this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. a former uk conservative minister and current mp is arrested on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and coercive control. classified documents released by the british military raise new questions about whether uk special forces killed unarmed civilians in afghanistan. the australian state of victoria declares a "state of disaster" as the number of new coronavirus cases rises steeply. meanwhile, south africa records more than half a million virus infections — the fifth highest number in the world. and the owners of one of britain's oldest vineyards threatened by lockdown raise a glass to the kindness of strangers.

hello and welcome to audiences in the uk and around the world. we're covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. first here in the uk, a conservative mp, and former minister, has been arrested on suspicion of rape. he has now been released on bail. according to the sunday times, the allegations were made by a former parliamentary employee, who has accused him of rape, sexual assault and coercive control. let's cross to our political correspondent tony bonsignore who has more on this. tony, tell us more about what is known so far. yes, what we know is these allegations against a current mp and former minister, according to the sunday times, they were made by

a former parliamentary employee. now the paper says that she alleges that the paper says that she alleges that the mp assaulted her, forced her to have sex and left her so traumatised that she had to go to hospital and she is accused him of rape, sexual assault and coercive control. now we've had a statement from the metropolitan police who say on friday, the 31st ofjuly, they received allegations relating to four separate incidents involving allegations of sexual offences and assault. these offences are alleged to have occurred at addresses in westminster, lambeth and hackney between july last year and january this year. a man in his 50s police say was arrested on saturday the 1st of august, on suspicion of rape and has been released on bail to return ata has been released on bail to return at a date in mid—august. has been released on bail to return at a date in mid-august. what are the conservative party is saying about this? the tory party chief whip mark spencer had been aware of allegations and had spoken to the

victim. sources have told us that mr spencer hadn't known the magnitude of the allegations and a spokesman for the chief whip said he took all allegations of harassment and abuse extremely seriously and he strongly encouraged anybody who has approached him to contact the appropriate authorities. we've also spoken to the conservative party who say they take all allegations of this nature extremely seriously. all right, tony, thank you. the australian state of victoria has declared a state of disaster because of a continuing rise in coronavirus infections. 650 new cases were recorded on saturday. residents will not be allowed to travel more than five kilometres from their home. australia as a whole has registered a relatively modest 198 deaths from coronavirus, but there are concerns that the current restrictions aren't working. this is what victoria state premier daniel andrews had to say. the stay at home restrictions for metro melbourne will be enhanced. there will be additional limits

to the four reasons to leave home. you will no longer be able to leave home or go any further away from your home than a five kilometre radius. you will not be able to be at any point more than five kilometres away from your home for the purposes of shopping for what you need. only one person will be able to go shopping once per day and they will need to secure the goods and services they need within a five kilometre radius. that is at the victoria state premier. here's phil mercer with more on the new restrictions. they are mostly centred around the city of melbourne which is the state capital, home to five million people. in the next couple of hours, these new restrictions will come into force. what they mean is there will be a night—time curfew. people will not be allowed to go beyond five kilometres of their homes as we've been hearing from daniel andrews, the state premier.

people will only be allowed to go shopping once per day per household. there will also be restrictions on people exercising, so these are, by far, australia's strictest lockdown measures and they follow the worst week of the pandemic for australia as a whole. each day in recent, certainly in the last week and recent weeks too, victoria has been reporting hundreds of new infections and over the last week, dozens of people have died. now these numbers might not seem large by international standards, but in the australian context, they are big, they are significant and they have prompted the government in victoria to take these unprecedented measures of declaring a state of disaster. classified documents from within the british military raise fresh concerns about whether uk special forces may have killed unarmed civilians when they were fighting in helmand in afghanistan in 2011.

the material was disclosed as part of a court case, following a bbc panorama investigation. the programme highlighted allegations that the sas deliberately targeted fighting aged men even when they didn't pose a threat. the ministry of defence has denied such a policy existed. our defence correspondent jonathan beale reports. this is how elite troops target the taliban. controversial night raids with the aim to kill or capture enemy fighters. this shows afghan commanders on a mission with american support. but it was the same tactics used by british special forces during their time in helmand. last year, bbc panorama heard allegations the sas had killed unarmed civilians, with testimony from survivors ofa raid in 2011, who said the british shot family members when they posed no threat.

