this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america, or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: president trump brokers a peace deal between israel and the united arab emirates. israel's prime minister calls it an "historic breakthrough". i believe there is a good chance we will soon see more arab countries joining this expanding circle of peace. israel has agreed to delay plans to annex more palestinian land, but the palestinian president calls the deal a betrayal of his people's cause. tens of thousands in belarus stage more protests against alexander lu kashenko's disputed election, as the government announces the release of detained protesters. his arrest in his own words. hong kong newspaper owner

jimmy lai describes being detained under the territory's new security law. are you scared? no, i'm not. why should i be scared? welcome to the programme. israel and the united arab emirates have signed a peace treaty that will open the way to the two countries signing deals in areas such as trade, tourism, investment and security. as part of the us—mediated deal announced by president trump, israel will put on hold its plans to annex more palestinian land. but the surprise move has angered palestinian leaders, as our correspondent yoland knell reports from jerusalem.

the face of a man who's made an historic deal. israel's leader talking to the crown prince of abu dhabi and president trump. already, there were signs of warming ties with arab gulf states who share fears over iran. an israeli minister in the uae. the delegation singing in the jewish sabbath. now such scenes could become normal. we announced the establishment of a full and formal peace between israel and the uae. it includes the mutual opening of embassies, direct flights and many other bilateral agreements. this is the greatest advancements towards peace between israel and the arab rule in the last 26 years. but the palestinians feel betrayed. past peace plans promise diplomatic relations with powerful arab states, only when their conflict with israel had been solved.

recently, they have been fighting israeli plans to annex in parts of the west bank which they want for a future state. tonight, the uae justified what it called its bold step, saying israel agreed not to take action. meanwhile, the white house congratulated itself. by uniting two of america's closest and most capable partners in the region, something which was said could not be done, this deal is a significant step to building a more peaceful, secure and prosperous middle east. for mr trump, with presidential elections looming and his friend, benjamin netanyahu, this is a majorforeign policy achievement. in a measure of its great popularity with israelis, tonight, the tel aviv municipality was lit up with the emirati flag.

with the view from washington, here's our north america editor jon sopel. this isn't a comprehensive middle east peace deal or anywhere close to that. and for the palestinian leadership i'm sure it leaves them feeling marginalised and left on the sidelines by not having been pa rt sidelines by not having been part of the stalk again. what this is though is a hugely significant breakthrough as your land was explaining there. because what you have is cooperation between the two economic powerhouses in the region. and yes this is about politics and diplomacy and, importantly, when it comes to a ride, which america wants to see isolated because of what they say is its destabilising effect in the region, but this is also about economics, the ability to co—operate on technology stop and that will bring a big change to the region. if i could be parochial for a moment as well, israel is very well supported in america

by white evangelical christians, by the jewish population, anything that helps israel feel more secure is going to be supported. this is a good day for donald trump and represents a diplomatic victory for him. john sobel there. represents a diplomatic victory for him. john sobelthere. -- john sobel there. in belarus, the interior minister has said everyone who was detained in this week's protests will be released by this hour. it comes as workers from state—run factories joined thousands of people on the streets for a fifth day of protests over the disputed re—election of alexander lukashenko as the country's president. our correspondent abdujalil abdurasulov, sent this report. chanting factory workers down tools across belarus today. the protest mood in the country is changing following a violent crackdown on protesters. people are finding new ways to make their voices heard. although the number of protesters on the streets of minsk is going down, but the movement against president lukashenko will not go away back quickly.

today, the workers at this plant are going on strike against the violence that courts are using to stop protesters. translation: we demand honest elections, the change of regime, we demand freedom, democracy and peace in our homes. that is why we have come out. these are some of the people who were detained on sunday. the day when protest in belarus started. now, they are free. after long days and nights of anxious searching and waiting, some families are finally reunited. but many are still looking for their relatives. people in the crowd show the men photos of family members on their phones in desperate hope that someone will have shared a cell with their loved ones. this woman is looking for her son, who was

detained on monday. "we have been searching for him for three days. he has three small children at home," she says. for former detainees, the memories of their experience in detention centres will likely haunt them for many years. people told us about brutal beatings and torture the detainees face inside. translation: they beat people ferociously, with impunity and they arrest anyone. the cells are overcrowded and we were forced to stand in the yard all night. we could hear women being beaten. i don't understand such cruelty. when men get arrested, it is the women who now go out onto the streets. the brutal crackdown he has changed the protest movement, but did not stop it. the question now is, how far will the regime go to maintain its grip on power?

