this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm james reynolds. huge demonstrations once again in belarus demanding an end to president lukashenko‘s rule. he flies overhead in a helicopter, and compares the protesters to rats. president trump confirms blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients can be used as a treatment. fleeing the flames — californians escape some of the worst wildfires in modern times, with lightning expected to bring even more destruction. and bayern munich win the champions league, beating paris saint germain in the first final ever to be held behind closed doors.

hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm james reynolds. in belarus, huge crowds of protesters have demonstrated against president alexander lukashenko and the re—election they say he rigged two weeks ago. they are demanding that he stand down. from the capital minsk, steve rosenberg sent this report. a warning — it contains images which some viewers may find distressing. they poured onto the streets. "long live belarus," they cried. a sea of protesters flooding the centre of minsk. "resign," they shouted. a message for this man, alexander lu kashenko. for 26 years, he's

been the president, but look how the people have turned against him. on independence square, they accused him of stealing the election and of violence against the people of belarus. our aim is to show the government that we are not their slaves. we are here to show that we never elected him and that we want the change. that we want the new country with a new president. in belarus, people are making their voices heard like never before. they're demanding change. but the problem for the protesters is that there's one man who isn't listening. alexander lukashenko has made it quite clear he has no intention of stepping down. but he has every intention of raising the stakes. today, mr lu kashenko donned military garb and watched the protesters

from his helicopter. "they're running away like rats," he could be heard saying. back on the ground, kalashnikov in hand, he set off to find supporters. and he found them. a round of applause from the riot police. "you're doing a great job," he says. but the president's critics painting a different picture. as he was preparing for today's protest, roman zakaria told me about the culture of fear mr lukashenko and his security forces have created. a few days ago, roman was beaten up by the police. the people i fear the most are the police. no—one can protect us, and i cannot live beside these people any more. we need to change something in our country, quickly.

his sign says "long live belarus" but roman sees no future for himself here if there'll be no change of president. steve rosenberg, bbc news, minsk. while opposition groups are demonstrating in belarus, sympathisers have held similar events in other countries. this is lithuania, where at least thirty thousand people, including president nauseda, formed a human chain from the capital, vilnius, to the border with belarus. you can see how they're unfurling a huge red and white flag — that's the former flag of belarus, which is being used to show opposition to mr lukashenko. vytis jurkonis lectures at the institute of international relations and political science at vilnius university and is an expert in the politics of belarus. hejoined that march of solidarity and explained why it carried such support from the people of lithuania. yeah, we had something like a few yeah, we had somewhat like a few dozens of thousands of people

marching in solidarity, like, holding hands together, like, connecting baltic countries and belarus and i think there are two reasons for that. one, expressing solidarity with the belarussian people, another which i believe is also very important, for lithuanians to kind of increase their sensitivity of what democracy and human rights are, and why fundamental freedoms are so important and that they cannot be taken for granted, and that you need to cultivate it every single day if you don't want to have this situation as the belarusian people are now having when they are really fighting for their independence and freedom. in the us, the food and drug administration has given emergency authorisation for the use of blood plasma from recovered covid—i9 patients as a treatment to fight new cases of the disease. as part of trials, around 70,000 people there have already received plasma. independent scientists caution that the step is unlikely to be a breakthrough. but president trump said it would save lives.

this is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection. it's had an incredible rate of success. today's action will dramatically expand access to this treatment. and i want to thank dr hahn, secretary azar, i want to thank the fda, all of the people that have been working very hard on this. it showed tremendous potential. 0ur north america correspondent peter bowes told us more. it's known as convalescent plasma. from people who have had covid—i9 and are now recovering and indeed in tens of thousands of cases at an experimental stage it's already being used to treat others with the virus in early stages of infection. people have been treated in hospital and according to the president, backed up by one of his medical experts with him today, there is the promise

that the use of this treatment can increase the chances of survival by some 35%. others are suggesting we should just perhaps hold on a moment and that further trials, further clinical trials, are necessary to prove beyond any doubt about the safety of this treatment and its long—term effectiveness in large numbers of people. those trials just haven't been completed yet. however, the president, as we have just heard, seems to be putting a lot of promise into this and he is appealing to americans who've had covid—i9 and recovered to actually go ahead and donate some of their blood plasma. let's get some of the day's other news. at least 13 people have been crushed to death in peru as they tried to escape a police raid on a nightclub which was allegedly violating coroanvirus restrictions. it happened at the thomas restobar club in lima. several people were injured, and police made more than 20 arrests. at least five people have