we have blurred their faces to protect their identity. translation: they tied his hands in front of me. if you've tied someone's hands how can they fight? lawyers representing one of the afghan families are now challenging the ministry of defence here at the high court. they're trying to find out whether there was a proper investigation or whether there might‘ve been a cover—up, and they've just forced the mod to release these highly sensitive documents which show that there were serious concerns about the raid within the british military. in heavily redacted e—mails sent soon after the raid, one british officer asks, "is this about latest massacre?" another soldier replies with reports that two of the afghans were shot reaching for weapons. he says, "it's the eighth time it's happened," adding, "you couldn't make it up". while another e—mail highlights the anger of an afghan officer who suggests two men were shot

trying to run away, and the other two men were assassinated. one mp says the documents warrant a fresh investigation. it is deeply alarming, it is deeply serious, and the government needs to come clean. if that does not merit some kind of enquiry, because you're talking about war crimes — potential war crimes, than i do not know what does. the british military‘s own report into the raid released to the court says the four men killed were all armed and one was a known taliban commander, who had been targetting coalition forces. in a statement the mod said... the mod recently closed down the unit investigating allegations of potential war crimes in afghanistan. but these documents at the very least highlight concerns

about its transparency and the secrecy surrounding britain special forces. jonathan beale, bbc news. india has recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day. overall there's been 1.75 million cases and there are now fears the country could overtake the us and brazil to become the country with the highest number of infections. many states are imposing individual lockdowns for 15—day periods to help control the spread, but the indian government is stressing that mortality rates are low, at roughly 2%. earlier we spoke to dr ramanan laxminarayan. he's director of the centre for disease dynamics, economics & policy in delhi and is advising various indian state governments on their covid response. in india, it first started with places like delhi, which had an early rise of cases and then it's sort of starting

to taper off in some of these places but now there's a new set of states which include the south. gujarat continues to have an epidemic and states, very large states, the size of brazil as far as population goes, which are now picking up the pace in terms of numbers of cases, and so this is expected to go on for quite a while yet. and why are numbers going up so dramatically in some states? well, because the epidemic, to be honest, it's not within control partly because of the dense population and movement of people, which really can't be controlled, inadequate socially distancing, again which is a function of poverty. people not being able to do that even if they were asked to do so. and it's now entering places, parts of the country, which really don't have much by the way of public health infrastructure.

and so one would expect to see the cases go up in the days to come. south africa has now registered more than 500,000 cases of coronavirus, making it by far the hardest—hit country on the continent. it now accounts for more than half of africa's diagnosed infections. the authorities say the rate of infection is increasing rapidly and it's not expected to peak for another month. paul hawkins has the latest. mourning another life taken by coronavirus. 8,153 people have died from it in south africa, but it could be much higher. the south african medical research council says the number of people dying from natural causes from may 6 tojune 21 is 60% higher this year compared to the same period in 2019 and 2018. the government says there have been over 500,000 confirmed infections in the country — that is at least half

of all the coronavirus cases on the continent — and a third of them are in gauteng province, where hospitals like thelle mogoerane are struggling to cope, as this member of staff explained. the staff is not there. we have a gross shortage of staff. it's chaos, it's crazy. nurses are testing positive as well, and it's a mess. in ourfacilities and in our hospitals, covid—19 cases are all over the place. there is no ward, by the way, that doesn't have a covid—19 person. so how are we coping with the spread of the virus? we are not. south africa imposed a strict lockdown in april and may that slowed the spread of the virus, but began a gradual reopening in june. despite that, cases have surged, the president pointing out however that: but that is of little consolation to south africans, but that is of little consolation to south africans,