now to latin america, where two countries have officially reached more than half a million coronavirus cases. peru now has close to 508,000 confirmed cases and over 25,000 related deaths, according to the country's health ministry. with a total of 505,000 infections. however, the government has said the real number of infected people is likely to be significantly higher. over 50,000 people have died with coronavirus in mexico. apple has a new high—profile lawsuit on its hands. the company behind the popular video game, fortnite, is pursuing a case against the tech giant after its game was removed from the app store. the rivalry has quickly become a top trend on social media, with people around the world posting the hashtag #free—fortnite.

0ur reporter alanna petroff joins me now with the latest details. there is this rivalry. what's behind it? all right. so what happened is fortnite, as we all know, is a very, very popular game around the world with more than 300 million users and it went about going into the iphone app store and offering people this opportunity to buy directly some in app in game purchases to buy directly from fortnite and the game maker epic games instead of using the apple system to buy upgrades and currency inside this game. now, this is a way that companies make a lot of money. this is multibillion—dollar business and epic games are

said to customers we will give you buy directly from us. that way they could bypass apple ‘s systems and apple charges a 30% surcharge on purchases through the apple app on iphones. apple responded to this saying you can't bypass our system and so they shut down the fortnite app and you can no longer download fortnite on iphones. you can still get it on computers but not on iphones anymore. and then epic games, which makes fortnite, responded by launching a big lawsuit, 65 pages sent straight to court, and they launched a really big campaign to get people behind us. campaign to get people behind us. let's go over very quickly what each company said, just a snippet, epic games says apple has become what it once railed against, the he —— he missed.

apple responded by saying this. apple responded by saying this. a lot of money is at stake here and they have two different ideas about how users can access these in game purchases. interesting. as you said, a huge amount of money to be made with these in app purchases, which seems a strange concept to me that you use your real money to buy things that aren't real in the computer game world. but i've got that. what about other people in the tech industry, what are they saying about this now? so spotify actually came out and it says something quite scathing. let's look at what spotify said. so

clearly epic games, behind fortnite, is not the only company that operates in the tax base that is going after apple and this case, this lawsuit that epic games has launched in the us against apple is seeking to change the way that payments are made and the way that apple charges fees when people make their payments in games on the iphone. fascinating stuff. thank you for talking us through it. thank you, alanna. stay with us on bbc world news. still to come: 75 years since the end of world war ii in the pacific, we look at japan's journey from bitter enemy to close ally of western countries. the big crowds became bigger as the time of the funeral approached. as the lines of fans became longer, the police prepared for a huge job of crowd control.

idi amin, uganda's brutal former dictator, has died at the age of 80. he's been buried in saudi arabia, where he lived in exile since being overthrown in 1979. two billion people around the world have seen the last total eclipse of the sun to take place in this millennium. it began its journey off the coast of canada, ending three hours later when the sun set over the bay of bengal. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: the united states brokers a peace deal between israel and the united arab emirates.

the palestinian president says it's a betrayal of the palestinian cause. in belarus, as protests continue against president lukashenko, the government announces the release of all detained protesters. the us government has accused yale university of illegally discriminating against white and asian american applicants. an investigation by the department ofjustice concluded the ivy league university had breached civil rights law in its undergraduate admissions process by favouring black and hispanic applicants. the university has denied the accusations and says diversity is a mark of its excellence. the investigation began after the asian—american coalition for education filed a complaint. swan lee is the group's co—founder. thank you for coming on the programme. my pleasure. i guess

