this a very warm welcome to bbc news. my name's mike embly. our top stories: there's mounting anger in lebanon at the failure of politicians to prevent tuesday's devastating blast in which at least a 135 people were killed and 5,000 injured. more than a quarter of a million people have been made homeless. in large parts of the city, every street, every building has been damaged. people will not be able to return to their houses and these are probably tens of thousands of people who have become homeless in a matter of seconds. demonstrators take to the streets — urging turkey's government to continue with an international pact designed to protect women. bell tolls

hiroshima marks the 75th anniversary of the exact moment an atomic bomb was dropped on the japanese city we hear from the last survivors. hello to you. the governing elite of lebanon is facing unprecedented criticism following a massive explosion in the capital on tuesday. they‘ re being blamed for the failure to store properly tonnes of ammonium nitrate that blew up in the port area of beirut, killing at least 135 people. the government's promised a full investigation, and placed some officials under house arrest. a desperate search is continuing for more than a hundred people missing. 300,000 people have had to leave their homes. a two—week state of emergency has been declared. quentin sommerville has the latest.

in a country long battered by shock, a fresh, unnatural disaster has seized lebanon. the fires burned long here at the port. the cause, a powder keg of unstable chemicals, left to rot in the very heart of beirut. the shock could be felt in cyprus, syria and israel. the 2500 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser was the equivalent of a one kilotonne blast. this was lebanon's 9/11, they say. a catastrophe that shook the entire country. a small fire at the port had drawn people to their windows to watch. when the chemicals exploded, they received the brunt. more than 4000 have been hurt

and lebanon is traumatised. it is a day they will never forget, especially for bride, israa seblani. allahu akbar. in the small town of ras el harf, the buildings still stand, but the people are shuttered. jessy dawood was a nurse at beirut‘s saint george hospital. she died along with three other colleagues. she was 31 years old, and leaves behind her two—year—old ella, and her husband. the work of a nurse is to save lives of people, and take care of people. this is what she did. she was a hero. she died when she's

on her duty. she's saving people, and she died. at jessy dawood's hospital, there is hurt and anger at a man—made disaster, a physical manifestation of the country's long dysfunction. this is a catastrophe, because, you know, we are one of the best functioning institutions in the city. we are helping with the covid effort, we're treating patients. already, the healthcare system is about to collapse. resilience is a word much overused in lebanon. in may melki's apartment, she sought a moment of peace among the wreckage. the 78—year—old has suffered months of power cuts, the loss of her savings and rising food prices. and now, this disaster. hopes?

everybody says there is no hope, you know? but i don't want to believe it. i want to keep hoping that each time these catastrophes happen, we stand up and start again. but everybody says, many, many years before, when i was in the united states, they asked me this question — is there hope for lebanon? i mean, there is no hope. the same politicians who created the earlier crisis have to resolve this one. there is little hope they can do it alone, and there is a limit to how much more lebanon can endure. it was more that i was an homage to all those who are gone and who were less fortunate than us and they were caught

in this big catastrophe. quentin sommerville, bbc news. 0ur beirut correspodent corine torbey said there's mounting pressure on the government to say how they'll help the more than quarter of a million people who lost their homes in an instant when the explosion took place. of course, behind me is the port. you cannot see it at the moment, it is not visible, because there is no electricity in the city. the damage is not only here but everywhere, in every single street of the capital. debris is everywhere, smashed cars, balconies falling from buildings, electricity cables hanging from rooftops but mostly, a lot of houses that, at the moment, are absolutely not habitable. people will not be able to return to their

houses and these are probably tens of thousands of people who have become homeless in a matter of seconds. we have seen a lot of community support. a lot of people offering their places to those who cannot return to their homes but this is not a sustainable solution. the government should deal with this as a matter of priority. of course, it has a lot of priorities to deal with at the moment but this remains one of the top and most alarming issues at the moment, the number of homeless, the number of people who simply found themselves without homes from monday to another. all this at such a difficult time for the country, trying not only to curb the spread of coronavirus, but also struggling with economic and political crises. 0ur middle east editor jeremy bowen, now, on the troubles besetting lebanon. officials who may have ignored warnings about the danger facing beirut are under house arrest.

