in an attempt to curb a surge in coronavirus cases. the number of confirmed cases in the us has now passed 12 million, making it one of the world's worst—affected countries. thanksgiving dinners are being distributed to people affected by the pandemic. world leaders attending the virtual 620 summit have urged the heads of rich nations to ensure coronavirus vaccines are affordable and available for all. the meeting is being hosted by saudi arabia but is being held virtually because of the pandemic. the british government has announced a tougher three—tiered system of local restrictions will come into force in england when the current lockdown ends on the 2nd december. the prime minister boris johnson is expected to set out his plan on monday.

the government will make major changes to how it assesses the value of big spending projects — a move which would benefit northern england and other regions. the chancellor, rishi sunak, said the changes were part of the government's "levelling up" agenda. they'll be announced in the spending review next week, as our business correspondent katy austin reports. major public projects like new transport links can provide a tangible, long—lasting boost to the economy. historically, some areas feel they haven't had theirfair share. this business in hull says that better connections to other cities like york would really help. i feel that the north has often played second fiddle to the south. i appreciate it's where the capital is, and where a lot of businesses are, but the playing field is getting more and more lopsided. it needs to be levelled. the question looms of how to put the public finances back on a sustainable footing

after the huge cost of coronavirus but the government still wants to be talking about investing, too, across the whole of the uk. next week, in the spending review, the chancellor, rishi sunak, is expected to announce tens of billions of pounds for infrastructure, including road improvements. the delayed national infrastructure strategy will be published, covering flagship programmes such as fibre broadband and investment in green projects. the rules the treasury uses to assess the value for money of big investments will change, in an effort to remove a long—standing bias towards london and the south—east, and focus on the possible regional benefits of schemes. to replace money previously allocated to poorer regions by the eu, a fund will be unveiled targeted at in places including coastal communities and former industrial heartlands. an independent group representing businesses and civic leaders across the north of england welcomed the plans, saying that projects like transport were crucial to improving productivity and prosperity. we will not close the

north—south divide if we don't build the full high—speed north network, that means hs2 on the east and west of the country and a new line across the pennines. labour said communities around the country wanted action, not more empty rhetoric. the government's hoping it can build a way to brighter times. katy austin, bbc news. now on bbc news, indonesia is the world's largest exporter of palm oil and in the last two decades vast areas of forest have been cleared to make way for plantations. the remote province of papua, home to asia's most extensive remaining rainforests, has escaped fairly untouched, until now. this film investigates how papua has become the new frontier for aggressive palm oil expansion. west papua, indonesia. some of the last untouched

rainforests on the planet are being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations. indigenous tribes paid less than $10 us a hectare for their ancestral lands. here, a south korean palm oil giant carried out deliberate

and illegal burning on its land. you have to develop a technique that can determine if a fire is intentional or not. this can bring liability to big corporations who are in charge of these concession sites. the company at the centre of this story associated with the world's leading sustainable certification body. he sings the forest of west papua are some of the most biodiverse in the world. filled with unique flora

and fauna, these rainforests sacred and essential to the hundreds of indigenous tribes who call them home. mandobo tribal elder petrus kinggo explains how the sago palms that grow wild in these forests are a staple food for his community. six years ago he got involved in something that changed his tribe's fate forever. he negotiated with a korean palm oil giant, called korindo,

and persuaded his tribe and ten other clans to accept just $8 a hectare as compensation for their land. he shows our bbc team a map of the area he claims is his ancestral forest. this receipt showing he received just over $30,000 for 5000 hectares of land.

korindo say they paid an additional $8 for the trees, an amount set out by the indonesian government, who gave them the permit. petrus says they felt pressure to sign. the company deny this and say all their dealings complied with indonesian law — laws made 4000 kilometres away in the capital, jakarta. west papua, a former dutch colony, became part of indonesia in the 1960s, after a controversial referendum overseen by the united nations. jakarta maintains it is an integral part of the nation, recognised by the

international community. but a low level separatist movement has been waged here ever since. translation: this is my land. our ancestors gave us this land. we want independence. indonesia has stolen our land from us. how long have we been suffering in the jungle, how many people have died? there are just so few of us now. last year, the biggest independence protest in decades turned into riots and ended in deadly clashes with the army. control over the region's vast national resources — gold, copper and the forests — are one of the key flashpoints.

despite its rich resources, it is amongst the poorest regions in indonesia. jakarta has vowed to change that, pumping money in, building infrastructure, and opening up the region to investors. korean palm oil giant korindo has benefited greatly. they now control more land in papua than any other company, clearing nearly 60,000 hectares of forests, an area the size of chicago or seoul. their vast plantations now protected by state security forces.

in may this year, when a local farmer turned up at the local office of korindo to complain about the destruction of his banana plantation, the police were called. three hours later, he was dead. his daughter grieves over his body, at the health clinic where he died.

police say he died of a heart attack. cctv footage seen by the bbc captures a police officer hitting him.

korindo, while having no role in his death, says they gave the family $15,000 us and will pay for his two children's education up to university. his daughter says nothing will make up for the loss of her father. our team heads deeper into the heart of papua to reach another korindo concession.

here also, our team found palm oil development has bitterly divided tribes and families. elizabeth left her village to work in the city. when she returned she found out her brother, now deceased, had sold their land to korindo. there is no electricity here or clear running water. those who can afford it use generators, but fuel costs four times more than in

the capital, jakarta. korindo turned down our repeated interview request, but said in a statement they have paid fair compensation to communities and have put an additional $14 million us into social programmes. many of the tribe's allegations were investigated for two years by the leading global green certification body, forest stewardship council, or fsc, of which korindo is a certificate holder. the final report was never released but the bbc obtained a copy. it found evidence that korindo violated the rights of papuans and benefited with close military ties for its

own economic benefit. the report recommended korindo be stripped of its fsc membership, but they decided to work with them. the fsc logo is meant to tell you as a consumer that the product comes from an environmentally friendly and socially responsible company. the logo is used everywhere here in europe. it was on the sandwich napkin i was given with my lunch, and on the train ticket that got me here. we are here at the headquarters of the fsc to ask why this logo is being given to korindo. these things that happened in breach of our values, they were in breach of our values, they would remain in breach of our values. what is the best thing to do with that? they happened, right? is the best thing to do is to say, they were in breach of our values, and we're not going to have anything to do with that anymore. that is one option, that environmentalists would say you are taking a strong stance and therefore maybe other

companies will feel they cannot get away with it as well? the end result, i think, and the logic of the board has been, we want to see the improvements happen. we want to actually see if we can help those communities that have had problems, that have been treated in wrong ways, that have not been listened to, that have not been understood, to actually get something in terms of options, possibilities, remedy for what happened. remedy, he says, could be in the form of restoring forests, land rights orjobs. but he admits it will be a process that could take up to three years to work out. in a statement, korindo denied they were involved in any human rights violations, but acknowledged there is room for improvements, and say they are implementing new procedures and economic programs for locals.

the fsc‘s investigation found no evidence of deliberate and illegal use of fire by korindo. it's also something the company strongly denies. but researchers from the group forensic architecture, based at goldsmith university, have been testing this claim. we had images and video footages that were looking, that were showing fire, and the smoke coming out of it, and it wasn't clear whether they were intentional or not. and with that, we started our research. this footage, taken from a plane by greenpeace indonesia in may 2013, shows stacks of timber burning. using clues in the image, they located it in satellite images, inside a korindo concession.

they then went back to 2011, when this area was all forest, and used a technique that detects patterns of land clearing from satellite images. the blue, thick vegetation. red shows cleared earth. so, when i play this month by month analysis, you will see that the pattern and the direction of clearing is very clear, it is moving from the central area, very clearly towards the east. next they added the heat sources picked up by nasa satellites, hotspot data, and they put the two together, over the same period of time. the patterns, the direction and the speed with which fires were set matched perfectly with the direction, the pattern and the speed with which land

clearing had occurred in this concession site. that is evidence that the fires were set intentionally. if the fires were set from outside the concession sites, or due to weather conditions, they would have moved with a different directionality. they would be diffused. they would be going up and down and south and west. but in the cases that we are looking at, there was a very clear directionality. korindo says there were many natural fires in the area, especially in 2015, due to an extremely long dry season. it insists all the land clearing was carried out with heavy machinery, and that the fires found in their concessions were started by villagers to hunt giant wild rats hiding under stacks of wood. the people living near this concession told our team a different story.

another man said smoke from the fires covered their community for years.

every year in indonesia fires send a thick haze across the region, causing breathing problems and sending large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. if korindo had deliberately used fire to clear land, it would be in breach of the law. the indonesian government turned down our request for an interview. the fsc says the company agreed to stop all further forest clearing for now. in august, the fsc board met again, deciding korindo was on track and that they would continue to work with them on improvements. i believe there is a shift that needs to happen in korindo. they need to improve in a number of different areas

and one of them is to actually seek and get the approval of the community. do they understand that? why would we ask for training of all their staff this year to happen if we thought they understood that? we don't think they understand. we think it is a new concept to them. isn't it too late for that? isn't this about putting a rubber stamp on something that has already happened? we are taking the bet, you could say, that what we are doing is the best chance for the people and the forest to get into a better situation faster than any other track we could have taken. elizabeth, whose brother took compensation for their ancestral forests from korindo, is sceptical that anything can make up for what has been lost.

others have decided to go and work for the oil palm company, hoping to build a new future there.

petrus is fighting to protect what is left of the mandobo tribe's forest that now fall within korindo‘s concession. he carries a heavy burden.

as investors eye this, one of the last untouched corners of the planet, petrus hopes other tribes hear his story. hello there. on saturday the southern half of the uk had mild, cloudy weather. further north things were quite different. it certainly felt colder in the wind. showers as well.

in between those different sorts of weather we've got this weather from here. it's not producing much rain but it's going to stall towards the south coast of england. it is heading a little further south. it's allowing that colder air to move further south across more of the country. as we head into early sunday morning, these are the sort of temperatures we're looking at. they could be down to one or 2 degrees across eastern scotland, northeast england and northern ireland for that much milder in southern england where we still got a lot of cloud. it will brighten up a time but the thicker cloud and pockets of rain and drizzle not too far away. could return to south wales as well. elsewhere decent sunshine. showers mainly northern ireland frequent coming into northern and western scotland winds release of the day, won't be as windy as it was on saturday. but typically around seven to ten celsius was up those temperatures will fall quickly. across more sheltered eastern areas with those clear skies. still a few showers

continuing towards the west. we need to look to the west to see where our weather is coming from early next week. because atlantic winds, south—westerly winds, heading our way in these weather fronts will bring some rain as well. a bright enough start for many eastern parts of the uk but chilly early on monday. some sunshine too. cloud amounts will tend to increase with patchy rain here and there. most rain setting in over the hills of western scotland, some rain for northern ireland. those temperatures gradually creeping up at around nine to 11 celsius, getting milder. move things on into tuesday and rain is still stuck mainly across scotland and northern ireland. generally dry for england and wales and always brighter with more sunshine as you head further east across england and wales where it's going to be dry with a southerly wind temperatures continuing to rise back up to 12 or 13. quite widely, things will change later in the week, not least because that weather front will take rain into england and wales on wednesday. then we start to see high pressure building in later on in the week.

for the early part of the week rain around, most of it around scotland and northern ireland. it will be turning milder for the second half of the week with high pressure, lighter winds, it will be cold with some frost and some fog.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories. california is to begin a night—time curfew, to tackle the spread of covid—19 — as the number of confirmed cases in the us passes 12 million. a call for coronavirus vaccines to be available for all — as leaders from the world's biggest economies meet foran online summit hosted by saudi arabia. five, four, three, two, one, zero. liftoff of sentinel—6. blastoff for a satellite that will track rising sea levels — improving our understanding of climate change. archaeologists find the remains of two men who died in the volcanic eruption that destroyed the ancient roman city of pompeii — and say they may have been