hello, i'm philippa thomas. welcome to outside source. the democratic nominee for presidentjoe biden and his new running mate kamala harris are about to launch their bid for the white house. in the next hour, they'll be addressing an event together for the first time in delaware. the who warns more than half of beirut‘s hospitals are "non—functional", as the blame game over last week's deadly explosion continues. all the managers of the port are now under house arrest, as well as ministers. they didn't do anything

about it, and this is a criminal. belarus authorities admit to using live ammunition during protests against the country's disputed election. britain's economy falls into a recession. new figures show uk growth fell a record 20% in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. welcome. joe biden, who's challenging donald trump for the us presidency this november, has already made history by naming a black woman, kamala harris, as his pick for vice—president. within the hour, we're expecting to see them both on stage for the first time as the official democratic party team pushing to topple mr trump from office. this was kamala harris leaving her home in washington earlier to head to delaware for the formal introduction of the biden/harris ticket. so rare in these covid days to be waiting for an actual in—person campaign event. we should be feeling the energy, and when it happens, we'll take you to it live.

they will be hoping to generate some enthusiasm all of —— obviously. beirut now, and lebanon's president has promised a swift, transparent investigation into the devastating explosion at a warehouse last week which killed 200 people and injured at least 4000, a blast linked to the long—term, unsafe storage of almost 3000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. he says the probe will look at whether the blast was due to negligence, an accident or external factors, but many lebanese doubt the current establishment has any credibility to scrutinise its own actions. meanwhile, the political finger pointing continues. lebanon's economy and trade minister, who resigned on monday along with the rest of the government, has blamed previous ministers and port officials in an interview with bbc hardtalk. this blast is really more than just

corruption, it's a criminal act. all the managers of the port are now under house arrest, as well as the ministers. they were aware of it and they didn't do anything about it. this is leaving a criminal affect. reuters has reported that president 0w—n and prime minister hassan diab were warned injuly about the warehoused ammonium nitrate. and there's this from the beirut bureau chief for the washington post on twitter: this is the article she's referring to in this tweet. it quotes the head of search and rescue for the lebanese fire crew at the port, who says: the article goes on to say:

"vapor from paint thinners can ignite in the air and cause fires in unventilated, hot conditions." we know several hospitals were badly hit, and the world health organisation now says more than half of beirut hospitals are ‘non—functional‘. this is vision showing the clean up inside one hospital. three major hospitals were so badly damaged that they are completely closed. three more have reduced capacity. that means beirut is short of 500 hospital beds. it comes as lebanon records more than 300 new covid—19 cases and seven new deaths. this graph shows the number of new cases each day for the past week. here's more of what the who has said. who will be there with people of lebanon to restore functionality to some of these priority health facilities and get the covid

activities up and running. let's get you more on the situation in belarus. the authorities there have acknowledged using live ammunition against demonstrators. the interior ministry said the incident happened in the southwestern city of brest, and that one person was injured after police first fired warning shots. tuesday was the third successive night scenes like this played out across belarus, in at least 25 cities and towns. this is after allegations of widespread vote—rigging in last weekend's election, in which the authoritarian