that is just the start of national recriminations. the force of the blast was devastating. if lebanon was rich, well—governed and secure, it would find it hard to deal with this crisis. but it has none of those strengths. the mayor inspected the damage. he said reconstruction would take billions of dollars. that's money lebanon just doesn't have. the president, michel aoun, has declared three days of mourning. many lebanese don't trust their leaders and are sick of an elite, including former warlords, like the president himself, who have been at the top for decades. lebanon's youth want change. before and sometimes during the pandemic, there were big protests. many called them a revolution against corruption and incompetence. what has gone wrong is decades

and decades of abusive use of power by a privileged and corrupt elite, which has been milking the country corru ptly, which has been failing to provide the basic services, such as electricity and proper internet and proper telephone, affordable telephones, proper operation of the customs system, proper whatever, agricultural policy. they have all been lacking. a rare gesture came from israel. tel aviv city hall was lit with a lebanese flag. the two cities are separated by 160 miles of mediterranean coastline, and lifetimes of pain and history in the world's most unstable region. lebanon is surrounded by enemies, and the kind of friends that no country wants. to the south, there is israel. this time, they have offered aid but, before that, the talk was of border tension and perhaps even another war. then there's syria, where the assad regime has always regarded lebanon as its backyard.

the lebanese have absorbed about 1.5 million syrian refugees. that is the same as britain taking about 15 million. and iran is close to the lebanese shia militia, hezbollah, which is the most powerful political and military organisation in the country. the medical emergency is extreme. first covid—19, and now three hospitals in beirut have been put out of action by the explosions. i saw all of the war in lebanon. this blow is as important as the 11th of september blow in the united states. for us, i think this is a very big blow. we need really the international support. french rescue teams left paris for beirut, britain announced french rescue teams left paris for beirut, britain announced £5 million of emergency aid, but lebanon has deep political problems that money without reform will not be able to fix.

in beirut‘s wreckage are the ruins of the granary that contained vital supplies of imported wheat. another disaster, at the chernobyl nuclear power plant, finished off the soviet union. lebanon's old order should fear the fallout from beirut docks. jeremy bowen, bbc news. the senior american immunologist, dr anthony fauci, has said he doesn't expect any coronavirus vaccine to be approved before the end of the year. he said the fight against the virus was fully dependent on the availability of a safe and effective vaccine, and stressed that political considerations would not be allowed to interfere in the regulatory process. we likely are going to have many tens of millions of doses in the early part of the year but, as we get into 2021, the manufacturers tell us that they will have hundreds of millions and likely a billion doses by the end of 2021 so i think the process is moving along at a pretty favourable pace.

0ur north america correspondent, david willis, says what dr fauci says is quite different to what the president is saying. we see caution from the top medical experts here and optimism, bordering, some might say, on hubris, from the president of the united states who today, a fairly short while ago, in a white house briefing said that multinational pharmaceutical companies, johnson &johnson, the big american company among them, were doing, as he put it, "a fantasticjob", they were getting very close to developing a vaccine, the president said, and we might have one available long before the end of the year, said mr trump. dr anthony fauci, for his part, said that he does not expect a vaccine to be available before the end of this year. what the two men do agree on, mike, is that once a vaccine is developed then tens of millions of doses of it could be available

very quickly, within months, in fact, because pharmaceutical companies here are being urged to produce in mass the vaccines that they are developing just in case one of them does prove to work and then it can be shipped out almost immediately. and, david, thanks to the virus, of course, this is a time like no other and it looks like it will be an election like no other. absolutely, no tickertape, no balloons — this is going to be a very subdued american presidential election. joe biden, the presumptive democratic nominee, has said he will be making his acceptance speech from his home in delaware and not going to milwaukee, wisconsin, because it is thought that, even though it is going to be largely an online event, there will be a gathering of some democrats there in milwaukee and that is just deemed to be too unsafe in the current climate. donald trump, for his part, has floated the suggestion he might make his acceptance

speech from the white house, raising all sorts of questions about blurring the lines between, if you like, official presidential activity and political campaigning. a short while ago, the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, was asked about this on cnn, and he said that one way around it might be for the president to make that speech from the east wing of the white house, which is officially the private residence, rather than somewhere like the oval office, but it is, of course, a taxpayer funded building and even some republicans have expressed disquiet about the president accepting the nomination from there. david willis for us there. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: why is the man attributed with inventing grunge rock music suing donald trump's re—election campaign.

