hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm james reynolds. india has now registered four million cases of coronavirus. the country is currently recording almost 82,000 new cases per day — that's a five—day rolling average — compared with nearly a4,000 in brazil and just under 40,000 in the united states. but while india's struggle with the pandemic continues, it could also be part of the solution, as our correspondent yogita limaye reports from mumbai. another day on the covid frontline with no end in sight. dr sumit ray, who sent us this video, has been treating critical patients for months now. he's had to tell dozens of families their loved

ones have died. exhaustion is beginning to wear india's doctors down. a few weeks ago, it had seemed as though the capital was coping with the pandemic but once again now, resources are falling short. now we are seeing a second surge which is notjust in delhi, but from smaller towns around delhi. those we are not able to provide the life—support systems will die. if we have to, if we reach a point like that — that is what worries me, that is what distresses all of us as doctors. this 42—year—old succumbed to covid earlier this week. he died in pune, a relatively smaller city which is now the worst affected in india. his family says there's a shortage of facilities. "if an ambulance had been available to take him to a critical care hospital, my brother would have been alive," his sister says. india's doing more than

a million tests a day but that's not been enough to curb the spread. another lockdown is not an option for an economy already in turmoil. the government has been highlighting that the number of deaths in india, compared to the size of its population, is lower than other countries badly hit. so far, there are only speculative theories about why that might be the case, and the thing is, even at a low death rate, if the virus continues to spread, that still means hundreds of thousands of indian lives are at risk. and so, all eyes are on a vaccine, and india could be a big part of the global solution. this is a factory of the world's biggest vaccine maker. including oxford—astrazeneca's covishield, it's already producing tens of millions of doses of five covid vaccines each month. 70% of the world's vaccine capacity is from india... i asked the company's chief

executive adar poonawalla when a vaccine might be ready. it takes 3—5 years normally to make a vaccine, and we're all rushing it. well, i think in about 2.5—3 months, there will be vaccines licensed. will they be the best vaccines? i don't know. even if the vaccine is a success, inoculating more than a billion people will need a lot of time and money. yogita limaye, bbc news, mumbai. let's get some of the day's other coronavirus news. new zealand says a man infected with covid—i9 has died — the first such death in the country since may. the country's health officials said the patient, who was in his 50s, was being treated for the infection in an intensive care unit. france says it has reported nearly 9,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases, setting an all—time high of daily infections. the number of covid—i9 patients hospitalised has also gone up for the sixth day running. it's the news that barcelona

fans had been praying for. ten days after saying he wanted to leave the club, lionel messi has told the website goal.com he's now staying.

0 nto 0nto next season. lucky barcelona! you're watching bbc news. still to come: the former australian prime minister tony abbott is appointed as a trade adviser to the uk, despite critics describing him as a misogynist and a climate change denier. rescuers in beirut have been digging through the rubble of last month's massive explosion after a scanner suggested someone could still be alive in the wreckage. one month ago, a fire in a warehouse led to a devastating blast which killed nearly 200 people and left tens of thousands more without homes. 0ur correspondent 0rla guerin has sent this report from beirut. probing for signs of life, deep in the rubble. hidden from view, sensitive scanning equipment in the hands of a specialist rescue team from chile. on thursday morning,

they picked up what seemed to be breath sounds and for two days, they have been searching. painstaking work, much of it done by hand, clawing away at a ruin that could collapse any second. the dust and debris being sucked out to clear a pathway to the second floor, the focus of the search. the work is continuing here hour after hour. they are trying to lift away the rubble with extreme care and they are still trying to work their way down through about five layers of concrete. some local people have been here right through the night, unwilling to leave, hoping that today of all days, a survivor might be found. the lebanese film—maker nadine labaki was one of them. she came here straight away. she could not tear herself

away. you want to believe ina miracle. ijust wanted to come — it was an instinctive reaction to just come and see and hope. because this — i think we are all holding onto this small ray of light after everything that has happened to us. this was the signal to call for complete silence, so rescuers could scan again for signs of life. but late this afternoon, they could no longer detect any breathing. hopes of a miracle were fading as lebanon approached 1806 local time, the moment of the blast one month ago. bells toll. church bells tolled near beirut port to honour the dead. some stood in silence, remembering lost friends and colleagues. 0thers stood with ropes in their hands, a noose for the entire political leadership here. 0rla guerin, bbc news, beirut.