with some saying the pandemic has exposed shortcomings in its health system. the cracks that have been there, even before coronavirus, are getting bigger every day. our health care system, public health care system, is failing our people, it's failing the entire country. it was not ready for this virus. the country has tested over three million people and brought in an aggressive early lockdown, but that is no guarantee of success against this deadly virus. paul hawkins, bbc news. new homes and hospitals will be granted "automatic" permission to be built as part of sweeping planning reforms in england. the overhaul, which is being announced by the housing secretary robertjenrick, is the first since the second world war and will help speed up the building process. but the homeless charity shelter has warned against any changes that lead to "bad—quality" housing. the us general manager of tiktok has said the chinese—owned video—sharing app is "here for the long run", after president trump said he would ban it in the us.

vanessa pappas told tiktoks more than 80 million us users in a video statement that its staff were building "the safest app" possible amid us concerns about data protection. jack kilbride reports. we have heard your outpouring of support and we want to say thank you, and we're not planning on going anywhere. fighting words from an application the us president is threatening to ban. tiktok, for millions of young americans, is a fun video—sharing app full of dances and memes, but for donald trump, it is a national security concern. we're looking at tiktok, we may be banning tiktok, we may be doing some other things, there are a couple of options, but a lot of things are happening, so we'll see what happens. the issue for the president is that the application is owned by a chinese company, bytedance, and there is a concern that the data it collects from users will be passed over to beijing. it is a concern that has seen

india already ban the app and australia talk of following suit, but not everyone is as worried. there are real national security implications with our media networks. the question at hand is really is this a good way to go about it? and simply banning tiktok is not going to do anything for national security. bytedance denies the allegation and, according to some reports, have agreed to off—load the us operation of tiktok with microsoft taking over and assuming all responsibility for protecting the data of users, and there are questions about whether a ban would even work. you wouldn't be able to do it. unlike china or iran, where there is only one or two internet service providers, in the us, it is very, very difficult to be able to do that — there are so many telecom service providers. so even if you convince them to be able to do that, there is going to be a lot of loopholes and in all likelihood it will be very — , very close

to impossible to be able to successfully do that. but whether it happens or not, it is clear that the move is part of a bigger battle between washington and beijing. one that is also not going anywhere. jack kilbride, bbc news. the headlines on bbc news. a former uk conservative minister and current mp is arrested on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and coercive control. the australian state of victoria declares a "state of disaster" as the number of new coronavirus cases rises steeply. classified documents released by the british military raise new questions about whether uk special forces killed unarmed civilians in afghanistan. russian health authorities are preparing to start a mass vaccination campaign against coronavirus in october, according to the country's health minister. but, some experts are concerned at russia's fast—track approach.

on friday, the leading infectious disease expert in the us, dr anthony fauci, said he hoped that russia — and china — were "actually testing their vaccines" before administering them to anyone. here's what we know about these vaccines, and others that are being worked on. one russian vaccine is being devised on by the moscow—based gamaleya institute and the second by the vektor state laboratory in siberia. there's no public data proving the vaccines' safety or success two chinese companies sinovac and sinopharm, have launched final, phase three, trials. a third vaccine from can—sino biologics is being used to immunise the military. three western coronavirus vaccines are in final phase three trials. one from us biotech firm moderna, another by the university of oxford and britain's astrazeneca,

and the last by germany's biontech with us pharmaceutical pfizer. earlier i spoke to professor dale fisher who is an infectious disease consultant at the university of singapore and he is also chair of the world health organisation's global outbreak and response network. he says it is unlikely any russian vaccine could have gone through the necessary phases of vaccine safety trials. so, phase one is the early first in humans studies, so there has to be a lot of preclinical work obviously first. so phase one might be a first in humans study with less than 100 people where you are reallyjust giving a small dose, may be of a slightly larger dose, and you're just looking for those early safety warning signs if you like. phase two would be some hundreds of people where you again might be looking at antibody responses and things like that,