you welcome this latest report from the department ofjustice? yes, on behalf of hundreds of immigrant groups but also it is clear that the government has sided with the majority opinion of americans on this issue. this survey and the centre results for many years are more than 70% of americans clearly believe race should not be a factor in college admissions and this includes the majority of all the racial groups, so this is definitely popular opinion with grassroots americans. universities like yale university say they want a diverse intake of students to reflect their populations and that that diversity is a strength? diversity is a strength? diversity is a strength and it's not only achieved by race, influenced method. it is achieved by social economic status influenced approach which is

popular and supported by a lot of americans, so using race as a factor actually covers off the social economic issues — is out because every racial group there is clear that there are different economic groups in racial groups so it's much more affluent that is accurate to use the social economic data instead of the very generalised inaccurate race approach. an interesting thought but a slight problem which is there isa slight problem which is there is a huge degree of overlap, for example, between black americans and low socio—economic groups? americans and low socio-economic groups? based on the internal data from the harvard university case, actually more than 70% of african—americans according to harvard are not from social, lower social economic status families. they are actually from the upper, wealthier families, so as a matter of fa ct, families, so as a matter of fact, the race approach in these economies are helping

more elite families not the lower income african and hispanic families. you would like to see a separation of those two issues and a separation on that approach and a focus and essentially getting more people from poorer backgrounds into those top universities? i do not think those approaches ideally coexist because you think one will reduce the use of the other one. the best is to get rid of the approach, following the 77 - 70% rid of the approach, following the 77 — 70% approach and focus on the socio—economic approach and this is the best way to deliver evenness to children and that lower income students are actually helped by these considerations. fascinating to get your thoughts and i should just out of course at the beginning that yale university has dismissed the accusations as baseless but really good to get your side of these events.

thank you for coming on the programme, swa n swan lee. let's get some of the day's other news. the uk is to impose a 14—day quarantine on all arrivals from france and the netherlands, after a rise in coronavirus cases in the countries. the measure comes into effect on saturday and also applies to malta, monaco, aruba and the turks and caicos islands. new zealand's focus on containing covid—i9 has hit a bump on the road as it is now extended outside of the city of auckland. at least three people have been killed in clashes on the ivory coast is hundreds of taken to the streets. it follows president wattarra's decision to run for a third

term in office. police fired tear gas at demonstrators, who defied a ban on protests. on monday, hong kong media tycoon jimmy lai was arrested in a scene that shocked many. his newspaper offices were raided by hundreds of police. mr lai, the founder of the apple daily, is the most high—profile person to be detained under a controversial new security law. hejoined me from hong kong, a short time ago, in one of his first media interviews since being released on bail. i don't know what is going to happen to me next because they have not given me a date of the judgement. i was given a bail of $300,000 cash and $200,000 personal guarantee and my passport was confiscated so i cannot travel, and i am waiting for the next thing to happen. are you scared? no, i am not. why not? why should i be scared?

i have been doing this for 30 years and now is a time of test, it is a time that needs my courage, and it is a time that i have to go forward. i am not scared and i will go on, you know, and that's my mission. just tell us what happened on monday, when the police arrived at the newspaper offices. i was just down from upstairs by my maid. i didn't know what happened so i went down, and i saw a bunch of policemen, about 20 of them and they said, "mr lai, you are under arrest under the national security law," so i was a bit shocked because national security law

is a very draconian law, that i may be sent to china right away so i said, "look, i have just finished exercising, may i have a bath?" so they followed me to my room, to my bathroom, and didn't allow me to close the door, of course. they watched me. i washed and i went with them, they handcuffed me. i was very pleased to see that the whole team were hong kong policemen, that means that i was not going to be sent to china. if they had some chinese mandarin—speaking police there, it was almost sure that i would be sent to china. then i was sent to the police station, and i was detained for a0 hours.

