a very warm welcome to bbc news. my name's mike embley. our top stories: donald trump claims an effective coronavirus vaccine could be good to go within weeks — contradicting one of his own top health officials. and i called him and he didn't tell me that, and i think he got the message may be confused, maybe it was stated incorrectly, but we are ready to go immediately. hurricane sally makes landfall in america, causing catastrophic flooding, with winds exceeding 160 kilometres per hour. fresh warnings for the uk from senior us politicians — jeopardise the good friday agreement and there will be no trade deal. and maduro accused — a united nations investigation says venezuela's government ordered the torture and murder of opponents. we speak to one of the authors.

us president donald trump has insisted the country will be ready to rollout a covid—19 vaccine in matter of weeks but it completely contradicts the views of his own health officials. centers for disease control & prevention director, dr robert redfield, saying he doesn't believe a vaccine will be generally available to the american public before mid—2021. i think there will be a vaccine that will be initially available sometime between november and december but very limited supply, and will have to be prioritised. if you're asking me when it's going to be generally available to the american public so we can begin to take advantage of a vaccine to get

back to our regular life, i think we are probably looking at late second quarter, third quarter of 2021. all these uncertainty at a time when confidence is down. concern is going on how much trust people will have and that will affect up take if one is approved. this isjust going to add to the confusion. if you wa nted add to the confusion. if you wanted a prime example of a contradiction, there you have it. it is not the first time donald trump has gone against the advice of medical experts. doctor anthony voucher, for example has had run—ins with the president. —— fauci. he is

in contradiction with dr robert redfield giving evidence to a panel of senators saying if the vaccine is available, it will go to first responders to begin with but ultimately he has to go through safety procedures. "it go through safety procedures. ——it has to go through. those comments made before president trump made his press conference. when asked about the comments made by dr robert redfield, this is what he had to say. he made a mistake about that. i called him and he did not tell me that and i think he got the message maybe confused, maybe it was stated incorrectly. no, we're to go immediately as soon as a vaccine is announced and it could be announced in october, maybe a little bit after. this suggestion a major scientist is confused is something, coming from a president who is often

confused himself and often says things that are not true. if the top medics and scientist say vaccine is not ready, there is nothing a president can do to make it ready, hejust wishes it for the election?” think that is true. the coronavirus pandemic is the one issue that is still a big issue in the run—up to the election and it is not idealfor the trump team. the pandemic is something they want to get away from. mrtrump something they want to get away from. mr trump would rather be fighting on law and order, the ground he feels most co mforta ble. ground he feels most comfortable. figures speak for themselves when it comes to coronavirus pandemic. it is something he does not want to be reminded of. the democrat keep trying to pull it back to the coronavirus. joe biden saint tonight the reason

america is in this position is because the virus was not handled right from the beginning. it is interesting. you get the feeling that the coronavirus pandemic got into the way of what donald trump sees as an inevitable success of my recollection. as we see, tonight at the press conference, mr trump is once again at odds with his health officials but insists his administration has a handle on the virus. tropical storm sally has made landfall along the gulf coast in alabama, bringing historic levels of flooding and cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. alabama, florida and mississippi have all declared states of emergency. mark lobel reports. striking slowly but mercilessly in alabama, some riding out the storm by clinging on.

as the day came, signs and trees uprooted and power cut for residents. we were on the first floor and we started to hear the windows pop, and the sound was ripping, and wejust rode it out. my kids were scared and ijust told them it was going to be ok, but we are going to try to survive this, we are going to try to go through this and we're just going try to be safe. this is the view from the of my hotel room, this is the view from the third floor of my hotel room, look at the street. roads, now rivers in florida's westernmost city. my goodness, this isjust... i have never seen anything like this. the third worst storm surge ever to hit here. wind speeds reaching 158km/h and up to 18 inches of rainfall.