gaining more confidence that this is a safe and effective vaccine. phase three is where you really need more than 10,000 people and some of these studies that you mentioned are looking at 30,000 people and they only started rolling through july. the moderne one only announced its commencing recruitment last week so it's hard to imagine how any other vaccines have done that level of scrutiny. it's really quite irresponsible i think to not go through a good phase three study and they are all scheduled to be completed by the middle of next year. a record number of migrants reached the uk by boat last month as more than a thousand people made the journey across the channel while hundreds more were intercepted by french authorities. risking their lives crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world. this group of migrants paddled across the channel on thursday

on the day a record 202 people made the crossing in a single day. their boat dwarfed by passing ships. these pictures show the true scale of the issue. dubbed the migrant boat graveyard, this is a storage facility on the outskirts of dover where the inflatable dinghies intercepted in the channel are stacked up. more than 1100 people made the crossing last month bringing the total for the year to more than 3500, far higher than the whole of last year. on a recent visit to calais, the home secretary priti patel told her french counterpart that the number of crossings is unacceptably high. the uk has given the french authorities millions of pounds to try to tackle the issue. britain says france must take tougher action to turn the boats back at sea to act as a deterrent, but the french seem reluctant to do this claiming that migrants who don't want to be stopped on theirjourney to the uk are threatening to jump in the water. why have numbers increased? the weather is a big factor

and coronavirus too. with fewer lorries carrying goods across the channel, the traditional route of stowing away has been replaced by taking to the water, but it's dangerous. four migrants died last year trying to cross the channel. the warning is that if this continues, they won't be the last. simon jones, bbc news. clare moseley from the refugee charity care four calais told us more about the profile of the migrants. only 3% of migrants head for the uk. it's not the only destination and it's not like they all coming to the uk by a long shot. it's a very low number comparatively. the vast majority of people in calais that we need to come from syria, sudan, afghanistan, and iran and iraq and they the most dangerous countries in the world and you can find that on the internet. they are dangerous countries where they have faced persecution and torture so the things

that they are running from our truly horrific. the stories that we hear are horrible. people whose families have been killed, who have suffered severe persecution, who have been tortured in libya, who have crossed the sahara with a death rate is even higher than the mediterranean. the things that we hear about are very, very serious and they are running for very good reasons. tony smith is the former head of uk border force. so generally controlled migration is a good thing and acceptable but what's not acceptable is uncontrolled migration, this is controlled because we don't have a capacity to do it. what we need is a safe third country returns agreement with france. at the moment there is the dublin convention which does mean that the home office return people to save third countries but we have to prove that they've already claimed asylum in a third country or where they entered the eu, we are not returning people frankly and the smuggling gangs know

that and the supply chains know that and once they are on the water, once they are picked up by a uk vessel, they are picked up by a uk vessel, they are picked up by a uk vessel, they are within the jurisdiction of they are within the jurisdiction of the home office and we are obliged to consider the asylum claim, so what we need is a new international agreement with france and what i've been advocating as joint patrols with the british and the french which happens in other parts of the world, where officers from both countries can be on board and they can be returned directly to the point from which they departed once they are safe and well and then if they are safe and well and then if they have a case or a claim to come to the country they were headed for, that would be considered before they travel. if we don't do that scene, and we don't get that agreement soon i'm afraid these numbers are going to continue to rise, the smuggling gangs will continue to defeat border security and we are on the cusp of another significant influx of asylum intake. we are ill—prepared to handle it. a couple who run one of the oldest

vineyards in the uk has been stunned by the response to their request for help after their business was severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic. losing their workers and income meant they couldn't look after their ten acres of vines duncan kennedy reports. for russ and philippa, their vineyard was their life. ten acres and 11,000 vines, until covid—19 came. they lost staff and income and the two of them alone couldn't cope. it hits you. absolutely nothing we can do. so they had an idea. they put out a plea for help on facebook. 115,000 people read it and this is what happened. horn honks. morning. thank you all so much. hundreds of people offered to help for free. every day around 20 volunteers are turning up to carry out the work. it's hot and it's hard. why are you doing this? just to put a little bit back into the community, help somebody out.