during the a0 hours, they treated me very nicely and politely, while as a criminal, of course... what are they accusing you of doing? the first thing is, deception, which means that we have companies that register their address on my company, you know, only the correspondence was sent there, so this is while they're leasing contract — so that's the first. the second is resignment, so this is under the basic law. this the third charge is collusion, subversion, which is under the national security law. one last question, in the last couple of hours donald trump was asked about your arrest and president trump said

it was a terrible thing. do you think the international community is doing enough? i think that the international community has done a lot but what is enough? 0nly history can tell. this weekend marks 75 years since japan's surrender in the second world war. 0ne veteran, john hutchin, who's 96, was part of the chindit special forces, which fought behind enemy lines in burma, facing disease and monsoon rains. he's been speaking to our correspondent, robert hall. twice a day for five weeks, they attacked, morning... ..and evening. 0ur losses were very heavy. archive: here they are in close up for the first time in newsreels, the chindits. they took their badge from the lion statues which guarded burmese temples, the ragged contingents from britain and the commonwealth, outnumbered by the japanese, unrecognisable through

hunger and illness. john hutchin had volunteered for the chindits. fighting through the monsoons in 1944, he came close to death. when i went in, i was 11 stone. i was now eight stone four, a skeleton. i had no energy, i had no fight, i had no spark. so the rule was, before we went in, if you're killed, you're dead because your purpose in there is to kill or be killed. if you were walking wounded, you carried on. if none of those things were possible and it impeded the advance of those 80 men, you were left. pauses.

i was left... ..with four days' rations... ..and ammunition. i lay, with water in it, and i couldn't move. and ifound i had a spark. i wasn't dead. i wasn't immobile, and i got up. and for four days and four nights, i marched alone... ..until i reached our men. the lions of the chindit army are remembered here on the banks of the thames. a modest monument to outstanding bravery and resilience. i love talking about it because it's a whole part of me, but i shall never, ever forget any of those men. and i'm delighted to

have had the honour of being called a chindit. you are what she bbc news. — watching. hello there. top temperature on thursday was 30 celsius. nowhere got above 30. that's the first time in over a week we've seen that, so temperatures are falling now over the next few days and we'll have a north—south divide. southern parts of the country will feel most humid, with the risk of thunderstorms over the next few days, whereas further north, higher pressure will tend to bring a lot of dry weather with some sunshine. but there will be some mist and low cloud across more eastern areas. so, for friday, we've got lower pressure to the south, this weather front generating the showers and thunderstorms. higher pressure, though, across the north, which will bring the fine and settled weather, but we will start off with that low cloud and mist, across many central and eastern areas, which will tend to burn back to the coast through the day. best of the sunshine western scotland, northern ireland,

northwest england, where it will feel pleasantly warm. and further south, these thunderstorms could be quite vicious again, with the risk of localised flooding in places where they occur. not as warm as it has been. in fact, the extreme heat will have gone. we're looking at temperatures around the mid—20s celsius at best, but cooler down the east coast, with onshore breeze and where it stays quite cloudy. as we head through friday night, it looks like those thunderstorms will continue to rattle on across southern areas. again, the risk of some localised flooding in places, drierfurther north. it's going to be another warm and muggy night for many, particularly england and wales. now, into saturday, then, it's a similar story — higher pressure to the north, lower pressure to the south, so this is where we'll see the showers and the thunderstorms continue. again, some of them heavy with the risk of some localised flash flooding. further north, we'll start off with a bit of grey mistiness across eastern areas.

the best of the sunshine for western scotland, northern ireland and northwest england. it could stay quite grey along some north sea coasts. top temperature 25 degrees in the southeast, the low 20s further north. subtle changes, though, as we head on into sunday. it looks like that thundery low will drift a little bit further north as this high—pressure retreats away, so it looks like we could start to see some thundery showers edging northwards into north wales, the north midlands, perhaps into northern england, as we move through the course of sunday. but again, some of these will be on the heavy side. top temperatures, 2a, 25 degrees. again, cooler in the north and east with that onshore breeze. as we head on into next week, it looks like things will stay on the cooler side, with temperatures close to the seasonal average, with a mixture of sunshine and showers.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the united states has brokered a peace deal between israel and the united arab emirates. world leaders have given it a cautious welcome but the palestinian president says it is a betrayal of his people's cause. tens of thousands in belarus staged more protests against alexander lu kashenko's disputed election, and a police crackdown. the government has announced the release of more than a thousand detained protesters, and apologised to injured bystanders. mexico's health ministry has reported the total number of coronavirus cases in the country is over 505,000. the number of deaths has risen to over 55,000. but the government says the number of infected people is probably significantly higher than the confirmed cases.