the former australian prime minister tony abbott has been appointed as an unpaid trade adviser to the uk government. it comes after days of pressure to rethink the plan over allegations of misogyny and homophobia. 0ur political correspondent ben wright has more. tony abbott recently flew into the uk to meet ministers and face flak about his possible appointment as a trade adviser here. but today, boris johnson trumpeted mr abbott's credentials. this is a guy who was elected by the people of the great liberal democratic nation of australia. and you've been to australia — it's an amazing country, it's a freedom—loving country, it's a liberal country. um...there you go. i think - i think - i think that speaks for itself. yes, i've had some discussions with members of the british government...

the confirmation of mr abbott's appointment as an unpaid trade adviser comes after he was given a rough ride by a committee of mps earlier this week. in 2012, you said that men are "by physiology or temperament more adapted than women to exercise authority or to issue command." look, i'm not sure that i ever did say that. tony abbott is from the right of australia's raucous politics. ditch the witch! a climate change sceptic who spoke at this rally, mr abbott incurred the wrath of his political opponents for his reported views of women. he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern australia! he doesn't need a motion in the house of representatives, he needs a mirror! and here, it is not only labour mps who have spoken out against tony abbott. he is a misogynist, he has very poor views on lgbtq rights, and i just don't think this is a man who should be anywhere near our board of trade. but now, he will be on the advisory group. this brexit—focused government deciding that mr abbott's experience cutting trade deals for australia trumps complaints about the man's character. ben wright, bbc news,

westminster. it's been a confusing day for british tourists, struggling to work out whether they will need to quarantine themselves when they get back from holiday. from today, scotland, wales, england and northern ireland are imposing different quarantine periods for travellers who arrive from portugal and greece. 0ur europe correspondent gavin lee reports from southern portugal. back to britain from faro airport this morning. where you're going back to now dictates whether you have to self—isolate. there's been no clarity from the government as to what we were doing. karen and mick are heading to birmingham. they don't need to quarantine, but they bought early tickets home because they thought they did. obviously not very happy. we feel as though we've lost two days of our holiday. it's cost us an arm and a leg and... we're just very disappointed. as more and more british tourists return home, it's clear to me how confusing

many people find the new rules. for example, if you're an english traveller flying to cardiff today, you can then drive back, won't have to self—isolate. but if you're welsh and, say, land at birmingham today, you'll then go back and have to spend the next two weeks in isolation. and this new way of travelling has just become even more complicated. so just how do the uk nations differ on quarantine? if you live in scotland and are returning from portugal or greece, you have to self—isolate for 11! days. for portugal, that will kick in at 4am tomorrow. if you're arriving back in wales from portugal, self—isolation started today. but from greece, the welsh government only requires you to quarantine if you're coming from specific islands. in england and northern ireland, there are no restrictions. portugal has seen a rise in coronavirus cases in recent days, going just above the uk's margin of safety of 20 cases per 100,000 people. but the tourist destinations of the algarve aren't the problem.

so why are politicians taking such different approaches? we look at the data, and then we do speak, but i'm afraid quite often coming to slightly different outcomes. hugs and relief at glasgow airport this afternoon as travellers made it back before their isolation deadline. but few are smiling about the decision here. we had to change our flight. we were just disappointed that scotland obviously have to quarantine but england don't. it was a risk. we knew that we were making a risk anyway, so we only lost a day. it is annoying, but i'm just glad we made it home in time. it's estimated that more than 30,000 uk holiday—makers have headed out here since the travel corridor opened two weeks ago. golf and good weather — a magnet for older travellers, for so—called ‘silver season'. 0n the streets of faro, the usual rhythm of the night is quieter, the attraction of a late summer break here may have lost some of its allure.