been killed in flooding in the north of turkey. the town of derrell is among the worst affected areas. a number of people are still missing, and turkey's president erdogan has promised state help to repair the damage. a senior iranian official has said that the black box recorders on the ukrainian plane accidentally shot down by iran injanuary show it was hit by two missiles, with passengers and pilots alive for twenty—five seconds before the second missile hit. all 166 people on board. —— all 176 people on board were killed. mediators from west african regional bloc ecowas have reached a partial agreement with mali's military junta days after a coup. the delegation which is led by nigeria's former president goodluck jonathan has been holding talks with the new military leaders aimed at returning the country to civilian rule. the negotiations will continue on monday. trial in christchurch is occurring where a man was

alleged to have killed 51 people at a mosque is attending his sentencing hearing. firefighters in california are warning that lightning — forecast for the coming days — will not only hamper their efforts to contain wildfires, but could also spark new ones. around 600 are burning across the state, hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and at least six people killed. the wildfires were only i7% contained as of sunday afternoon. to give you an idea of just what it's like being caught up in the flames, take a look at this footage, which was filmed in roseville, near the californian state capital sacramento. it was filmed on a dashcam as the driver tried to find their way safely along a road. helping some of the thousands who've been forced out of their homes is tony briggs from the american red cross. right now we have more than 400 red crossers who are on the ground and hundreds more who are helping virtually, and those folks are out there making sure are getting people in shelters

or hotel rooms where it's available and also they are there to make sure the people who are coming to our shelters have a safe place to stay and food to eat and they have someone who is there ready to listen and just to be there for them at such a time. two hurricanes are forecast to slam into the us gulf coast this week — one right after the other. hurricane marco and tropical storm laura are threatening torrential rain, high winds and flooding. we've already seen the devastating impact left behind in parts of the caribbean —at least 12 people are dead in the dominican republic and haiti. alanna petroff has the latest. rescuers pull in stranded survivors to cheers. the capital of the dominican republic, flooded and overwhelmed by tropical storm laura. not everyone made it. a mother and her young son died when a wall collapsed on their

home. translation: the wall collapsed on top of them. it fell onto the house. the owner needs to come forward. he knew that the war was going to collapse. he shouldn't have built that wall. tropical storm laura also battered motor rico, haiti and the virgin islands. in haiti, some people lost everything. translation: the majority of the people who are not safe. this town is destroyed, as you can see. look at the people walking by. the houses are condemned. there are bodies. the merchants have lost their goods. tropical storm laura is forecast to strengthen further into a hurricane as it churns towards the us gulf coast. before laura makes la ndfall coast. before laura makes landfall in the us, hurricane marco will hit first. they are both heading towards the state of louisiana. texas and florida

are also making preparations. forecasters are predicting a storm surge, flooding rains, damaging winds and rough seas. resident donald trump issued a disaster declaration for louisiana ahead of the storms. this is somewhat unprecedented. the scope of the storms and also the fact that they come so quickly after one another, both storms have the potential of gathering strength before they make landfall and could cause significant damage across the gulf coast. the atlantic storm season runs gulf coast. the atlantic storm season runs until november and this one has the potential to be the busiest season ever. the us national hurricane centre is predicting there could be up to 25 big storms this year, storms deserving of names. in the average season, there is usually just 12. alanna petroff, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news,

still to come: the rise of women leaders in belarus — and the president who didn't see it coming. he's the first african—american to win the presidential nomination of a major party, and he accepts exactly 45 years ago to the day that martin luther king declared, "i have a dream." as darkness falls tonight, an unfamiliar light will appear in the south—eastern sky — an orange glowing disc that's brighter than anything, save the moon, our neighbouring planet mars. horn toots there is no doubt that this election is an important milestone in the birth of east timor as the world's newest nation. cheering it will take months and billions of dollars to repair what katrina achieved injust hours. three weeks is the longest the great clock has been off—duty in 117 years. so it was with great satisfaction that clockmakerjohn vernon swung the pendulum to set the clock going again.

big ben bongs. this is bbc news, the latest headlines: hundreds of thousands take to the streets of the belarusian capital, minsk, to call for the resignation of president lukashenko. two weeks ago he won what the protesters are calling a rigged election. the president has responded with a show of defiance. president trump has confirmed blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients can be used as a treatment against covid—19 in america. he said the treatment could reduce the number of deaths by 35%. two weeks on from the disputed election in belarus and still hundreds of thousands are out in the streets protesting. president alexander lukashenko arrested or threatened the male opposition leaders, so women have stepped in to take charge both in leadership roles and demonstrations. let's take a look