it's a combination of real spirit and esprit de corps and a tremendous sense of working on hurricanes, we got very good at it and we've certainly had plenty. but to make matters worse, there are more tropical storms stacking up, threatening other parts of the gulf coast. cities like new orleans or biloxi, mississippi, are all in that kind of area impacted by these hurricanes so you are starting to see a lot of people, particularly officials take the necessary precautions in terms of warning citizens to either evacuate or prepare their buildings. and look, as the storms but off the coast, see too a grey band of smoke from the california wildfires, drifting east across america, a worrying picture that captures the consequences of extreme weather conditions. what we are seeing with hurricanes is that they are becoming more frequent in terms of the most intense storms we are seeing, again breaking those records. the extension of the season

to longer time periods, this season itself, a record—breaking start of the north atlantic hurricane season, and of course, when they do occur, science tells us they are going to deliver more precipitation than they would otherwise have in this warming world. in addition to the growing force, officials are now running out of letters to name you hurricanes, they are coming so thick and fast. mark lobel, bbc news. i have been speaking to the chief meteorologist in south carolina. you're looking potentially at art storm season running ahead of a pace we should have. —— the storm season. should have. —— the storm season. if you are keeping count, 20 named stops, eight hurricanes, for hurricane ‘s make landfall, eight storms

making land from in september is out peak month and we are only halfway through it. what is interesting about sally, it made landfall at about the same place ivan made landfall 16 yea rs place ivan made landfall 16 years ago. i do not know how to describe it. it has been almost unprecedented. of course, this is all bad news but a slow—moving storm is really bad news. absolutely, because of the rainfall, the flooding potential, the storm surge potential, the storm surge potential increases. i was doing the weather last night and it was moving at about two miles an hour stop most of us get on the treadmill and awaking three miles an hour at awaking three miles an hour at a good clip so you get a perspective at how slow it was

moving. i think probably some areas picked up 35 inches of precipitation and in charles and we get 52 inches per year. —— charleston. they got annual rainfall injust two —— charleston. they got annual rainfall in just two days. it is yourjob to try and help people know what to expect. how well are people able to prepare for this or get out of the way? listen to your emergency managers, meteorologist who you have faith in and has experience. when they tell you to leave, it is best to get out of harms way. in a study looked at recently, about 50% of our population now lives about an hours' drive from some body of water. there is that luer of

the water but there are threats and this year more than any other. we talked about hurricane laura and three weeks later hurricane sally. one of the most senior politicians in the most senior politicians in the us, nancy pelosi has repeated her warning that congress will veto any trade deal with the uk if brexit undermines the good friday agreement. after talks with the us secretary, nancy pelosi wrote... dominic raab earlier claim to congressional leaders that the agreement was in different by the religious isolation of northern ireland by the european union. joe biden

posted on twitter... for members of congress expressed such concern. we spoke to one of them, richard neil. the success of the good friday agreement was indispensable. we see ourselves as the arbiters of the agreement. i was involved now for more than 30 years to remind people what the situation was like in the north before the good friday agreement. there were 30,000 british soldiers on the ground and much of the parts of the northern ireland were ravitch. i think the success that we have had represents to the rest of the world conflict resolution and should

not be disturbed. is this to do with antipathy towards brexit itself amongst members of the democratic party on the hill? absolutely not, that is a sovereign decision that the nation made. we are not concerned at all with the decision that they made, we might have a disagreement on white but the truth is that was up to the people of the uk. 0ur argument is that ireland and a successive good friday agreement are not to be used as a part in a dispute between the uk and the european union. success of the good friday agreement is there for the world to witness and included the elimination of the border and the republic of our own game of article 20 —— 2 and 3 of their constitution with the purpose of helping the agreement. what we want to do is remind people how grim the situation was and there ought not be any threat.

we sought that clarity today from secretary raab. did you get clarity, we are convinced the uk government was going to do anything that might jeopardise the good friday agreement? he made it very clear there was no consideration of returning a ha rd consideration of returning a hard border to ireland and that is welcome news but i will point out that what we will do is we will be vigilant. we feel strongly it is an agreement we should celebrate and not revisit it every time there is is sleep someplace that involves a trade union with the european union. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: we go to germany to find the syrian refugee who crossed europe in her

wheelchair five years ago. 30 hours after the earthquake that devastated mexico city, rescue teams still have no idea just how many people have died. there is people alive and there is people not alive. we just can help and give whatever we got. a state funeral has been held for princess grace of monaco, at the church where she married prince rainier, 26 years ago. it looked as though they had come to fight a war. but their mission is to bring peace to east timor, and nowhere on earth needs it more badly. the government's case has been forcefully presented by monsieur badinter, the justice minister. he's campaigned vigorously for abolition, having once witnessed one of his clients being executed. elizabeth seton has spent much of her time at this grotto, and every year hundreds of pilgrimages are made here. now that she has become a saint, it is expected that this area will be inundated with tourists. the mayor and local businesses regard the anticipated boom as yet another blessing of saint elizabeth.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: president trump says an effective coronavirus vaccine could be good to go for americans within weeks, contradicting one of his own top health officials. hurricane sally has made landfall in america, causing catastrophic flooding, with winds exceeding 160km/h. the human rights council of the united nations is accusing senior venezuelan officials of human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity. an investigation found evidence of systematic violence for the past six years. the report says president nicolas maduro and senior ministers were not only aware of the crimes, but gave the orders and the means to carry them out. i spoke with one of the report's authors, the criminal lawyer

francisco cox vial. we did talk to people who are insiders who are still in the security forces and gave us the patterns and the decision making in those agencies. this report is based on the information that we gathered, there's many experiences in which investigations are done abroad and not because they — due to that, they fail, and so we are very confident on the information that we are providing. where we see this report going is that it will be delivered to the un human rights council and then what the un council and other people will do with it is, well, it is what they will do. we fulfilled our mandate and we investigate it

and we have given our conclusions to the un human rights council and to, basically, the international community to take steps to bring justice for victims. and yet, of course, the human rights council cannot sanction, can it? i know the chief of the council called for the special action forces to be disbanded and they were not. how confident are you that the security council will take action given the attitudes of, say, russia and china? we are lawyers, we are not politicians or ambassadors or activists. we fulfilled the mandate, we gave the information and we stand by our conclusions and we believe that otherjudicial parties that will have to determine the responsibility of those people that we mentioned, may use the information we have gathered eventually in a trial, for example, the international criminal court could, at some point,

use this information if they see the value to it and, therefore, bring justice to victims, as i said. let's quickly round up some more of the main news for you. hundreds of refugees and migrants remain russian athletes could compete in the 2012 olympics. he hopes to step down by the end of next month and hand power the new executive body to be chosen in talks next month between libyan factions in geneva. authorities have detained a 41 people and sees large quantities of explosives including four shipping containers of ammonium nitrate, the chemical that exploded last month in the lebanese capital of beirut.

according to the public prosecutor it was enough to blow up the capital. hundreds of refugees and migrants are still on the streets of the greek island of lesbos since a fire destroyed their camp earlier this month. greek authorities have been struggling to convince people to move into the new camp, while fears grew over a coronavirus outbreak on the island. the fire broke out after quarantine measures were imposed on the old site. no—one was killed or heard. this week, germany has announced plans to take more than1,500 migrants from lesbos. the fire was a reminder of the scale of a crisis which has seen vast movements of people fleeing war and poverty. five years ago at the height of the crisis, the bbc‘s fergal keane reported the extraordinary story of nujeen mustafa, a syrian refugee, who crossed europe in a wheelchair. today, fergal has met up with nujeen to hear how her life has changed. whatever happened to nujeen mustapha? an extraordinary teenager in a tumultuous time.

i'd love to be an astronaut, to go out and see... and find an alien, yes. i want to meet the queen, yes. born with cerebral palsy, nujeen escaped war in syria's aleppo and travelled 1,400 kilometres to reach the greek island of lesbos. when i met her on the hungarian border in 2015, surrounded by other refugees, nujeen was exhausted, but irrepressible, a girl who'd learned english by watching soap operas. you should fight to get what you want in this world, so... yes, it's a journey for a new life. hungary shut its doors to them, so nujeen and her sister nasrine pushed on across the balkans to a detention camp in slovenia where i found her

at her lowest ebb. nujeen, do you know where you're going? i don't know. i'm lost, really. five years on, i'm on my way to meet nujeen in the german city of cologne. hey—hey! he laughs delightedly oh, dear! i wish i could hug you, but i can't. oh, my god. not with social distancing. memories flooded back. on that border, all those years ago... that moment, that day, where the magnitude of the whole situation just hit me. germany welcomed a child who'd experienced prejudice because of her disability in syria. even if some dreams have been deferred. i definitely still want to meet the queen, and i definitely still want to be an astronaut. but, you know, since i've been enrolled in school,

i found out that i'm absolutely terrible at math, so i might have to resort to plan b. the experiences of the refugee road defined nujeen's life. to help the victims of war and hunger, she's studying to become a psychologist. and she's become a prominent campaigner for disabled refugees, even addressing the un. people with disabilities are forgotten in times of peace. what do you think we expect in times of war? her calls could not be more urgent. 0n lesbos, where nujeen first reached europe, thousands have been left homeless after the moria refugee camp burned down. hello. her own parents are still marooned in turkey. a weekly video call unites those that have made it to germany and those still waiting. mwah! i guess the part that breaks my heart the most is that they don't

get to see my life here, so they don't get to see me go to school and have a productive life and see me moving forward with my future. but that might change soon, nujeen hopes, so that her parents can see the life she's building with courage and grace. fergal keane, bbc news, cologne. there are fewer than 50 days now until america chooses its next president. both main political parties are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to win the vote in november. but they could apparently save a lot of time and money by simply consulting some shamans in peru as the bbc‘s tim allman explains. in this part of lima, political polling is completely unnecessary. instead, they rely on incense, some maracas and the odd snake. a sacred ritual designed to eliminate the future and predict the next

occupant of the white house. so, who's it going to be? translation: joe biden is there to win. he has everything to win. we have seen that they are attacking him with witchcraft. all peruvian shamans are looking for ways to cleanse so that biden will be the next president of the united states. if you happen to be a biden supporter, you may want to hold off with the celebrations. it seems shamanism, like politics, is far from a precise art. the spitting, by the way, is in fact a compliment. translation: today we did a ritual, a ritual to send good vibes and good energy to mr donald trump. why? because he is deserving, he needs good energies, good vibes from his followers. we are supporters of the gentleman. he will win. he's a winner. the verdict from lima —

they'll both win. maybe the electoral college isn't so bad after all. tim allman, bbc news. that is sorted. thank you so much for watching. hello there. it will be a notably fresher start to the day, particularly across the southern half of the uk because the transition was taking place further north yesterday. but there will still be plenty of dry weather on offer, some good spells of sunshine will break through the cloud and make it feel pleasantly warm. we have seen the transition as we come behind this cold front through yesterday and overnight to slightly fresher air back to where we should be for the time of year. quite a brisk easterly wind blowing in the south. always a little bit more cloud close to the north of scotland with this weak weather front, and there could be some patchy fog elsewhere first thing. the first couple of hours after dawn there could be some

dense patches, but then it clears away. as should the low cloud near the north sea coast, and the misty low cloud we've had in southern and western areas for the last couple of days. the exception really to seeing that sunshine for most is the north and east of scotland. and with the return of the sunshine elsewhere in scotland and northern england, i think it will feel warmer than it did yesterday, but the 27 we had in the south not being repeated. more like 21, 22, which is where we should be for this time of year. and so under the clearest skies again through the coming night, it's going to turn quite cool, and, yes, again, the exception being northern scotland where we've got those weather fronts close by. down into single figures quite widely in the countryside setting us up for another date with perhaps some patchy mist and fog again first thing. brisk wind in the south, but otherwise some good spells of sunshine. and even north, as that weather front weakens at times, it will be bright. 19 to 21, around about average for this time of year. and we keep that high pressure close by into the weekend particularly in the north. but this low pressure in the bay of biscay is giving us a little bit of a headache. it comes northwards, it is likely to tighten the isobars. the winds will strengthen again, and possibly it's

going to bring some showers close to southern parts of england in particular. so a keen breeze coming in off the north sea, which will make it feel cooler. some low cloud as well plaguing the north sea coast. so here, temperatures won't be as high, but 19 to 22 further west. and then just the possibility of some showers. the question mark is how far north they will come into the southern half of the uk. they are still be meandering around that area of low pressure into sunday as well. with that breeze coming in off the north sea, also the risk a little bit more cloud around here, but still a good deal of dry and settled weather with high pressure largely in charge further north. as ever, there is more on the website.

this is bbc news, the headlines: president trump has predicted an effective coronavirus vaccine could be ready for mass distribution in the united states within weeks — contradicting comments by one of his top health officials. this dr robert redfield had told congress that a vaccine could be rolled out by the middle of next year. alabama, florida, and mississippi have declared states of emergency. hurricane sally has been battering coastal areas, and the national hurricane centre says it's caused catastrophic and historic flooding. it is now moving inland at a walking pace, exacerbating flooding. the speaker of the us house of representatives, nancy pelosi, has repeated her warning that congress will veto any trade agreement with the uk if brexit undermines the good friday agreement, which secured peace in northern ireland. joe biden, the democratic party's presidential candidate, has voiced similar concerns.

gavin williamson, the education secretary