with fewer british arrivals today, the risks and unpredictability of travelling to these shores is perhaps too much of a gamble. gavin lee. people in the northern english city of leeds are among those being warned they're now on a watchlist of coronavirus hotspots after a rise in the number of cases. several other areas in england have also been added but in some places, restrictions are being eased, allowing swimming pools, gyms and sports facilities to reopen. 0ur health editor hugh pym reports. another city and another new challenge in the bid to control the virus. this time, leeds is facing increasing case numbers, said by the council to be broadly spread and many amongst younger adults. it's premature to talk about lockdowns at this stage, but clearly, if it's felt that there does need to be restrictions of movement, for example, then that is something, of course, that we will have to put in place. local people we spoke to agreed

there was a need for caution. i know that if it was my grandparents that were at risk, you know, i'd want us to go into another lockdown to save them. limiting when we go out, you know, to only go out when we really have to, you've just got to... well, yeah, like you said, you've just got to be responsible and just not be stupid, really. as well as leeds, several other places have now been put on the public health england watchlist — south tyneside, middlesbrough, rossendale, corby, kettering and norfolk have all seen an increase in cases. but other places where infections are down have been removed — wakefield, newark and sherwood, and slough. in luton, extra restrictions were imposed after a rise in case numbers, but they were relaxed last month after action by the local council. this included intensive testing of people without symptoms to locate problem areas. we have seen a lot of asymptomatic spread, so a lot of people who don't have symptoms have been tested positive, and that's helped us track those outbreaks and work out how we can try and stop them before they become

a wider cluster. but she told me that recent testing capacity problems had affected their efforts. we are asking, just for the next week or so, for people only with symptoms to be tested in luton to make sure we have enough capacity. it is proving to be a challenge for us, as it is for other areas. there is a sense here in luton that things are moving in the right direction with tackling the virus, but civic leaders know that could change and they don't want local people to drop their guard on safety and social distancing. some i talked to don't want further easing. i think we are all aware about the measures that they are taking to boost the economy. it's the point at which, should there be a higherfocus on public health still before the economy? a lot of people are just feeling like it's all gone back to normal now as well. so not many people are actually using the social distancing that we're supposed to be doing. schools are going back, more people are travelling to workplaces, and winter's getting closer. every community knows they must

tread carefully if the virus is to be restrained. hugh pym, bbc news. this is bbc news, the headlines: india has now registered four million coronavirus cases, with record levels of infections being broken almost every day. experts are warning the pandemic in the country could spin out of control. a minute's silence in beirut for the victims of the massive explosion, as rescuers search the rubble for a possible survivor, one month after the blast. president trump has spoken for the first time since the hospitalisation of russia's leading opposition figure, alexei navalny. german experts say the kremlin critic, who's in a coma, was poisoned with a soviet—era nerve agent. mr trump said he would look into what had happened to mr navalny, before suggesting that reporters should focus their criticism on china. so, i don't know exactly what happened. i think it's tragic, it's terrible. it shouldn't happen. we haven't had any proof yet, but i will take a look.

it is interesting that everybody‘s always mentioning russia. and i don't mind you mentioning russia, but i think probably china at this point is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than russia, because the things that china's doing are far worse — if you take a look at what's happening with the world, look at what happened with the china virus. look at what they did by not keeping that within the confines of china. they should've kept it in the confines of china. look what they've done to 188 countries all over the world. 0ur correspondent nomia iqbal is in washington. let's set aside china and talk about russia. angela merkel made it very clear russia has questions to answer about navalny, president trump has that he will take a look, what does that mean? that's exactly the point. he's not really come

out and condemned russia the way other people have. he said that there isn't too doubt germany but said we would take a look at the evidence. he repeated something which he often says which is that nobody has been tough on russia than him, but interestingly in that conference, he didn't criticise vladimir putin, he stopped short of doing that which has been pretty much common in his presidency. let's stick with russia. do you remember back in 2016 russia was accused of interfering with the us presidential election. what role if any is russia playing in the selection, either in terms of potential interference 01’ terms of potential interference or simply as terms of potential interference orsimply asa terms of potential interference or simply as a topic of debate? here in america, donald trump is causing a lot of confusion around postal voting, so more

