this is bbc news. i'm mike embley with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the us presidential campaign steps up a gear with the start of a very unconventional convention for the us democratic party. opposition protesters in belarus have held a ninth night of protests against president alexander lukashenko, whose re—election has been widely condemned as fraudulent. brazil's vice president has defended its handling of the coronavirus pandemic despite being the worst hit country outside of the united states. and the makers of fortnite are seeking a temporary restraining order against apple to stop the tech giant from deleting the video game from its app store.

hello. the democratic party in the us is about to begin its convention, designed to drum up support forjoe biden and formally nominate him as the party's candidate for november's presidential election. but this year the four—day jamboree will take place almost entirely online due to the pandemic. it's barely a jamboree. it will be based in wisconsin, a key swing state, but instead of the usual roaring crowds, speeches will be delivered remotely by video link. our correspondent laura trevelyan is in wilmington, delaware. how is this going to work, is it going to work? well, mike, thatis it going to work? well, mike, that is the big question. sorry for those technical glitches we have gotte n for those technical glitches we have gotten used to seeing on zoom because this is a glorified zoom clinical convention. tonight, you're going to see speakers live and

table going to see speakers live and ta ble two going to see speakers live and table two are coming in from remote locations all across the country. the control hub is in milwaukee but also new york, los angeles and there's all kind of production that has got into tonight. but the fame of it, politically, is we the people, the idea that democrats are showcasing what is the broader pail ofjoe biden. senator bernie sanders is going to be speaking from the left and the former republican governor don kay six speaking. and the headliner tonight, michelle obama herself, the former first lady. what is the feeling about how this is going to work for the voters. one of president trump's line of attack of course is thatjoe biden is afraid to come out, where he is out talking to people? democrats riposte to thatis people? democrats riposte to that is that they are going to focus on the three crises that they say are facing america. the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic calamity and the racial injustice which is oiling so many american cities.

they are saying that president trump has no answer to any of theseissues trump has no answer to any of these issues and thatjoe biden by uniting the country will lead america forward and provide some actual solutions to this. also democrats say that in their programming tonight, they will feature real americans. but we're going to hear from people who are working on the frontlines of the pandemic. the idea from teachers, those whose lives have really been affected by this. this is a chance for democrats who have really been stuck in the present tribe reality show since january 2017 without a chunk of programming for their own. this way, it's their programming and the chance to show whatjoe biden would do if he was elected president. what kind of atmosphere do you expect, laura will there be applause, cheers, will there be applause, cheers, will he will be waving stuff? such a good question. all of the speakers have been sent their own microphone. they have been told not to have the usual sumo background we have all got so used to seeing with the bookcase in your home office.

they been told to go to interesting and relevant locations. what that is going to look like we just don't know, but we do know that from some of the excerpts released from the speeches that senator bernie sanders is going to say this is the most important election in history because so much is at stake. michelle obama is going to concentrate on the character and the integrity ofjoe biden, therefore drawing a rather explicit contrast to donald trump who michelle obama of course feels is very divisive. thank you very much, laura. steve herman is white house bureau chief for voice of america news. he's in alexandria virginia. good to talk to you again. what to expect from this event? not much. as pointed out by laura that, this is very different from the usual political dimension we're used to and we re dimension we're used to and were going to see the same thing of course next week with republican national convention with donald trump as well. the president has already been

criticising the democrats convention, saying that because they are going to have these canned, taped speeches, he thinks he will do his a cce pta nce thinks he will do his acceptance speech live from the white house next week. yes, it is difficult isn't it because u nless is difficult isn't it because unless you see enthusiasm in front of you, it is often hard to feel enthusiasm. i think this will appeal to some degree to those really hard—core, diehard political donkeys and supporters of the respective parties. and of course, those of us who watch all of this for a living are going to be forced to watch it. i think a lot of people are probably going to prefer people are probably going to p refer to people are probably going to prefer to tune in to see what is on netflix or amazon prime or something like that rather than watch these speeches live or on tape. and that they will catch the highlights when they chewed in to watch their news programs later. on that point, the ratings are a big deal

aren't they, mr trump will make aren't they, mr trump will make a big deal of the ratings. certainly, that is why he is going to put on what can of a big show in doing the a cce pta nce big show in doing the acceptance speech live from the white house, and then we learned a few hours ago that the republican party is planning right after his speech to set off fireworks at the washington monument to give a bit of a spectacular backdrop to the president's words. steve, what chance do you think of momentum coming out of the so—called convention bubble? it's usual that what we do see asa it's usual that what we do see as a party holds its convention and gets a bit of a bump, as a party holds its convention and gets a bit ofa bump, then the other party holds its convention and subsequently it gets a bit of a bump too. you know, you have to think that what has been going on in this country for the last few years, people are very familiar with the talking points in these two parties. opinions are very much

baked in. it's a very busy of country and i think a lot of the pollsters will find it surprising that there is a major change that comes out of all of this, unless there is some sort of big wonder that is committed by overjoe biden or donald trump during their appearances. steve herman, the voice of america news, thank you so much. my pleasure. opposition protesters in belarus have been on the streets again calling on the president, alexander lukashenko, to go. they've dismissed his offer of a constitutional referendum, followed by a possible fresh election, as a ploy. earlier in the day, mr lukashenko addressed a group of workers in the capital minsk, from where our correspondent, jonah fisher reports. car horns toot. this was the day the workers turned on alexander lukashenko. thousands downing tools and marching to a tractor factory.