at the role of women opposing the president. dr dyan mazura na is a professor at tufts university. she serves as an advisor to several governments and un agencies on how women are affected by armed conflict. she's in boston. what do women ring to protest that men do not? thank you for having me. that is the right question to ask. one of the things that women bring to this protest is the traditional femininity of belarus which means that attacking them as they show up in white, a sign of peace, they are barefoot and carrying flowers, it could cause a big backfire against this authoritarian regime. with men there is more likelihood to claim that they are provoking, as we see with the likely false claims of a man going to throw a bomb. with women, barefoot in white, coming out with their sisters and their dogs, this is

a hard claim to make and with a repressive regime like this which is very patriarchal because authoritarianism is entwined with patriarchy, that presumes and needs women to behave in a certain way and they are not behaving in that way. where else in the world have female lead protest been effective? the most well-known example are the mothers and grandmothers in argentina. again we saw a very violent regime doing things similar to the lukashenko regime, disappearing protesters, killing people, police brutality, torture detention centres so that the men were not safe to come out and protest, they were very targeted and who was left? women. they came out to protest and similarly to what they are doing in belarus they said we are out here as mothers, as wives and we are told in our

rhetoric, our national rhetoric that this is our role. a good mother goes to look for her child. a good mother wants to know that the country will be safe for her children and so it is very hard for this kind of patriarchal authoritarian regime to know attack these women who are playing the role that the regime wants them to play although now they are in the streets demanding change. you talk about traditional femininity but not all women in public life in history have been like that. people like margaret thatcher or indirect gundy who were under —— unafraid to take tough measures. political women and activists in belarus are also very strong women who are out in public risking their lives, risking the lives of their loved ones in detention for political action and i am not saying that these women, what i am saying is that the

authoritarian regime needs them to behave in a certain way and as the president said, go home, raise your children and keep looking. they will use that same portrayal of women to protect themselves. they will say well, we have to come out on the streets. where are our husbands? what is happening to our children? they are doing it peacefully which is quite risky for the regime to act violently against, against barefoot women holding flowers? what that could do is cause a backfire, and that is that the police refused to attack these women. now we see in the last few hours threats to bring out the army. let's see what will happen if the army is asked to move against unarmed women. their sisters, their mothers, their lovers, they grandmothers. what will happen? in other regimes

we have seen that they can backfire. sudan is a great example of the uprisings in 2018, 2019. again, strong women and leadership there and when the regime moved violently raping some of those protesters we saw massive turnouts for protests a nd we saw massive turnouts for protests and it was actually a few weeks before the regime fell. thank you so much for joining us. the republican convention opens on monday evening. president trump is set to be the headline speaker every evening of the four day event. the event is largely virtual because of coronavirus. in this election, a few swing states are likely to be pivotal. our north america editor jon sopel reports from one of them — pennsylvania white water rafting on the lehigh river in pennsylvania and a wild, bumpy ride ahead for voters in this key swing state. michelle and kevin are registered republicans but not happy with the choice before them.

i work in health care, so i'm really not pleased with trump's response to what's going on. i'm also not happy with how biden might run the country and maybe... i already think it's going to cost a ton of money. we've gotten no leadership from the very beginning. but though polls suggests the trump campaign is under water — don't be fooled. coronavirus might have cost him but... given the choices, i'm going to go for trump because i think the alternative is bad. i think he's done a brilliant job with the economy. i think we're in a better position than we were. and what do you think of donald trump as a person? he's not the nicest guy in the world. i don't think he does very well with people. the contrast between rural, idyllic pennsylvania and its post—industrial heartland is stark. back in 2016, donald trump promised that blast furnaces like this one would be firing up again. that hasn't happened, and with coronavirus, the us economy has cratered. polls suggest that here in pennsylvania,

he is way behind. but defectors are hard to find and his supporters still back him fervently. and the president has far from given up on the state. he came here on thursday, to the town wherejoe biden grew up, painting a bleak picture of what life under the democrats would be like. think of the smouldering ruins in minneapolis, the violent anarchy of portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of chicago and imagine the mayhem coming to your town. but for duane miller, the former mayor of bangor and owner of the local paint and diy store, trump has lost his sheen. my definition of donald trump, you know, just him as an individual, not the position of the president of this country, but he's a spoiled brat and he acts it. but you voted for him in 2016? yes, yes, don't tell anyone that! no.