americans will be voting by post because of the coronavirus pandemic, donald trump doesn't like that, particularly the aspect of those ballots which are sent out to you automatically, he says it's rife with fraud, even though there is no evidence. now, the department of homeland security has said that there is evidence that russia is trying to amplify the false claims around mail in voting. facebook and twitter earlier this week removed accounts that are linked to twitter which say we re linked to twitter which say were spreading false claims about the democratic presidential candidatejoe biden, and earlier this week the us government's top attorney general william barr, he did something similar which donald trump did at the press conference, he pivoted to china and set actually, china is the country that we should all be worried about, they are the ones trying to influence the elections, but the intelligence officials have said there is no evidence of that. thank you so

much. one of the world's most renowned and respected conductors, has warned that the future of music is at stake, after the coronavirus pandemic. sir simon rattle was speaking ahead of a special concert tomorrow, to celebrate the centenary of the city of birmingham symphony 0rchestra, which he used to lead, and is now facing an uncertain future. 0ur arts editor, will gompertz, has been to meet him. the symphony hall birmingham, normally home to the city of birmingham symphony 0rchestra, but it is currently closed, leaving the orchestra to take up residence in a warehouse in the south—west of the city. they're here to perform their celebratory centenary concert. they'll be playing in front of tv cameras rather than an audience, but at least the band is back together. i realised just through this huge amount of creativity that our sector has demonstrated through this crisis, just how important playing music is. notjust because of that incredible excellence, or being on tour, or being on world—class platforms,

or being rated best amongst the world, but actuallyjust because it makes people feel better and i think that's a really powerful thing to be able to do. so simon rattle is back to conduct the orchestra he led for 18 years and is clearly happy to be with them again, but he is also deeply concerned with the impact covid has had on the performing arts. it's not ridiculous to say that the future of music is at stake and still at stake, that we can really make this transition into whatever the new world is, whenever it is. he's also worried about the cuts imposed by the city council over the last decade. what the city has done to the orchestra is a scandal. and we've all tried to support as best as we can, but this is one of the great orchestras in this country, and they cannot be allowed to go under. the boss of cbso said the city council has stood by city arts organisations very well this year,

but the longer the orchestra is unable to perform in front of audiences, the greater the likelihood of a troubled future, in stark contrast to its glorious past. and if you took it out, if the cbso no longer existed, what impact would that have on the city? 0h, a huge. i mean, you need a core like an orchestra to be here, so people can be, it's a flagship, i mean we are... if people go to any part of the world and you say "birmingham", they'll say, "ah, the orchestra!" they know who we are. cbso is a world—class orchestra with a history for attracting the best talent and for taking on new challenges, all of which will be very important if it is to celebrate its 20th anniversary in september 2120. as we come towards the end of the bulletin, i have two

westerns for you. all save the other one for later, here is the first: what would you say is a good way to calm an unhappy elephant? ishleen kaur has the answer. meet kaavan, pakistan's only asian elephant. he is getting ready to move to his own home, a sanctuary in cambodia. the 35—year—old elephant has spent most of his life in a small enclosure in islamabad zoo. kavan‘s plight drew international condemnation and in may, it was ordered that he be moved. plans are now under way to shift him to a 25,000—acre sanctuary in cambodia. austria—based animal welfare and rescue group four paws international is helping with the move but first, they need to assessed if kaavan is in a place to make the large journey. what you can see from outside is he is obese, really needs to lose weight. he is really obese.