while the strikers rallied outside, belarus's beleaguered president arrived by helicopter to address those who'd stayed at work. he was no doubt hoping for a friendly crowd. what he got was a public relations disaster. outside the plant was maria kalesnikava, pretty much the only opposition leader who hasn't been arrested or fled the country. translation: for 26 years the authorities have humiliated us. thank you for not being afraid. we are not the little people, we are the nation.

are you worried about your own safety? no, i'm not worried. i feel very safe here with my people in belarus. what is your message to the international community as they watch what is happening here? we are very thankful for the support of belarus and, please, only with love and dialogue we can change our lives and our countries. another sign of the president's weakening grip on power came on state tv, where programming was disrupted this morning. outside, striking employees chanted "tell the truth". for the last week government—controlled media has almost entirely avoided the demonstrations and the torture of activists. the momentum is certainly with the protesters, who seem to grow in confidence with every passing day. it's very hard to see any way back from this politically for the president.

the last few days have shown belarusians willing to take to the streets and to stand up against him. that surely can't be reversed. the big question now is more when and how he goes and whether it happens peacefully. jonah fisher, bbc news, minsk. let's get some of the day's other news. brazil is the worst hit country of covid—19 outside the us. it has over 3.5 million cases. must president has defended the handling of the epidemic as well as its governments judgement of the fires of the advisory amazon. our south america correspond reports. of course we regret the efforts of more than 100,000 brazilians 0k, more than 100,000 brazilians ok, but the federal and state governments did everything that

we could. we were successful in adapting the curve of the pandemic to the capacity of our public hospitals because in the beginning, everybody was afraid of this, that we would have people dying in the halls of our hospitals. and this did not happen stop and also, we had a lot of measures to mitigate the economic and social problems. i think that doing a good job. bolsonaro has made it clear about how he felt about social distancing, he has pushed back on the wearing of facemask. he has had it, the same as the first lady, a lot of people feel perhaps that the leadershipjust does not feel perhaps that the leadership just does not care. they have to understand the nature of the brazilian people. resilient people are not very disciplined ones. so it's impossible to come top down and say, ok, you have to do this, you have to do that. even

governments, local governments and the mayors of the main cities have a lot of difficulties giving people in their homes. we have a lot of sha nty their homes. we have a lot of s ha nty towns their homes. we have a lot of shanty towns on a main town so it is not easy to keep social distancing. so yes, these inequalities make it very difficult the fight in the way, for instance, the people in europe did against the pandemic. fires are burning in the other side. last week, bolsonaro branded them a lie. despite a ban on fires, they are still burning. how can a government deny that they are happening? well, we don't deny what is happening. one thing has to be very sure and very clear, the forest is not burning, there is one part of the legal amazon that is already humanised and people are established there. scenario called it a lie, he did say that. and there is a ban on fires at the moment and there

are fires happening. —— bolsonaro. that land that you call humanised used to be forest. this government does not have a good record of protecting the others on. we have been monitoring this very, very close and this month and others, when the fire really start to grow, we will be fully in the field to try to stop this fires to go higher than last year. you have said in the past that you didn't want brazil to be labelled by the rest of the world as an environmental villain, rest of the world as an environmentalvillain, but rest of the world as an environmental villain, but many people in the world to see the brazilian government acting like that. people say that we area villain like that. people say that we are a villain because the deforestation that happened in the amazon area with the fires but we have a very clean energy matrix. we don't burn coal or oil. so, we are not the villains in this. but we know

that it villains in this. but we know thatitis villains in this. but we know that it is our responsibility to enforce the law and make people obey it. we understand this and we're going to do this. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: scientists in the united states believe death valley has registered the highest temperature ever recorded on earth. washington, the world's most political city, is today assessing the political health of the world's most powerful man. indeed i did have a relationship with ms lewinsky that was not appropriate. in fact, it was wrong. in south africa, 97 people have been killed today, in one of the worst days of violence between rival black groups. over the last ten days, 500 have died. chanting: czechoslovakia must be free! czechoslovakia must be free! chanting: czechoslovakia must be free! russia is observing a national day of mourning for the 118

