet, india and bangladesh is at risk of bursting its banks. monsoon season may be an annual phenomenon in this part of the world, but that certainly does not lessen its impact. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: with just a loudspeaker and a storybook, meet

the man helping mexico's children during lockdown. after months of talks and missed deadlines, a deal has been struck to keep greece within the eurozone. the immediate prospect of greece going bust, in the worst crisis to hit the eurozone, has been averted. emergency services across central europe are stepping up their efforts to contain the worst floods this century. nearly 100 people have been killed. broadway is traditionally called "the great white way" by americans. but tonight, it's completely blacked out. it's a timely reminder to all americans of the problems that the energy crisis has brought to them. leaders meet in paris for a summit on pollution, inflation and third—world debt. this morning, theyjoined the revolution celebrations for a show of military might on the champs—elysees. wildlife officials in australia have been coping with a penguin problem. fairy penguins have been staggering ashore and collapsing after gorging

themselves on their favourite food, pilchards. some had eaten so much, they could barely stand. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines a number of high—profile twitter accounts have been simultaneously hacked to spread a cryptocurrency scam. the top doctor in america's fight against coronavirus describes efforts by some in the white house to discredit him as "bizarre". a prolonged heatwave in the siberian arctic this year is "unequivocal evidence of climate change", that's according to an international team of scientists. they say the record high temperatures would be impossible without man—made global warming. that matters because the arctic drives much of the weather we experience, as our chief environment correspondent, justin rowlatt, reports.

six months of record—breaking temperatures have fuelled massive forest fires in the siberian arctic this year. great plumes of smoke were visible on satellite images last month. the red areas on this map show just how exceptional temperatures have been — more than five degrees above average across much of siberia. that included the highest temperature ever recorded north of the arctic circle, a sweltering 38 centigrade, and now a met office—led international study has concluded this period of exceptional weather would have been impossible had the world not been warmed by man—made greenhouse gas emissions. in the winter of 2018, the uk experienced a beast from the east, a period of exceptionally cold and snowy weather. it shows us that what happens in the arctic doesn't stay in the arctic.

there are six main weather systems around the uk, and four of those six come from the polar regions or from the arctic directly, so whilst a lot of this is uncertain, if something happens in the arctic, it's going to be reasonable to assume something's going to happen in the uk, too. today's report is yet more evidence that the growing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is changing our climate. what we're seeing really is unprecedented. it's the strongest result we've ever seen, actually. we've never seen a change in the probability of an event of more than 600 times. we've never seen a result like that. many storms and floods in europe are also reckoned to have been driven by conditions in the arctic. and we know the polar region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. the long—term impact that will have elsewhere is less certain. looking at the geological record, we don't think we've had c02 levels this high for about 5 million years, so we really don't know what to expect into the future.

we are in uncharted territory. the reduction of arctic sea ice cover and melting of the permafrost has accelerated during this year's heatwave. that will drive even more warming and, in turn, means we can expect more extreme weather around the world. justin rowlatt, bbc news. zeke hausfather is a climate scientist — he says global warming in siberia is especially significant. siberia has seen staggering warmth. it is nearly 7 degrees warmer than in the previous period. this level of warmth would have been impossible without the warming already experienced driven by human emissions and greenhouse gases. now what is really staggering about the siberian example is what happened this year would

have been an incredibly unlikely event, a one and 60,000 year event in the 1800s before global warming but now with the warming we already haveit with the warming we already have it is a one in 100 year event and if emissions continue to increase it will be a one in ten year event by the middle of the century and an average summer after that. it is somewhat unique, it is the region with the highest year—on—year variability and the combination of those factors the combination of those fa cto rs ca n the combination of those factors can lead to critically extreme factors can lead to critically extre m e key factors can lead to critically extreme key events there. we have seen regions like australia that have experienced key events that would have been unlikely in the absence of long—term growth driven by human activity. some days, they will be warmer and colder than usual, when an unusual heatwave happens it is easier to set unprecedented records. i'm sure people would like to know what is most likely to happen next in the medium and long term, but as doctor henry said in the report, we have not had c02 levels this high and something

like 5 million years and we don't know exactly what to expect next. yeah. we have climate records that will give us some climate records that will give us some idea of what to expect that they are not perfect. as we push the earth system be on the range it has been in for the range it has been in for the last million years or so or at least a million years, the possibility of unforeseen consequences increases and so a lot of the reason to limit warming is because there are these large uncertainties and we do not know exactly how much the world will warm as we increase c02, it could be mild or very severe increase c02, it could be mild or very severe and increase c02, it could be mild or very severe and the reason to be precautionary about this, to be precautionary about this, to cut emissions as quickly as possible is to avoid some of these, probably low probability, but it could impact as if we get an unlucky run of events. do you have any optimism that humankind can turn this around? so, the good news is that the future warming that the earth experiences is largely up to us. we can decide if we want to keep increasing emissions and see more warming or cut our emissions and keep

