hello and welcome to bbc news. britain's former prime minister borisjohnson and the formerfinance minister rishi sunak, have held face—to—face talks about the conservative leadership race, though neither has declared they're standing. penny mordaunt was the first to formally declare, on friday. our political correspondent damian grammaticas has been following events. are you running for the leadership? he was tight—lipped this morning, but rishi sunak clearly has a well of support among conservative mps —

more than 100 now publicly backing him. and that sets up the extraordinary possibility he could face off against the man he helped bring down. borisjohnson, flying back from a caribbean holiday for a possible political comeback. it's just over four months since mrjohnson faced a revolt by his own mps and a confidence vote. the vote in favour of having confidence in borisjohnson as leader is 211 votes and the vote against him was 148 votes. more than 40% of his mps had no confidence in him then. dozens then resigned from his government. but some now say they want him to return. what we've seen in the last few days is that some of the mps who resigned, some of the mps who called for boris to go at the start of the summer, have now said they would like to see him put himself forward. they've admitted they were wrong and i know there are many others waiting to hear on if he makes the decision to run before they go public.

thank you all very much for coming! those who want him back remember this — borisjohnson is a vote winner. but many tory mps haven't forgotten what followed — lockdown parties that broke the law. parliament will soon begin hearings into whether mr johnson lied about this. it's why the man who was a deputy prime minister is backing rishi sunak. i think the country needs a prime minister that is focused 100% on them, and i just don't see as a practical matter that that can be boris if he is then dealing with all of those issues, and i say that as someone who would love to see boris return to front line politics. i think he can, but i don't think he can until he's addressed those issues. the first candidate to declare she was running was penny mordaunt last night, but she has far fewer public declarations of support. i'm backing penny because she's the candidate i think that can not onlyjust bring the conservative party and parliament together, but actually, the whole country. she's got a proven track record working across eight departments in her 12

years in parliament. this was borisjohnson injuly, to the right, rishi sunak. later that day, mr sunak resigned as chancellor, saying people needed competent, serious government. three days later, mrjohnson was out of office. so, the choice facing tory mps may come down to two men with a bitter history or an untested alternative compromise candidate. damian grammaticas, bbc news. footage of china's former leader, hujintao, being removed from the stage of the communist party congress is drawing global attention. mr hu — who is 79 — was sitting beside president xijinping when he was led away by officials. chinese state media blamed ill health for the incident. our correspondent stephen mcdonell has more from beijing. the first thing you notice from these incredible events in the great hall of the people is that china's former leader

when asked to leave doesn't want to go, and you have to ask yourself, why, what is going on? because he represents a type of government so different to the way things are done now. a period of opening up to the outside world, collective leadership, speculation has first turned to the possibility that this was a piece of political theatre, that he was being symbolically removed to show who is really in charge. but then when you look at the footage more closely, he doesn't seem to be well, at times he doesn't seem to know what's going on. if there were legitimate health reasons, though, for him to be removed, why did hu jintao have to go so suddenly, and why do it in front of the cameras? unfortunately, china's system is so opaque that we are getting nothing else from the government by way of explanation. the new italian government has been sworn in at a ceremony in the presidential palace in rome.

giorgia meloni is italy's first far—right leader since the second world war. her party — brothers of italy — won last month's elections. ms meloni has sought to reassure western allies that italy's foreign policy won't change. the co—owner of the red bull formula i team — dietrich mateschitz — has died at the age of 78. he built a business empire launching the red bull energy drink in the 1980s and marketed the brand by sponsoring a variety of extreme sports. you can find more on that story on the bbc website or on the bbc news app. stay with us here on bbc news — still to come: we speak to colin farrell and brendan gleeson about their new film about the end of a friendship

more now on the tory�*s leadership race, and damian grammaticas has been keeping up with the latest from westminster. the bbc has been told that those two men who are the front runners and they have been meeting tonight. we don't know anything about what it may be about but you could reasonably ask yourself why they would want to meet at this point? possibly, you could assume, maybe to sound each other out or come to an accommodation. we know that rishi sunak has crucial momentum and is well past the threshold he needs. it is very unlikely that he would be in any mood to stand aside. perhaps he could be trying to seek some sort of accommodation for mrjohnson but borisjohnson�*s best hope to try to take it to a vote of the party

membership where he may feel he would get some support. but when it was put out that he might have a hundred votes and they were asked to show the names they were unable to. we only have them on 50 and the momentum at the moment seems with rishi sunak. earlier we spoke to donna ginther who is professor of economics at the institute for policy and social research at the university of kansas. i asked her what she made of what was going on in the uk at the moment. it has been a wild ride for you guys with leadership up in the air and an economy that is struggling. i do not envy you. the uk economic outlook has been lowered to negative by the ratings agency moody. why would moody's do this? what metrics do they look at? you are facing twin problems that have no easy solution. both really high double—digit inflation and a recession. the antidote for inflation is higher interest rates but that makes a recession worse. and so it will be a difficult time for a while until

the recessionary pressure is lessened. are we looking at a quick fix to get out of this or is it a slow burn the politicians have to work on? it will be a long—term, mid— long—term solutions. the british economy never fully recovered from the great financial crisis and struggled with low growth for the past 15 yea rs. so the antidote to low growth is to boost worker productivity and that means investing in workers and it also means investing in new innovation and research and development. those are long—term policies that will yield higher growth in the medium to long—term. when liz truss came to power she announced a series of tax cuts and did not explain how they would be funded. we saw the pound drop as a result and then she stood down. this time next week we should know who our new prime minister

is. when they enter number 10, what should some of their first actions be to bolster the british economy? they should not cut tax. that did not work, for sure. we learned that the hard way in my state of kansas, tax cuts do not lead to economic growth. the first thing to do is to say that this is a difficult situation and to communicate to everyone that it will be a difficult winter. a lot of the challenges facing the british economy are not due to the country has done or what policymakers can control over. energy prices are high because of the war in ukraine. other prices are high because of the recovery from covid. so it will take some time to recover. and so policymakers need to be honest with the population that this will be difficult for at least 6—12 months. mixed in with all of this on the international level is brexit.

a decision taken six years ago. what implications is that still having? the harvard business review says that brexit caused the cost of living to increase by 3% in britain. so brexit has not done any favours because one of the ways to grow the economy would be to increase trade and increase migration and i understand that you are having problems with labour shortages as well and that puts pressure on prices. so trade and immigration would be a quick fix but that is at odds with the goals of brexit. in germany, police say around 80,000 people joined a rally in support of protesters in iran. it's the biggest demonstration by the iranian diaspora ever. iranians from across europe are calling on western governments to sanction the powerful revolutionary guard and to throw out

iranian diplomats. i asked our news reporter azadeh moshiri more about what these protesters are asking for. the fact it is being talked about about as one of the biggest rallies of the iranian diaspora ever goes towards the sense that these protests in this movement going on within iran is unprecedented. some of the protesters there said that, in fact, they travelled from other countries in order tojoin in, that is how you get to a figure of 80,000. that is what german police are saying, while organisers say the number was closely to 100,000, the truth is often somewhere in between. but what they are also doing is calling on specific demands of western governments. one of them is to add further sanctions to the powerful revolutionary guards, and that is because the revolutionary guards are not just a military or security force, they have a lot of sway and huge power over the iran's economy as well as its politics. the second demand is to oust iranian diplomats in embassies across the west.

also, while we talk about this huge protest in berlin, because it is historic, there have been movements and rallies in support of protesters in iran in the west since the beginning, since six weeks ago when protests began in places like washington, paris, london and over the weekend, we even had protests injapan. people have been calling on western governments for action for quite a while now. let's go to iran because as you mentioned, they are in the sixth week of protest in the country? the protests are still going on and they have not lost any of their momentum. of course, the iranian government is using a strategy they always use when there are widespread protests within their country, and that's to cause internet blackouts, to make it difficult for people on the ground to show us what's going on. but bbc persian as well as other foreign media and social media have still been getting these videos of protests continuing in their sixth week, especially in universities.

in sharif university, one of the biggest campuses in iran — it's in tehran specifically — students were still out protesting on the campus and around it, saying, �*death to the dictator" — a reference to ali khamenei, the supreme leader, as well as, "women, life, freedom" — the rallying cry that happened ever since mahsa amini died in custody by the morality police. but, of course, that also means the crackdown is still continuing. of course, rights groups are saying more than 200 people died but they're still doing things like pointing out specific people they think are inciting riots, like a cleric in zahedan who said that senior officials in the iranian government were responsible for the death of dozens of protesters last month. president zelenzky has denounced renewed russian attacks on ukraine's energy infrastructure as an attempt to break his country. kyiv says almost 1.5 million households are without power, following another barrage by russian missiles on civilian energy facilities. the national electricity operator said the latest

strikes could have caused more damage than the intense bombardment lasting several days earlier this month. president zelenskyy said the world had to stop the terror. translation: russian propagandists are lying when they say that this terror against our infrastructure and people can somehow slow down the active actions of our military or cause any difficulty for our defence. ukrainians are united and they know for sure that russia has no chance to win this war. officials in sudan say the number of people killed in ethnic fighting in the south of the country has risen to 200. the two days of clashes between the hausa and berta communities were sparked by a land dispute. the governor of the blue nile region has declared a state of emergency. translation: i declare a state of emergency in all parts - of the blue nile region for 30 days.

the chief of the fourth regiment of ground forces, the police chief and the head of the rapid support forces must intervene with all means to stop tribal fighting. they have all constitutional and legal powers to take proper procedures, according to the nature of the situation. this is bbc news. a reminder of the headlines: in the race to be britain's next prime minister, two of the leading candidates, borisjohnson and rishi sunak, have been meeting face—to—face. at china's party congress, president xi's predecessor, hujintao, is mysteriously led out of the hall by officials. let's stick with that story now. i've been speaking to author and professor of political science at the unversity of toronto, lynette ong. i asked her what she makes of hu jintao�*s removal from congress. by by the time he was escorted out, it was just after people of the media were allowed in so

it could be a political power play by presidency or because at that time the list of central committee members had just been released, so he could have seen the list and disagreed with people who have been elected. president she sees him as a threat, but all this remains speculative. we don't know what the reason is because the political system is extremely opaque. he because the political system is extremely opaque.— extremely opaque. he said it feasible that _ extremely opaque. he said it feasible that president - extremely opaque. he said it feasible that president xi - extremely opaque. he said it. feasible that president xi sees him as a threat but realistically, easier threat, the former leader, in his 70s and president xi has another third term for himself? president xi has tried to eliminate so many arrivals and enemies in the last ten years that a lot of people who potentially sees as a threat is hu jintao, the potentially sees as a threat is hujintao, the biggest potentially sees as a threat is hu jintao, the biggest threat definitely now. but we can't really rule anything out because of the opacity of the

system. because of the opacity of the s stem. , g a, because of the opacity of the s stem. , g , because of the opacity of the sstem. , g , ., system. does hu jintao play a significant _ system. does hu jintao play a significant role _ system. does hu jintao play a significant role in _ system. does hu jintao play a significant role in china's - significant role in china's daily politics at the moment? he doesn't, but one could argue that he is such —— are taking an important person outjust under public gaze is out to show who is in charge, right, certainly he becomes a scapegoat for symbolism purposes to showcase who is really in charge at the moment. as much as chinese government officials try to control the narrative on social media in china, there is a risk, isn't there, that achiume make this undermined president xi. we might hear voices of dissent? it could undermine his power but i think more likely, it would get people talking about and speculating about how powerful he has become, and that could actually be his ultimate purpose and, you know, he has definitely

achieved that in the last couple of hours. crosstalk. get the world, as well as china, talking about it. as we mentioned, president xi jinping now has his third term as the country's leader. what does this mean for the future of china? so, the two person currently in the politburo standing committee who are not in xi's faction — that premier li keqiang and the more liberal reformer wang yang — both of them are on their way out, so people are expecting a xi loyalist to come in, so he might actually have a clean sweep of the politburo standing committee, the upper echelons of power within the party. so we are seeing, you know, greater centralisation of power, more crackdown, more repression, more stability and security over economic policies. so overall, you know, bad news forforeign investors, bad news for the economy and more about security and stability maintenance. as we've been reporting,

italy's first female prime minister, giorgia meloni, and her ministers have been sworn in at a ceremony in the presidential palace in rome. she's the country's first far—right leader since world war ii. her brothers of italy party won last month's elections with just over a quarter of the vote. stefano fasano reports. giorgia meloni, the first woman to be italy's prime minister takes the oath of office. she is also the only leader of the party with neofascist routes to form a government in the republic cosmic history. ms meloni will give a speech in parliament on tuesday and must win a vote of confidence in both chambers. more formality, given the very solid majority. but the coronation has proven a notably fractious in the past week. , prime minister silvio berlusconi, one of her partners with matteo salvini's league, described her as arrogant and bossy, and blamed ukraine for

the war with russia and rekindled his personal friendship with vladimir putin, the two exchanging gifts and very sweet letters, he said. in response, ms maloney reiterated her government would be strongly pronator and anyone who rejected that could not be part of the government. figs who rejected that could not be part of the government. as far as orn, part of the government. as far as porn, foreign _ part of the government. as far as porn, foreign policy, - part of the government. as far as porn, foreign policy, she i as porn, foreign policy, she will stay put, ms meloni wants to stay in the european and native side but the alliance of bella skinny and silvagni are much more pro—russia. the much more pro-russia. the bi . . est much more pro-russia. the biggest change _ much more pro-russia. the biggest change is _ much more pro—russia. the biggest change is expected nationally. her government has changed the name of the ministries including the minister of agriculture and food sovereignty, and that of family and fertility, fertility. observers say that might be a sign of what's to come. ., ., , .,

come. there are rumours that won't get _ come. there are rumours that won't get any _ come. there are rumours that won't get any assignment - come. there are rumours that won't get any assignment of. won't get any assignment of immigration and they will go to another sicilian politician that now is the new minister on a seat, don't ask me what it is about, i am sicilian myself about, i am sicilian myself about now we have a minister on sicily. about now we have a minister on sicil . ,, ., sicily. on sunday morning former pm _ sicily. on sunday morning former pm will _ sicily. on sunday morning former pm will hurd - sicily. on sunday morning former pm will hurd his i sicily. on sunday morning i former pm will hurd his post to ms meloni, the last step before the confidence vote on tuesday. stefano fasano, bbc news. mexico city is one of the world's biggest cities. more than 22 million people live there — the largest population of any city in north america. it is a place of opportunity, and also much poverty. but in one district, they are trying to use art to improve lives — as the bbc�*s tim allman explains. in this part of mexico city, they want things to look spectacular from any angle.

the rooftops in iztapalapa are a vivid display of colour and creativity, which is fortunate when you realise there is a cable car running through the area. translation: all these works of art have helped improve - the public space. i think it has the potential to change the environment. seeing certain works can lead you to create certain things. for the last four years, they have been painting murals around here — nearly 8,000 of them by now, around 150 artists taking part. it was the brainchild of the local government, designed to — as officials put it — improve public spaces throughout. even people at ground level seemed to approve. translation: i would thank the artists for the work - they did. they came and brought more colour, more life and a better image to the market and my stall.

some of these murals tell stories. others highlight issues, such as protecting the environment. but most of all, as one local put it, they certainly brighten up the journey. tim allman, bbc news. how do you respond when your best friend randomly decides to call time on your life—long friendship? well that's the plot of the film the banshees of inisherin, set in the 1920s, on a fictional remote island off the coast of ireland. our entertainment correspondent, lizo mzimba, has been talking to its stars, colin farrell and brendan gleeson. have you been rowing? dark and quirky... what the hell's going on with you and me brother? he's dull, siobhan. but he's always been dull. ..humorous and compelling. you're behaving awful unusual. the film tells the story of a lifelong friendship that suddenly ends. people have responded to it in such a positive way and it's meant something to the people

that i've spoken to that have seen it. there's been a kind of relatability or personalisation of this film in regard to their own lives and their own experience of whether it's friendship, loss or isolation had to be dealt with, so it means a lot, it's lovely. yeah, breaking up and all that kind of stuff, like, we've all had a bit of it. it's hitting home with people in a way that's quite moving and stuff. you just kind of feel, "wow," you know? "this is one that has worked the way it should." do you know who we remember for how nice they was in - the 17th century? who? absolutely no—one. yet, we all remember| the music of the time. everyone to a man - knows mozart's name. i don't, so there goes that theory. one of the central themes is how much people should sacrifice in order to create meaningful art, with both actors drawing on their own experiences. through the years, i've missed things. i've missed funerals of people who meant a lot to me, i missed — you know, i have two children. i missed the birth of one, i was there for the birth of the other one, but only

because i wasn't gainfully employed at that time, thank god! so, at least i was there for one of me boys being born, but you miss really important — fundamentally important moments. at one stage, i was nearly seven months away over the year in three differentjobs. it was too much for my kids. it was breaking my heart to be there, and i said, "i'm not... "there's a certain level — i'm missing too much". so it's a constant line you're trying to walk. how gratified are you to be talked about as oscar contenders? if you got a nomination or something like that and i didn't, we'd have a laugh with it. we would. we would have a laugh with it and then, we would — it'd be business as usual, do you know what i mean? it would be great, let's be honest. and then it'd would be business as usual, you know, afterwards. no, but it'd be great! it'd be a laugh! yeah, yeah, yeah. "i want it," is what he's saying! "i want it! "when do we find out?" well, oscar nominations are still three months away but when they are announced, many expect to see the names gleeson and farrell on that list. lizo mzimba, bbc news.

and that's it from us. get in touch with me on twitter. from all of us here in london, thanks for your company and see you next time. bye—bye. hello there. temperatures on saturday rose to a high of 19 degrees in essex and it's going to be a mild start to sunday as well but we're dominated by low pressure and that means while it's mild, we're going to get more cloud and rain. this is the main feature, this low pressure spinning away to the south—west, pushing cloud our way and bringing with it some outbreaks of rain out from the south—west. and on sunday, that rain is going to move its way northwards. it'll be heavy and it contains the risk of some thunder as well. so this is where we've got the really wet start early in the morning. that rain heavy and thundery, could give a lot of rain in a short space of time, but it doesn't last long. it races northwards, up across northern england, into northern ireland, clearing away from here in the afternoon as it heads into central and southern

parts of scotland. the rain band followed by some sunshine but also some heavy, maybe thundery showers, particularly in the south of england later on in the afternoon. temperatures still on the mild side but maybe not quite as high as they were on saturday. that rain continues northwards across scotland into the evening and then, we get more rain arriving across england and wales overnight. that area of low pressure moving across the uk, heading northwards and out of the way. we're going to be left with more of a west to south—westerly breeze this time on monday, and that means a mixture, again, of sunshine and also some showers. the bulk of the showers coming in across the western side of the uk and feeding through the english channel. a few showers will get to eastern areas but there should be some sunshine in between those showers as well. and those temperatures again reaching highs of around 16 or 17 degrees widely across england and wales. we've got a bump of high pressure overnight as we see those showers fading away and into the start of tuesday before another weather system arrives from the south later on in the day. so, we start off dry. there may be some mist and fog patches around in northern areas on tuesday and then, we'll see the breeze picking up.

that'll blow in this cloud and rain to the south—west of wales later on but for many parts of the country, tuesday looks like it will be a dry day with some sunshine and temperatures reaching 17 or 18 degrees. the really cold weather is kept way to the north of the uk or out here in the atlantic and instead, we're getting more southerly breezes, bringing that warmer weather all the way up from the azores. and temperatures, really, through the rest of the week will be around four degrees above normal for this time of the year — could make 21 in the south east of england — with the wetter weather further north and west.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the former uk prime minister borisjohnson and the ex—chancellor rishi sunak have held face—to—face talks about the conservative leadership race, though neither has formally declared their intention to stand. current cabinet minister penny mordaunt was the first to formally declare. —— to formally declare she would run. chinese state media has blamed ill health for the unexpected removal of the former president hu jintao from the hall during the communist party congress. the xinhua news agency said he had insisted on attending the closing ceremony, even though he was recuperating and then felt unwell. in germany, police say around 80,000 peoplejoined a rally in support of

protesters in iran. it's the biggest demonstration by the iranian diaspora ever.