i thought it would be a nice way to give back, help out a local business. clearing leaves to leave grapes cleared takes hours of toil. we worked it out. you lot have got to pick half a million leaves. wow, i didn't know that! oh, really? half a million? it'sjust something to help somebody, isn't it? help a fellow human being to make life a bit easier. and russ and philippa, well, they are almost speechless. it's like a big hug only 100 times better than a big hug. it's absolutely amazing that they've just come out and done this. i don't know if covid has changed the way that people think. everyone isjust helping everybody and i think maybe nobody has really asked for help and it seems that if you do so many people are just there saying please, we are here. more volunteers are due at the vineyard in the coming days on what is proving to be a vintage year here for kindness.

duncan kennedy, bbc news on the isle of wight. you're watching bbc news. and we'll be taking an in—depth look at the papers with our reviewers katy balls, deputy political editor at the spectator, and the business journalist — john crowley. that's coming up after the latest headlines and a full sport update. two nasa astronauts are hurtling back towards earth following an historic mission on the first commercial rocket. the dragon capsule, built by the us company space x, is due to splashdown in the ocean off the coast of florida. a successful landing would mean america can send its own teams into orbit again after retiring its shuttles in 2011. our science correspondent rebecca morelle has more. mission control: dragon spacex, separation confirmed.

for bob behnken and doug hurley it is time to head home, the dragon capsule leaving the international space station, the first ever private spacecraft to carry astronauts back to earth. we are about to embark on the final portion of the journey. i've referred to some of our spacex friends as the hardest part was getting us launched but the most important part is bringing us home and so i look forward to the test objectives of not only separating from the international space station smoothly but then coming down to a nice splashdown off the florida coast. theirjourney began two months ago in a spacecraft owned by the us company, spacex. this move to the commercial sector marks a major change, opening up space to anyone who can pay for a seat. but the return will be a real challenge, with a fiery re—entry through the atmosphere. parachutes will then slow the spacecraft down,

ready for an ocean splashdown in the gulf of mexico, the first water landing since the apollo missions ended nearly 50 years ago. there's a lot of reasons why splashing down is preferable but the disadvantage for somebody that has been up in space for a long period of time, it might be a bit unpleasant, and bob and doug are really tough and i am sure they will be fine but they'll look a little bit like i do after i go to disneyland and ride the teacup ride with my kids and i get off of that thing and i look green. mission control: dragon spacex depart burn zero complete. in the coming hours, this test flight will be complete mission control: dragon spacex depart burn zero complete. in the coming hours, this test flight will be complete and when is the spacecraft touches down, a new era in spacecraft will have begun. rebecca morelle, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather.

hello there. fairly changeable looking skies across many areas this afternoon. one minute cloud, the odd heavy downpour but the odd bit of sunshine in scotland and northern england compared to this morning. they could be heavy and thundery. frequent showers in northern ireland. showers are becoming fewer in number which means there will be one 01’ in number which means there will be one or two more in eastern areas pushing through on the westerly breeze which will keep it cool during those cloudy moments. nice enough when the sun is out. 17—23. away from the city centre is denied, with clear skies for many, one or two showers continuing in the west with rain close to the channel islands first thing. after a sunny start for most of us, showers in northern and western areas will develop into the second half of the day. very much hit and miss. many places staying dry for longer tomorrow and temperatures are going a little on the cool side for early august, 17—22, but heat will return later in the week after a wet and windy spell midweek.

hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... a former uk conservative minister — and current mp — is arrested on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and coercive control. classified documents released by the british military raise new questions about whether uk special forces killed unarmed civilians in afghanistan. the australian state of victoria declares a "state of disaster" as the number of new coronavirus cases rises steeply. meanwhile, south africa records more than half a million virus infections — the fifth highest number in the world. now for a look at all the sport with jane. that the sport with jane. is including all the fallout

from that is including all the fallout from the dramatic