and that's the thing — a lot of people don't want to tell. state polls didn't do well measuring support for trump in 2016. masked faces may well be hiding masked views in 2020. jon sopel, bbc news, pennsylvania. to india now where the coronavirus epidemic is getting worse. the number of confirmed covid cases has crossed the three million mark, and the country now has the world's highest number of daily new infections. the health ministry says nearly 70,000 new cases were registered on sunday. ramanan laxminarayan is an epidemiologist at the university of washington and gave us an update on the situation in india. in the initial stage most of the reported cases, and remember, the 3 million figure refers to reported cases, in a country which has amongst the lowest level of testing in the world for a large country. first cases were in the cities but as weeks and months have

gone by we see a lot of cases in east india and northeast india especially in the populated states of uttar pradesh and bihar. and more cases in rural areas which lack much in the way of public healthca re facilities. the epidemic is spreading. serological studies indicate that actual reported cases are only a small fraction of the actual number of infections. football — and bayern munich are celebrating after winning the uefa champions league. they beat paris saint—germain 1—0 in the final in lisbon. this season's competition has been badly affected by the coronavirus — so no fans were allowed in the stadium. that didn't stop them from celebrating back home. tim allman reports. call this a long—distance love affair. no fans in lisbon but the bars and restaurants of munich were packed. social distancing clearly not in vogue around here. appropriately enough, plenty of beer was

consumed as the fans celebrated their team's sixth triumph in the champions league. translation: we were alljust waiting for this tournament. all this time we could not watch football and it means everything to us. we have finally been able to win the champions league here again and it is incredible. translation: i guess the corona break gave the bavarians a chance to try out new tactics. we played strongly in the tournament but i don't think this was predicted last august. this was a highly anticipated match. two sides full of talent and ability. sadly, as is so often the way, it never quite lived up to its billing. the only goal came from kingsley coman, ironically, a french player, who headed injust before the hour mark. a satisfying night for the bayern coach, hansi flick.

he took over in november on a temporary basis but he has now won the league, german and european cups although he has given the credit to his players. translation: there is a nice saying that success is only rented and the rent has to be paid every day. this is something the team shows every day with their attitude on the pitch. they are willing to give 100% and therefore it makes me and the coaching staff very proud to work with such great players. in paris, the champs—elysses was closed off to traffic, perhaps anticipating a party. but the party never came. so the french team's search for a first champions league title will have to wait. bayern have been unstoppable this year. they have been worthy winners. german football on top yet again. congratulations to them, surely the best team in europe this year. more information can

be found on our website, to stay with us. hello. we have a changeable week ahead but the start of the week does not look too bad at all. this is the forecast. sunny spells and a few showers on monday, not a bad day on the whole. tuesday looks very different. an atlantic storm is developing around 1000 miles away from us. it is heading in our direction and it will bring heavy rain and gales. in the short term it is not too bad, apart from a few showers in the morning across southern parts of wales and the south of england that should clear away. a couple of showers further north in the afternoon. on balance, a fine day for most of us. 20 in london, mid or high teens in the north. here is that spell of heavy weather approaching on monday night into tuesday. it is a developing low pressure, developing storm

that is propelled by a powerful jetstream and as i said it will bring a spell of rain and gales, widespread gales across the uk. here it is approaching the uk early on tuesday morning and you can see the rain sweeping into western and northern parts of the country, the gale wrapping around this low pressure as well and it will sweep across the uk during tuesday. the heavy rain will be on the north end of the day and in the south it may brighten up but look at those gusts of wind. inland could be in excess of 50 mile an hour, in excess of 60 around the coast and that may prove troublesome for some of us with disruption and branches lying around. not a pleasant day for many of us on tuesday. wednesday will still be very windy around the north sea coast, anywhere from newcastle to norwich as the low pressure pulls away. still some strong wind down the side of the country but further west it will be much, and by the afternoon the winds should die down and on wednesday it will probably be our best day of the week with dry weather,

pleasantly warm, to 21 degrees in the south of the country and then on thursday we go back downhill with more rain sweeping in off the atlantic. not as windy on thursday. this is more of a rain type thing heading our way rather than gales. so this is the outlook for the week ahead and you can see the weather icons change from day to day quite a bit. temperatures in the south will be around the 20s, or high teens in the north. that's it from me, bye.

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this is bbc news — the headlines: hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets of the belarusian capital, minsk, to call for the resignation of president lukashenko. two weeks ago he won what the protesters are calling a rigged election, but the president has responded with a show of defiance. president trump has confirmed blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients can be used as a treatment against covid—19 in america. the technique uses antibody—rich blood plasma from people who've recovered from the disease. he said the treatment could reduce the number of deaths by 35%. firefighters in california are preparing for conditions to worsen as they try to bring nearly 600 wildfires under control. dry lightning strikes, blamed for starting many of the blazes, are forecast to return, along with warm and windy weather. the fires are among the worst in california's history. beirut was on the frontlines of lebanon's15—year