submariners who died on board the kursk. we all with them now. with — in our hearts. the pope has celebrated mass before a congregation of more than 2.5 million people in his hometown of krakow. "stay with us, stay with us", chanted this ocean of humanity. "well, well", joked the pope, "so you want me to desert rome?" this is bbc news, the latest headlines: preparing to anointjoe biden — the democratic party in the us begins its unconventional convention, as the pandemic forces the event online. a ninth night of protests in belarus against the leadership of president alexander lukashenko. his re—election has been widely condemned as fraudulent. the row between apple and epic games, makers of the online

video game, fortnite, rages on. the company is taking legal action, seeing to block retaliation from the tech giant. apple and google removed the hit game from their app stores, after epic games bypassed their payment systems, to avoid giving them a cut of sales, with both platforms taking 30% of purchases. for more i'm joined by danny konsta ntinovic, the associate editor at thinknum media in new york. thank you for your time. how big a deal is it? it is a big deal on a couple of different levels. i think it reflects failure of government regulation that we have to rely ona regulation that we have to rely on a company like epic games to try and bring down this 30% fee that apple charges which apple got in trouble for during the anti—trust hearings in washington a few weeks ago. in a morejust well washington a few weeks ago. in a more just well perhaps this would not be happening between

two companies. it is also a big deal because the sort of cultural implications of it. epic games fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world controls a lot of cultural capital and in the lawsuit it claims to have 350 million players many of whom are young and the tactics that epic games to put pressure on apple is weaponising those group of players to pressure arrival and they do this by forming identity around the use of the game's product in fortnite which is an ethically questionable thing to do given to the young age of the players involved and given games as a medium having a rough history with identity politics and conflating consumerism with personal identity being used to really damaging and is to harm

people like women or people of colour into the gaming space. people like women or people of colour into the gaming spacelj can see you think it is probably right to take issue with a 30% cut. do you think this base can be weaponised and what could be the result? it can and cannot. this is not something on the level of gamer gate which was a political movement that happened online in 2014 that i just movement that happened online in 2014 that ijust mentioned. the most consumers can really do here is organised a boycott, refused to buy apple products and download apple absent by the damage that can really be done by is the people who can learn from epic games's exa m ples of learn from epic games's examples of weaponising users and to use it by more political and, to generate another gamer

gate or... if epic games does when or if apple and google back down, it would ultimately benefit smaller businesses and smaller start—ups? benefit smaller businesses and smaller start-ups? yes, it would. if epic games were to win, businesses small and large it would benefit from it and epic games is using this as ammunition in their lawsuit. they do not claim any damages, they are not asking for any special treatment and they are trying to posture themselves as the big company looking after the big company looking after the little guy so it is important to note, if they were to win, it would benefit businesses at large. the 30% fee by apple is certainly exorbitant and they charge ten times less that three for products attributed mac computers so there would be but

the damage it can do to users is something to be cautious of. thank you very much indeed. it sounds like we will be back to this. let's return now to our top story: the us democratic national convention. this whole process started with upwards of two dozen presidential candidates. now it's down tojustjoe biden. but is he the right person to unite the party? the bbc spoke to democratic millennials and generation z voters, who make up a third of the us electorate, and asked what they would want a "president biden" to do on day one of his presidency. here's what they had to say. joe biden is the best option that we have. an incredible american. really our only shot of restoring humanity to the white house. a liberal, and a moderate. a listener. empathetic. essential to save our democracy. joe biden is a moderate continuation of the status quo. the last resort. but he is not

a horrible last resort. in the united states young people under the age of 35 make up a third of the country's electorate. this demographic turned out to vote in record numbers into the 2018 mid—terms. nearly doubling the young voters who went to the polls in 2014. we don't know yet if that will be the case into the 2020 general election but we do know that young people are likely to lean democrat. hi, how are you? so we talked to a dozen young democratic voters from all across the country to ask what they think of their party's nominee. joe biden was not the favourite for a lot of younger people. joe biden was not my number one choice. i don't think he has that certain je ne sais quoi that i would want in a president. but since winning the nomination, he has done something that i did not expect, he has reached out to the more liberal wing of the democratic party and really brought in staffers from other campaigns to advise him

on climate policy. ifjoe biden is elect what should he do on day one of his presidency? 0h. that's a really good question. oh, man. i think he should arrest donald trump but i don't think that will be possible. going definitely back into the paris climate agreement. try to rejoin the world health organization. to overturn the muslim ban that impacts people like myself as a muslim. community investment into the black community. if he is so confident that he has the african—american vote than he needs to be able to provide for african—americans when he's in office. we're in the middle of a pandemic i think everybody is asking, like, what's next on healthcare? many of us are going to lose our health insurance because we age out of being on our parents's insurance. joe biden will be able to get us back to a point where not everything is horrible. i want the terror that has been caused by this current administration to end. he has good intentions