the warming below 2 degrees as nearly every nation of beauty and the paris agreement. we have made some progress in the last decade, global coal use peaked in 2015 and this past year, 2019, we get more energy from clean sources like renewa bles from clean sources like renewables and nuclear and our emissions are only increasing half as fast as a decade ago. current policies that the world is about to put in factor, but that could be higher than 4 degrees if we get unlucky with how sensitive the climate is to c02 and we are still very far from where we need to be, we are making some progress but we need to accelerate our efforts around the world to reduce emissions. we want to wait some of these potentially catastrophic outcomes in the future. disneyland paris —— europe's biggest tourist attraction —— has reopened its doors after four months of lockdown. there's a lot of concern about what it might do to infection rates, and there are lots of new rules, but also plenty of hard—core fans who went back, and told us

about their experience. there's sanitiser everywhere, they've got — in all the queues for the rides, there's screens, so you're screened away from everybody. there's markers in all the lines all over the park to keep the distance into shops and restaurants. so they're really looking after us well. it it feels very, very safe here. it's not that busy, they‘ re keeping capacity very low at the moment. we had to make a reservation today, so we've got that to get into the park. you can't turn up without a ticket, so you need a reservation first. and it's — yeah, it's going very well. we had some apprehensions but, having got here, i think we feel more safer here than we do even in our local supermarket. yeah. everything's outdoors, the capacity levels are so low. it's really a great experience. it's different, but it's a lot of fun. lockdown has been difficult for so many people — parents especially.

having to educate and entertain your children while a deadly pandemic sweeps the globe is a particular challenge. but in a suburb of mexico city one man is doing what he can to help — as the bbc‘s tim allman explains. percibald garcia is an architect by trade, but he has become so much more. one day he and his mother were in their one day he and his mother were in their apartment when they heard a child say, iam bored. so he decided to do something about it. with his loudspeaker and a microphone, he reads stories to the children of this estate. translation: it means that whatever is going on in that department, depression or watching a movie or at the daily lockdown experience, it is put on hold the moment you start laughing, dancing or letting yourself go. he tends to focus on tales about the environment, what he calls the circle of life. he also plays music, providing

young people with a few brief moments ofjoy. translation: he is playing and when she hears the music, she starts shouting at me, mum, the storyteller! then she wants to listen to him and talk to him. he says he wants to open spaces for the children in their minds so they can express their feelings and thoughts. one day, and one story at a time. now we could probably all use a day at the beach —— a cool plunge to wash away our troubles. beach—goers in rio de janeiro were surprised to find a rare elephant seal joining them this week. it swam among the surfers. according to a local marine biologist the seal likely came up from patagonia or even antarctica. marine mammals are often threatened by large—scale fishing, forcing them to venture further from home in search of food.

and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter — i'm @bbc mike embley. hello there. prospects do look better for thursday, but wednesday didn't look or feel much like summer at all. we've had this damp, muggy air stream bringing in an awful lot of cloud and some drizzle earlier on too. there was some sunshine that did develop in the far southwest of england, but even those breaks in the cloud have been filling in overnight. it's a cloudy start to thursday, mild as well — typical temperatures 12 to 1a degrees. may still be early drizzle around and some western hills may stay cloudy all day. but we're likely to see things brightening up elsewhere and some sunshine where we get a bit more shelter, eastern parts of northern ireland, east wales, eastern england and particularly eastern scotland. and where we get some warm sunshine coming through, temperatures will lift into the low 20s, with the highest temperatures probably around aberdeenshire and the murray firth —

23 or 2a degrees here. where it stays quite cloudy, though, 18 is going to be a typical temperature in the afternoon. that's what we're expecting in manchester, old trafford, for the first day of the second test match. should be dry, mind you. there is some rain arriving in the northwest of scotland, though, later on thursday. and that weather front will take that rain very slowly southwards. it's going to stagger its way southwards. it may get stuck throughout friday across southern scotland, northern ireland, northern england and perhaps north wales. to the north and south of that, there will be sunshine coming through, but differing temperatures. across much of scotland, it's cooler, fresher air, so temperatures will be a bit lower on friday. but towards england and wales, especially in the southeast, it's the peak of the heat. 25 or 26 around the london area. that weather front still on the scene, then, on friday and still moving very slowly southwards on saturday. it's slowing down quite a bit, actually. eventually, we'll find this cooler and fresher air following in its wake. but we've got some cloud and rain moving a little further south across

england and wales. unlikely to reach the southeast of england until the evening. to the north, across northernmost parts of england, northern ireland and scotland, we're into some sunshine. a few showers in the northwest. into the southeast of england, again, the highest temperature is 23 or 2a degrees here. some rain, though, likely overnight. maybe a bit of rain left to clear away in the far southeast on sunday. once that goes, it's sunny spells across the board. there will be a few showers, again, particularly for western parts of scotland, but we're into cooler and fresher for all areas — with a top temperature into the low 20s. $z/endfeed.

this is bbc news, the headlines. some of twitter‘s top users have had their accounts hacked. a post urging people to send cryptocurrency appeared on the feeds of high profile names including joe biden, bill gates, barack 0bama and jeff bezos. verified users were temporarily stopped from tweeting. the compa ny‘s investigating. president trump's leading advisor on the coronavirus pandemic, dr anthony fauci, has described efforts by some in the white house to discredit him as bizarre. he said a series of attacks on him reflected poorly on the trump administration. china's revealed its gdp figures for the second quarter — showing a modest 3.2% growth in its economy after lockdown measures ended and policymakers stepped up stimulus packages.. it comes after a 6.8% decline in the first quarter — the first contraction since at least 1992 when its records began.