the question was whether we want to save our people and japanese, as well and win the war, or whether we want to take a chance on being able to win the war by killing all our young men. the invasion began at two o'clock this morning. mr bush, like most other people, was clearly caught by surprise. we call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all the iraqi forces. 100 years old and still full of vigour, vitality and enjoyment of life. no other king or queen in british history has lived so long, and the queen mother is said to be quietly very pleased indeed that she's achieved this landmark anniversary. this is a pivotal moment for the church as an international movement. the question now is whether the american vote will lead to a split in the anglican community.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: there's mounting anger in lebanon at the failure of politicians to prevent tuesday's devastating blast in which at least 135 people were killed and 5,000 injured. more than 250,000 people have been made homeless in large parts of the city. every street, every building has been damaged. to turkey now, where hundreds of demonstrators have taken to the streets of istanbul, urging the government to maintain the country's membership in an international pact to protect women. the government has been looking to withdraw from the agreement despite a growing number of women being killed by men in the country. alanna petroff has the story. even in the year 2020, people still have two come out to so

their support for basic rights. protect women from murder and violence, criminalise violence against women. in istanbul, these demonstrators are calling on the government to stick with the istanbul convention. the 2011 agreement that was forged here in this city has been signed by more than a0 countries, now turkey is considering opting out. translation: the lives of women are already under threat in this country and revoking the istanbul convention is an enactment of slaughtering of women. that is why we're here today. the was designed to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence. it is also designed to promote gender equality. the agreement is especially important now, as turkey witnesses hundreds of feminist sides, the intentional murder of women, because they are women asked mark femicides.

this has spurred the protest design. translation: today, throughout turkey and with our political divides, all women need this convention was that we are convinced with the strength of the women's buzz union, we will prevent the withdrawal of this convention and yonder, and force all of the istanbul convention. the recent trend of women posting back in my pictures of themselves on social media took off in turkey injuly, part of a campaign highlighting violence against women. it turned into a global trend. but this wasn'tjust about selfies. in turkey, it was about survival. conservatives in turkey go against these protesters, they say the istanbul convention destroys the family structure and promotes lgbt rights. protesters say president recep tayyip erdogan and his government are discouraging their activism and their fight for gender equality. alanna

petroff, bbc news. today has suspended president trump's campaign account from tweeting. removing a post containing misinformation about coronavirus. he claimed children are almost immune from covid-19. children are almost immune from covid—19. president trump is my own account is not affected, although there has previously removed some of the present‘s own tweets. facebook has removed a similar post from president trump's own page. it is 75 years since the american air forces plane enola gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of hiroshima in western japan. three days later another was dropped on the city of nagasaki. somewhere between 150,000-220,000 people were killed. in the past hour, a ceremony in hiroshima has marked the anniversary of the bombing. there's been a silent prayer

at the exact time the first nuclear weapon hit the city. the coronavirus pandemic has forced the scaling back of ceremonies to honour the victims. the experience 75 years ago left japan with a strong anti—nuclear movement that endures to this day. but the remaining survivors of hiroshima are worried the lessons of the sixth of august, 19a5 are being forgotten. from tokyo, rupert wingfield—hayes. (n0 audio translation available) hirotomi igarashi is a right—wing japanese nationalist who says it's time for his country to develop its own nuclear weapons. the group he leads his one of around 1,000 ultranationalist organisations in japan dedicated to scrapping the postwar pacifist constitution, and the alliance with united states. translation: we need to acquire nuclear weapons so that the bomb will never be dropped on our homeland again, especially now with

the threat from china. china has some 300 nuclear missiles aiming atjapan, and we have north korea. that country is like a madman holding a knife. on august the 6th, japan stops to remember what happened at hiroshima. to mourn the tens of thousands who were incinerated, and to recommit itself to the abolition nuclear weapons. what happened to you when the bomb exploded? at 83, keiko ogura is one of a dwindling number of survivors who witnessed the destruction with their own eyes. she's worried that as memories fade, japan's commitment to never building nuclear weapons is weakening. survivors have a strong fear because, you know, we have many power plants, that means there are materials. plutonium, we have. and we have the technology

to create the nuclear weapons. it might be easy if we said, "go, now!" if it wanted to, experts believe japan could build a nuclear weapon very quickly. it has a stockpile of a7 tons of plutonium, more than any other non—nuclear weapon state. the whole issue of nuclear weapons is still taboo here, even to talk about. but the view that japan may one day need to build its own nuclear deterrent goes well beyond the far—right fringe, even into parts of the ruling liberal democratic party. and the logic is simple. japan faces real and growing threats from north korea, and from an increasingly aggressive and well—armed china. and since president trump's election, america's commitment to protect japan under its nuclear umbrella is increasingly shaky. for the first time in postwar history, there is now a president in the white house who has openly and repeatedly said, "it's time for japan to defend itself."