and wants to help people which is more than could be said for our current president. sometimes that's enough. we will see soon enough. two men have been charged in the cold case murder of run dmc‘s jam masterjay. the hip—hop artist's death in october 2002 is one of new york's most notorious unsolved crimes. prosecutors allege karljordan junior and ronald washington killed the musician in a drug dispute. the manager of the dutch national team ronald koeman is set to be named the new head coach of barcelona. the 61—year—old was predicted to depart after friday's humiliating 8—2 loss to bayern munich in the champions league quarter—finals. the spanish club sacked quique setien following that defeat. what could be the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on earth — 130f — may have been reached in death valley national park in california. it comes amid a heatwave on america's west coast, where temperatures are forecast to rise further this week.

paul hawkins has more. it is already one of the hottest places on earth, the lowest point in the united states, surrounded by mountains, it acts like an oven trapping the heat in the valley, sending temperatures soaring with little rainfall for respite. add this to's heatwave into the mix, causing wildfires and blackouts across california, and they think they may have recorded the highest ever temperature on earth, 130 fahrenheit, 54.4 c but it needs to be verified. they look at such things as corroborating evidence from other sources, whether there are discrepancies in the equipment or procedures orany in the equipment or procedures or any other reason to doubt its veracity. in fact, the greatest warming is occurring in the higher altitudes such as

the arctic and in the northern hemisphere, the temperatures in the arctic on average are even eight degrees above preindustrial levels already so we are seeing an preindustrial levels already so we are seeing an even preindustrial levels already so we are seeing an even warming and even higher warming in places like the arctic where it is especially significant because of the effect it has on the ice. —— uneven. because of the effect it has on the ice. -- uneven. before this, 129.2 f, 54 celsius was the last place temperature also here in death valley. 109 fahrenheit on the tarmac. sometimes the ground here is so hot, you can fry and egg on it, if you do it right. it works in film... much more on all the news national and international on

our website and twitter feed. thank you for watching. hello there. monday was another day of impressive cloudscapes across the uk, but big lumpy clouds like these tend to produce intense downpoursand thunderstorms, tend to produce intense downpours and thunderstorms, and that is exactly what we saw. this is the radar picture. it shows that those showers and storms look quite extensive across england and wales. some of them were heavy enough to give some localised flooding but equally a few spots fell between the showers and stayed completely dry. and tuesday is going to be a similar sort of day. some slightly more persistent rain though across north wales and northern england for a time, and generally quite a cloudy start across the north of the uk. for scotland, the skies should brighten. we'll see some sunshine, but a scattering of heavy showers into the afternoon. these could give some localised flooding. not quite as many showers further south at this stage, through the midlands, wales, east anglia,

towards the south of england. but again where they do show up, they are likely to be heavy and thundery. top temperatures between 18—23 celsius. now, most of the showers will fade during tuesday evening, but into the early hours of wednesday, rain will swing its way in from the south—west, and this signals the start of a very unsettled spell of weather. in fact, this is more of an autumnal weather chart than one you'd expect to see during the summer. low pressure firmly in charge. that's going to bring some outbreaks of rain at times through the middle part of the week. but also, some very, very strong winds — unusually strong winds for this time of year and that could cause some disruption. now on wednesday, it's likely we'll see outbreaks of rain drifting northwards across much of england and wales, into northern ireland and perhaps southern scotland by the end of the afternoon, but the winds will be picking up all the while from the south—west. gusts of 40 mph or more for exposed coasts here. temperatures on wednesday, well, no great shakes

for the time of year — 18—22 celsius. now, it stays unsettled and very windy as you move out of wednesday into thursday. low pressure still firmly in charge, various frontal systems swinging around the low, and quite a few white lines, isobars, on the chart. that shows that it will be windy. these are the wind gusts we can expect. it will be windy for all parts of the uk, but particularly for western coasts, where wind gusts are likely to get to 40—50 mph. pretty unusual for this time of year.

this is bbc news, the headlines:

democrats in the united states are preparing to open their convention at whichjoe biden will be formally selected as their candidate for november's presidential election. but coronavirus restrictions mean the four—day event will take place almost entirely online, with joe biden giving his acceptance speech from his home—state of delaware. opposition protesters in belarus have held a ninth night of protests against the president alexander lukashenko, saying his re—election was fraudulent. thousands of demonstrators took over independence square in central minsk. the opposition candidate svetla na tikhanovskaya has suggested she could act as an interim leader. the maker of fortnite, one of the world's most popular video games, is filing a second lawsuit against apple to try and stop the tech company from deleting the video game from its app store. it's the latest escalation in a legal battle between the two companies.