his nails are in very bad shape, they are overgrown, they are malformation, so he has to receive very urgently foot trimming, foot care. moving an overweight bull elephant is not an easy task. four paws experts fire darts with a sedative, to give a sleepy animal a check—up. kaavan showed signs of agitation. this vet, amir khalil, has worked in warzones to rescue animals. he found a unique way of calming kaavan. so i am not a good singer but i started to take him behind and to train him and to sing to him, to accommodate me and have a relationship and he likes the song frank sinatra, i got to know i did it my way, and this was my breakfast with him all the last days and into the night. i think he hate me and he hate

frank sinatra now. ever since kevan lost his mate in 2012, the elephant has been unhappy. hopefully a happy future awaits him. ishleen kaur, bbc news. that was lovely. now, here is the second question. how far can you run in one hour? i guarantee you can't run as far as british olympic champion sirmo farah, who's just broken the world record for the one—hour run. the 37—year—old set the new record—beating time on his return to track athletics in brussels. farah covered 21,330 metres, eclipsing the previous record set by his rival haile gebrselassie of ethiopia. a reminder of our top story: india has now registered four million cases of coronavirus, with figures reaching record levels almost every day. among the world's most affected countries, the number

of new infections is growing fastest in india by some margin. india is currently recording almost 82,000 new cases per day. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @jamesbbcnews. hello there. it's going to feel rather cool this weekend, certainly for the time of year, and that's because of where our air mass is coming from — from the north—west on a brisk breeze. that's going to feed in some showers into northern and western parts of uk, but there will be some sunshine around too. the winds maybe not quite as strong as what we had over the last few days. low pressure to the north—east of the uk, high pressure to the south—west, that's why we see these north—westerly winds, which will feed in showers from the word go across northern and western areas. some good spells of sunshine further east, mind you, but then we could see some longer spells of rain and more cloud pushing into northern ireland and then south—west scotland, north—west england, north wales through the day. some of these showers will be driving through the cheshire gap into the midlands. temperature—wise, 18 degrees at best in the sunshine in the south—east, generally the low—mid teens further north. now, through saturday night,

it looks like a weather front will move into western areas to bring more prolonged showery rains through northern ireland and across the irish sea into wales and the south—west of england. there could be odd shower elsewhere too, probably driest and clearest across south—east england and north—east scotland. but it's going to be another quite cool night. now, as we head on into sunday, you will see fewer isobars on the chart, so less windy, but we have had this weather front which would've been moving across the irish sea then pushing into england and wales during the course of sunday. that's going to enhance the shower activity for england and wales. there could be the odd heavy, maybe even thundery one. fewer showers for scotland and northern ireland, and more sunshine here. because the winds will be lighter, it might feel a degree or so warmer, a high of 19 degrees in the south—east. then, as we head on into next week monday, we see a new area of low pressure skirting to the north of the uk. that's going to bring some wet and windy weather to many northern parts of the uk. some of that rain getting into northern and western england and wales through the day, but not really reaching the south—east here.

after a bit of a foggy start, it will tend to stay dry with variable cloud and some sunshine. notice the temperatures creeping up, especially in the south, a high of perhaps 21 degrees. that warmer air mass will be with us as we move through tuesday and wednesday, as you can see with the deeper orange colours here. but it is short—lived — cooler air will make a return from the north by the end of the week. given some sunshine in the south, because it's going to be rather cloudy, i think, next week, we could see 211—25 degrees. but hen it cools down for all areas by the end of the week.

this is bbc news. the headlines: india has now registered four million cases of coronavirus, with figures reaching record levels almost every day. among the world's most affected countries, the number of new infections is growing fastest in india by some margin. india is currently recording almost 82,000 new cases per day.

people in lebanon have observed a minute's silence a month after a massive explosion in beirut killed almost 200 people and left 300,000 homeless. rescuers are continuing to search in the rubble for possible survivors after some signs of life were heard on thursday. there's been condemnation of the appointment of the former australian prime minister tony abbott as an advisor to the new uk board of trade. he has previously been accused of homophobia and misogyny. downing street said that he negotiated a number of trade agreements while pm. now on bbc news, it's click. this week: the largest cache of terrorist content ever discovered online. but why is it so hard to take down? unfurling the latest phone. and, stand—up comedy in lockdown: