this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm celia hatton. france, italy and the czech republic become the latest countries to announce record numbers of daily coronavirus cases. ten days to go — president trump casts his vote early in florida, a state he has to win to be re—elected. mr president, who did you vote for today? i voted for a guy named trump. at least 18 people are killed and many others are injured in a suicide attack in kabul. and a moment of change for chile? we take a look at what's at stake ahead of sunday's vote on the constitution.

covid—19 continues its fast spread throughout europe. many countries are reacting and hoping to slow transmission by imposing new restrictions. in the latest developments, poland's president, andrzej duda, has tested positive for the virus and is quarantining. he said in a video message that he has no symptoms. the country is seeing a record rise in coronavirus cases, and it's imposed a partial lockdown. in spain, ten of 17 regions have asked the central government for an emergency decree to limit people's movements. they also want powers to impose cu rfews. meanwhile, new daily records were seen in the czech republic and in france — where a further 138 people have died from covid—i9 — and in italy, where the regions of lombardy and campania are worst affected.

more than 23,000 cases were reported across the uk, up from friday's total. and from monday in the belgian capital brussels, masks will be mandatory in all settings and all culture and sporting venues will be forced to close. david campanale has more. alarm bells are ringing right across europe. the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen in the czech republic, which has registered its worst daily figure yet for new infections — more than 15,000. over the past week, more people with the virus have died there, as a percentage of the population, than anywhere else in the world. but for top health agencies, concern extends to all but a handful of eu countries. they've declared now to be a critical moment. too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases, and that's now leading to hospitals and icus running close

or above capacity and we're still only in october. we urge leaders to take immediate action. a string of countries, including russia, poland, italy and switzerland, have again seen their worst daily figures yet for coronavirus infections. poland's second wave is far bigger than its first. their number of new cases is 22 times higher than the highest number of cases in the spring, and deaths there over the past 2a hours have been the highest since the pandemic began. with the president admitting to testing positive, poland has moved to impose the highest level of restrictions across the whole country. work is under way to set up temporary hospitals. 500 beds are being installed in the conference rooms of the country's biggest arena, warsaw's national stadium. translation: we have an exceptional situation this year.

i call for visits to the cemetery and family reunions, especially with the elderly, to be as limited as much as possible. in spain, the government will consider on sunday whether to bring in a new state of emergency. just days after registering more than i million confirmed virus cases, their regions responsible for managing public health care have been heaping pressure on the government to give them the legal right to impose tighter restrictions. as in the first wave of the virus, the challenge is to ensure hospitals everywhere are not overwhelmed. but there are increasing reports of intensive care units under severe strain. in one particularly hard—hit area area of belgium, liege, doctors have been likening the situation to trench warfare. in paris, a senior hospital administrator said the current second wave risked being worse than the first. restrictions across europe are being tightened,

but many on the front line fear it's too little too late. david campanale, bbc news. professor raffaele bruno is the head of infectious diseases at the university of pavia and works in a hospital south of milan. he says the numbers of coronavirus patients at his hospital are growing and governments need to implement harsher measures now to curb the spread of the infection. we have the patients coming to hospital early. for this reason, we have to do more to manage them. because in the first wave, we had a patient that arrive at our hospital with important problem. i mean, right now we are able to see patients in the early phase of the disease. as you know, another lockdown could be worst

for the economic point of view, but right now we need some some restriction to avoid the spread of infection. right now, we need it absolutely. the politicians have to start immediately some measure to avoid the spread of the virus. we can do some lockdown, but in different way. for example, we have limited the presence, for example, in the transport such as subway or bus during the day to limit the presence outside of the people just to avoid the spread. because if the coronavirus run like now in the end of the month, we have a very important problem in terms of admissions in hospital and also in admission in intensive care units. it's important to start soon the measure because the measure, if they start

the measure now, will have the effect after four weeks. donald trump has voted early in the us presidential election in his adopted home state of florida. with ten days to go until the vote on november the 3rd, a record 5a million people have already cast their ballots. this is largely due to fears over coronavirus, with the country seeing record daily highs. both mr trump and his democratic challengerjoe biden are campaigning in crucial states that could swing the contest in their favour. lebo diseko reports from washington. thank you, sir. thank you very much. donald trump moments after casting his ballot. no surprises for who. i voted for a guy named trump. after that he was off on a whirlwind of stops in battle ground states. he's hitting rallies in north carolina, ohio and wisconsin.

2016 saw donald trump gaining momentum in the last two weeks. no doubt he's hoping to pull that off again. but today, the candidates presented two contrasting messages on the issue overshadowing this election. turn on television. "covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid. " by the way, on november 4th, you won't hear about it any more. forjoe biden, a drive—through rally in pennsylvania, a chance to hit what he sees as his rival‘s achilles' heel. on friday, america reported its highest ever daily number of new coronavirus infections, more than 80,000. what i told in that debate, we're not learning how to live with it, you're asking us to learn how to die with it! and it's wrong! there's going to be a dark winter ahead unless we change our ways! joe biden is ahead in a number of these key swing states, but it's not something he can take for granted. in 2016, hillary clinton, too, was ahead at this stage in the race, and so he's

pulling out all the stops, bringing out his greatest weapon, his former boss. hello, florida! we can'tjust talk, we can't just imagine a better future, we've got to go out there and fight for it! we've got to outhustle the other side! we've got to vote like never before, and we've got to leave no doubt! more than 5a million people have taken up the option of voting early, so they've already had their say. but ten days is plenty of time for president trump and mr biden to make their closing arguments for those that haven't. lebo diseko, bbc news, washington. eric ham is political analyst in washington. here's his take on donald trump's decision to vote early. when you continue to see millions and millions of people voting every day, that's less people that we're going to actually see on november 3rd. so, what you're seeing now is a rush from republicans

to actually get their people out to the polls. remember, donald trump has been pushing back against early voting, against mail—in voting for quite some time, counter to what we've even heard from many republicans who believe that that is a way to actually induce and get their voters to actually vote. and so now, what we're seeing is this immediate change from the president to try to get his people to the polls as early as possible to begin to get some of those votes in the bank already. because now what we're seeing, particularly in these key battle ground states — states like pennsylvania, north carolina and florida — we are seeing the turnout at historic numbers. and the concern is these are states that will determine the outcome of the race. and so right now, if you're seeing democrats literally leading in early voting by two, three, four to one, that's beginning to panic republicans. and so they've got to be

able to combat that, and no better way to do that than have president donald trump vote early in the key battle ground state of florida. dealing with china will be one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for whoever wins the us election. both donald trump and joe biden have vowed to be tough on beijing. 0ur correspondent zhaoyin feng looks at how the two superpowers are clashing over trade, big tech and accusations of espionage, and how this rivalry is affecting the rest of the world. look closely. you could be in beijing, but this is new york city, usa. flushing is one of the largest chinatowns in america. here, the us—china rivalry is personal, and the community is concerned. after cracking down on chinese tech companies huawei and tiktok, washington

is threatening to manage the chinese app wechat because of alleged beijing surveillance. but many chinese—america ns rely on wechat to talk to loved ones back home. this man is suing the us government to stop the ban. it's kind of discrimination because most of the chinese people in the united states are using wechat. and this ban, it's actually mostly affecting the chinese community in the united states. as china and the us go head—to—head over technology, trade and covid—19, many chinese—americans feel squeezed in between. but this rivalry between the world's two superpowers has been building for decades, and its profound impact will be felt in nearly every country around the world. donald trump says that he's tough on china... us presidential rivals constantly argue over who is tougher on china.

this biden campaign ad says the president got played by china. vice president biden. .. meanwhile, trump says if his opponent wins, it will be a victory for china. a break—up between china and the us would have repercussions around the world. you might be forced to choose sides. say we're going to do business with just the chinese or just the americans, so it's putting countries, companies, students, employees in a very difficult position. there are more than 360,000 chinese students here in the us. they are already caught in the middle. the us government believes some are spies targeting american intellectual property while masquerading as students. people come to you seeking for better career development, for opportunities. they want to get a location. they want to make new friends.

they want to make that happen for the journey in this different country. some of chenyu's friends to china, leaving him with this hamster, winnie. but chenyu is unsure about how long he and winnie will stay. he feels less welcome and is looking forjobs back in china. whoever wins the us presidential election, the us—china rivalry is here to stay. it will define geopolitics in the 21st century. zhaoyin feng, bbc news, washington. at least 18 people have died following a suicide bombing in kabul. the islamic state group said they carried out the attack. 0ur correspondent secunder kermani has the latest. according to officials, this suicide bomber was trying to get inside the tuition centre when he was challenged by the security guards and blew himself up. their bravery really preventing an even greater loss of life. the vast majority of these students would have been in their late teens and early 20s, many of them preparing for a university entrance exam. the islamic state group carried out a similar attack on another

tuition centre two years ago. in fact, a tuition centre quite close by to this one in which more than a0 students were killed. the area in which these attacks have happened is largely populated by afghanistan's shia minority, which has been repeatedly targeted by is. in recent weeks, there has been an upsurge in fighting in afghanistan, but that's actually largely between the afghan government and the taliban, despite the fact that the two sides are engaged in peace negotiations in qatar. is are not part of those talks, which in any case have largely stalled amidst attempts to resolve preliminary issues, but whether it's is, whether it's the taliban, whether it's civilians being mistakenly targeted in government air strikes, ordinary afghans are dying on a daily basis. this is bbc news. the headlines — france, italy and the czech republic become the latest countries to announce record numbers of daily coronavirus cases.

ten days to go — president trump casts his vote early in florida, a state he has to win to be re—elected. let's get more on that now. earlier, i spoke to anita kumar, white house correspondent and associate editor at politico. i asked her why she thinks president trump decided to vote early in florida. well, he wanted to go to florida. he was in florida for a number of rallies. florida is a huge state for him. he must win that state, most people believe, to win the presidency. so, he wanted to do that. he also wanted to do it in person. he wanted to do exactly what you heard him say, which is show people that it's 0k to go to the polls in person, that it's safe, it's better than voting by mail, which as you know he's been talking about, you know, for several months now that voting by mail can lead to fraud. so, he really wanted to do that and do it in person. donald trump is swinging through four states today. in contrast, joe biden

is really concentrating his energies in one location. what does that tell us about these campaigns? well, president trump is doing what he did in 2016, which is these last few weeks, you know, after he got back on the trail after coronavirus, he's doing, you know, these rallies multiple times a day, two, three, four rallies a day. he thinks that pushes him over the edge. it did push him over the edge in 2016. he's going to states primarily, though, that he won last time, so he's not looking so much to expand the map at this point. he is visiting one state on sunday, new hampshire, that he didn't win, but primarily going to the states he won. he's trying to get those people that voted for him last time out to the polls. he feels like obviously if he can get those same groups of people out, that he could win. even some of the locations he's going to are not really the swing locations per se, but more of his base, conservative base. joe biden is doing, as you said, much less. he's doing what he's been doing, which is sticking close to home, going to a few key states, including pennsylvania,

which is really, really crucialfor both men. they really need to win this state. it's up for grabs. joe biden looks like he has an edge there, but it's very close in it. this was a stunner last time. if you'll remember, no republican had won that state for quite some time when donald trump won it. so, you'll seejoe biden stick to this coronavirus message, saying that donald trump has not done a good job and he shouldn't be president because of that. joe biden is consistently ahead in the polls. what does donald trump need to do to pull ahead at this point? well, it's really difficult to see. what he's hoping is to get more people out, more of those supporters that were maybe not enthusiastic, thought they might skip it, because really it's notjust the national polls that shows thatjoe biden is winning in most of these battle ground states. but, you know, in elections, it tends to tighten up right near the end. joe biden‘s campaign

is saying that, too, that generally right near the end when you poll, it does tighten a little bit. so, donald trump is looking to get out his supporters that might have sat out, weren't really sure what they wanted to do, get them back at the polls, but it's really hard to see how he really changes things significantly in the next ten days. you mentioned earlier more than 50 million people in america have already voted. they think that's about a third of the people that are going to vote by november 3rd. so, it's quite a lot of people, not a lot of time to change the minds of those last remaining people. here in the uk, more than 3 million people in wales are being asked to stay mainly at home for the next 16 days after the country began a new national lockdown to try to slow the spread of coronavirus. supermarkets are still open, but there's been confusion over rules banning the sale of nonessential items. first minister mark drakeford said the welsh government will review "how the weekend has gone". 0ur wales correspondent tomos morgan has more.

there's a sense of deja vu in wales today. as the firebreak starts, the country is back under national lockdown for the next two weeks. caerphilly was the first area in wales to be put under strict local measures at the start of september, meaning it's been illegal for households to mix and for people to enter or leave local lockdown areas without good reason. we need it. if it's going to stop the spreading, 0k, it might hurt the economy, but they're doing it for a reason at the end of the day. ithink, you know, six weeks of a lockdown, itjust seems like a long time, do you know what i mean? it seems never—ending. the rules now are much like in march. all nonessential businesses have been closed. but this time around, those that are open have been stopped by the welsh labour government from selling nonessential goods. the new rule, though, has sparked frustration and confusion. we've got things like hardware. there's a little bit of gifting, cards, all

the usual things you'd expect to see in a supermarket, and, you know, i'm sure that's replicated up and down the country, so not only are we possibly not allowed to sell those going forward, it's how we would go about doing that. it's estimated that this firebreak could cost the welsh economy a further £500 million. so, what retailers, hospitality, cafe, bars and restaurants will want from the welsh government is a guarantee, or at least a strategy for reopening, so they can make some profits again in the run—up to christmas. tomos morgan, bbc news, caerphilly. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. ethiopia has summoned the us ambassador after president trump suggested that egypt might blow up a controversial dam that ethiopia is building on the river nile. the ethiopian prime minister has said his country "will not cave in to aggressions of any kind". egypt fears the dam might reduce its water supplies.

the nigerian police chief has ordered the immediate mobilisation of all resources to control the country's worst street violence in two decades. violence increased in the commercial capital lagos after the security forces allegedly shot dead people protesting against police brutality. france has recalled its ambassador to turkey after its president, recep tayyip erdogan, insulted the french prime minister. mr erdogan said his counterpart needed psychological checks because he promised to defend france's secular values from radical islam. these exchanges came a week after the beheading of a teacher in paris in a suspected islamist attack. is this the moment for wholesale change in chile? that may seem odd for a country recently praised as being one of the most stable in the region, with dramatic falls in rates of poverty, too. but many inequalities remain, and the past 12 months has seen a stream of protests and demonstrations,

prompting a referendum this sunday on rewriting chile's ao—year—old constitution. 0ur south america correspondent katy watson has more. chile is a country used to earthquakes, but few people expected the shake—up that we've seen this past year. injust 12 months, chile went from being an oasis of stability, as its president described it, to a country wanting to rewrite the rules. it all started when santiago hiked its metro ticket prices byjust four cents. it represented the tipping point, unleashing anger and resentment among millions struggling to make ends meet in a country that on the surface looked like it was succeeding. in the weeks afterwards, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to call for change. among the demands, better education, more equality, and for many,

the president's resignation. the demonstrations were largely peaceful, but clashes with protesters and heavy—handed responses by the authorities have marked this past year, too. chile's current constitution was drawn up in 1980 under former dictator augusto pinochet. in a modern democracy, there's no place for it, critics argue, and they say access to basic services shouldn't be in the hands of private businesses. the old system needs to change. after a pause in protesting because of covid—19, people have returned to the streets. peaceful protests like this...and more troubling ones like this. tension is high in chile, and so are expectations. translation: the problem that chile has, and the social movement have shown, is that it's a system made just for a few people. it guarantees immunity, impunity, and a dignified life

for the privileged few. what we want to have as a constitution that guarantees equality and rights for everyone, with dignified conditions where there's no such thing as first and second—class citizens. chileans are expected to approve a new constitution, but there are critics, those who say the current set of rules helped this country to prosper and tearing it up could bring economic instability at the worst possible time. chile needs to look forward and needs to build a better country. it seems to me that what many people want to do is rewrite history and deny the existence and the presence of pinochet and the importance pinochet had in implementing the economic model. is it rewriting the past or wanting to move forward with a clean slate? however you look at it, sunday's vote will define chile's future. katy watson, bbc news.

that is all for now. do stay in touch. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @celiahatton. hello. saturday brought some extremely wet and rather blustery weather for many parts of the uk. it was a particularly soggy end to the day in eastern and south—eastern parts of england. not quite as wet for most of us on sunday. still some heavy showers around, some blustery winds, but some sunny spells in between. you can see the speckled shower clouds here pushing in on our earlier satellite image. and it's this stripe of cloud here that brought the heavy and persistent rain for many during the first half of the weekend. that is now clearing away. low pressure still very much driving the weather, so it is going to be another windy day and that wind coming in from the west will drive a fair few showers across parts of northern ireland, western scotland, the western side of england and wales, and quite a few i think blowing in across southern counties of england as well. not as many showers

across the north east of england or eastern scotland. and we will see some spells of sunshine. but it's going to be windy for all of us. these are the average wind speeds. the gusts are going to be higher than that. we could see gusts of 50 mph or more in the most exposed places in western scotland, where the showers could well turn into a spell of more persistent rain through the afternoon. temperatures 11—14 degrees, a fairly cool feel. and it stays rather cool and blustery as we head through sunday night and into the early hours of monday. as you can see, there'll be further showers moving in from the west. some clear gaps in between those downpours, and temperatures generally in a range between 5—8 degrees. now, monday is another sunshine and showers day, but a bit of a shift in the focus of those showers. they will increasingly become focused across northern ireland, england and wales, whereas for scotland, i think things should start to turn a little bit drier and we will see some spells of sunshine. not as windy by this stage, but temperatures still

struggling a little bit between 11—14 degrees. it does stay unsettled, though, through the coming week. low pressure taking up residence to the north—west, a deep low out in the atlantic, so that'll drive strong winds and showers across the uk, some longer spells of rain at times. and it may well mean that for the end of the week, this weather system brings some more persistent wet weather, so the outlook looks like this. there will be some heavy rain at times and some brisk winds, a very unsettled autumnal week on the way.

this is bbc news — the headlines.

covid—nineteen continues its fast spread throughout europe. many countries are hoping to slow transmission by imposing new restrictions. france, the czech republic and italy have seen a record number of daily cases. poland's president — andrzej duda — has tested positive for the virus and is in self—isolation. donald trump has voted early in the us presidential election in his adopted home state of florida. with ten days to go — a record fifty—four million this is largely due to fears over coronavirus — with the country seeing record daily highs. at least eighteen people have been killed and dozens wounded in a suicide attack near an education centre in the afghan capital kabul. the interior ministry said the suicide bomber detonated his device after guards stopped him. the building in the predominantly shia muslim area usually hosts hundreds of students.