i think that is the biggest change. and sort of the biggest cause for concern. and ifjapan is moving in a direction of relying more on its own capabilities, i believe that's primarily because of a loss of credibility in us security guarantees. for the 75 years since hiroshima, japan has lived under american protection. now it is beginning to wonder what would happen if the americans really went home. rupert wingfield—hayes, bbc news, in tokyo. neil young is suing donald trump's re—election campaign for repeatedly using his music without his permission. the rock star says the us president breached copyright laws by playing his songs at political rallies and events. the trump campaign has not yet commented. a warning, there is some flash photography in this report from the bbc‘s tim allman.

it was the moment donald trump launched his campaign for the white house, and his introduction to presidential politics was accompanied by the music of neil young. how are you doing? but the veteran rocker has long called for the jump rocker has long called for the jump team to stop using his work, a request he says has been wilfully ignored. now he is taking his grievance to court. his lawyers said... is not the only rockstar wanting to distance himself from the trump campaign. elton johnjoined the rolling stones and aerosmith, in signing an open letterfor and aerosmith, in signing an open letter for politicians to gain permission before laying

their music at political events. the family of tom petty issued a cease and desist letter when his song i won't back down was used in a rally at tulsa. neil young, back down was used in a rally at tulsa. neilyoung, now officially a us citizen, is seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each time one of his songs was played. but the trump campaign, it may not be such a free world after all. tim allman, bbc news. just before we go, we wanted to share this video with you of some inspirational leadership from uganda's president yoweri museveni. leading by example. here he is, working out in his office to encourage citizens to exercise at home during the covid—19 pandemic. the president, barefoot, starts off byjogging around the room to warm up, then hits the deck to do a few push—ups. pretty impressive for a 75—year—old! the president has banned exercise in public as a coronavirus control measure, after videos of people working out in groups around the capital kampala were posted on social media.

that is it for now. thank you so that is it for now. thank you so much for watching. hello. while some parts of the uk have had some pleasant sunshine occasionally this week and stayed dry so far, albeit rather windy, others have been very wet — particularly into parts of scotland but notjust scotland. other spots had some heavy downpours during wednesday. but it is looking, for thursday, drier and warmer. high pressure building a little further. coming around to a southerly and that is going to lift temperatures again particularly into england and wales on friday. there will be another surge of heat with temperatures in the 30s for some as we will see in a moment. temperatures as we start thursday will have held up overnight across a large part of england and wales. so, a rather muggy start. could be a few mist and fog patches around.

a zone of thicker cloud into parts of southern england, could be a bit drizzly with that pushing into parts of wales and the midlands during the day. could stay misty along some spots along the english channel coast. whereas elsewhere across the uk, it's a mix of cloud, some occasional sunny skies. it will be dry. best of the sunny skies in scotland towards the north. it is warmer, and temperatures peak in the upper 20s in the warmest parts of the east and south—east of england, just a gentle southerly breeze. on through thursday night, into friday morning, keep a bit of cloud, clear, keep some clear spells too — in fact clearing up across more of england and wales going into friday morning. and what will be another rather warm and muggy night. a warmer night in scotland and northern ireland. though by friday morning there's a weather front close to northern ireland and for here and then eastwards across scotland, there will be some showery rain moving in. a few late showers and thunderstorms can't be ruled out in england and wales but the main story here will be the sunshine and the heat again. upper 20s, low 30s, and hottest parts of the east and south—east of england, mid—30s, 35, maybe 36 celsius

around the london area. temperatures nowhere near that high in scotland and northern ireland — it'll be heavily cloudy with the chance of rain during the day. high pressure building back in for the weekend and that does mean a lot of dry weather particularly on saturday. by sunday there is an increasing chance of some thunderstorms around, particularly into parts of england and wales. and where friday is going to be so very hot, it will slowly cool a touch into the weekend but more noticeably elsewhere.

this is bbc news, the headlines: there is widespread criticism in lebanon of the country's politicians, who are being blamed for tuesday's massive explosion in beirut, which killed at least 135 people, injured 5000, and made a huge number of others homeless. teams are searching rubble for at least a hundred people still missing. a number of officials at the port are to be kept under house arrest while investigations go on. lebanese officials say the storage of around 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate at a warehouse in the port caused the blast. thursday injapan marks 75 years since the united states dropped an atomic bomb on the city of hiroshima, killing thousands. there's been a silent prayer at the exact time the nuclear weapon hit the city. the coronavirus pandemic has forced the scaling back of ceremonies to honour the victims.