this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm rich preston. our top stories: in the race to be britain's next prime minister, two of the leading candidates have been meeting face to face. person to have secured the backing of more than 100 mps. claims by his allies that he's also reached that number. at china's party congress, president xi's predecessor hu jintao is mysteriously led out of the hall by officials. thousands take part in a rally in germany, supporting protesters in iran — the biggest ever demonstration by iranians overseas.

just tell me what i've done to you. i just tell me what i've done to ou. , ., �* ~ just tell me what i've done to ou. , .,�* ~ you. ijust don't like you know more. —— ijust don't like you no more. and we speak to colin farrell and brendan gleeson about their new film about the end of a friendship. hello and welcome to the programme. britain's former prime minister borisjohnson and the former finance minister rishi sunak, have held face—to—face talks about the conservative leadership race, though neither has formally declared their intention to stand. penny mordaunt, the leader of the house of commons, was the first to formally declare on friday. mr sunak has the public support of over 100 conservative mps — the threshold required for this leadership contest. some of mrjohnson�*s former cabinet colleagues have warned against his return to downing street barely three months after a series of scandals forced him out.

0ur 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 that they would like to see him put himself forward. they've admitted that 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. —— it's why the man who was his 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 frontline 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. as it turned tonight here in britain, we received this update from damien. the bbc has been told that those two men who are the frontrunners 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 what is crucial in a race like this — 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 may be 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 100 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, 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. well, it's been a wild ride for you guys with leadership up in the air and an economy that is struggling. i don't envy you. the uk's economic outlook has been lowered to negative by the ratings agency moody's. why would moody's do this? what are the kind metrics they look at to prompt this action? you are facing twin problems that have no easy solution. you're facing 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 is going to be a difficult time for a little while until the recessionary pressures start to lessen. 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 is going to be a long—term — you need long—term solutions.

the british economy never fully recovered from the great financial crisis. you've struggled with low growth for the past 15 yea rs. and so, the antidote to low growth is to boost worker productivity, and that means investing in your workers and it also means investing in new innovation and research and development. so, 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. she didn't explain how they would be funded. we saw the pound dropping as a result and then, obviously, she stood down. this time next week, we should know who our new prime minister is. when they get into number 10, what should some of their first actions be to bolster the british economy? well, they shouldn't cut taxes — that did not work, for sure — and we learned that the hard

way in my state of kansas, that tax cuts don't lead to economic growth. so, the first thing to do is to say that this is a difficult situation and to communicate to everyone that it's going to be a tough winter. i mean, a lot of the challenges facing the british economy are not due to what the country's done or what policymakers can have control over. energy prices are high because of the war in ukraine. 0ther prices are high because of the recovery from covid. so, it's going to take a bit of time to recover. and so, policymakers need to be honest with the population that this is going to be tough 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? well, the harvard business review says that brexit caused the cost of living to increase by 3% in britain. so, brexit has not done you any

favours because one of the ways to grow the economy would be to increase trade and increase immigration. i understand that you are having problems with a labour shortage as well, which also puts pressure on prices. so, trade and immigration would be a quick fix but that is at odds with the goals of brexit. chinese president xijinping is poised to clinch a third term as china's leader, cementing his place as the country's most powerful ruler since mao zedong. in a few hours, the new standing committee of the politburo will be revealed. mr xi is almost certain to be confirmed as general secretary of the communist party for a historic third term. earlier, footage of china's former leader, hujintao, being removed from the stage of the communist party congress drew 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.

0ur correspondent stephen mcdonell has more from beijing. the first thing you notice from these incredible events at 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's going on? well, 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, of 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's 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? why at that time? and why do it in front of the cameras? unfortunately, china's system, though, is so opaque

that we are getting nothing else from the government by way of explanation. 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. 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 —— the fact it is being talked about one of, if not 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's what german police are saying, while organisers say the number was closely to 100,000.

the truth is often somewhere in between. of western governments. economy, as well as its politics. in embassies across the west. 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. so, people have been calling on western governments for action for quite a while now. azadeh, let's go to iran because as you mentioned, we are now entering the sixth week of protests 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 zelensky 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 zelensky 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

you are watching bbc news. a reminder of our headlines. to make leading candidates are borisjohnson and rishi sunak have been meeting face—to—face. as china's party congress president xi's predecessor hu jintao mysteriously let out of the hall by security. staying with the news about hu jinatao's abrupt removal, i asked lynette 0ng, author and professor of political science at the unversity of toronto, what she makes of the incident. he could be sick, but the time he was escorted out of the congress was also just after the media — people from the media were allowed into the congress, so that could be a power—play, a political play by president xi. or it could be because, you know, at that time, the list of central committee members had just been released, so he could've seen the list and then disagreed with people who have been elected and president xi sees him as a threat.

but all of these remain speculative. we don't actually know what the reason is because the political system is extremely opaque. you say it's feasible that president xi sees him as a threat but realistically, is he a threat? he's the former leader, he's in his 70s and president xi's just got another third term for himself? i think president xi has tried to eliminate so many rivals and enemies in the last ten years that a lot of people he would potentially see as a threat. is hujintao the biggest threat? definitely no. but, you know, we can't really rule anything out because of the opacity of the system. does hujintao play a significant role in china's daily politics at the moment? he doesn't, but one could argue that taking such an important person out in, you know, just under public gaze is out to show that who is in charge, right? i mean, so, in a way, he becomes a scapegoat for symbolism purposes,

to showcase who is really in charge of the moment. as much as china's government officials tried to control the narrative on social media in china, there is a risk, isn't there, that taking a move like this could undermine president xi and 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. professor lynette 0ng from the university of toronto. 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 a party with neofascist roots to form a government in the republic�*s 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 coalition has proven to be notably fractious in the past week. former prime minister silvio berlusconi, one of her alliance partners with matteo salvini's league, described her as arrogant and bossy, then blamed ukraine the two exchanged gifts and very sweet letters, he said. in response, ms meloni reiterated her government would be strongly pro—nato and anyone who rejected that as far as foreign policy goes,

she will stay put, as in, ms meloni, madame meloni, she wants to stay on the european and nato side, but the alliance with salvini of la lega, and berlusconi with forza italia, are much more pro—russia. the biggest changees are expected internally rather than at a national level. ms meloni's government has changed the name of some there are rumours that mr salvini of lega won't get any kind of assignment of immigration, and they will go to mr musumeci, a sicilian politician, that now is the new minister on sea. don't ask me what it is about, i am sicilian myself, but now we have a minister on sea.

on sunday morning former pm mario draghi will officially hand over his post to ms meloni, the last step before the confidence vote on tuesday. stefano fasano, bbc news. the co—owner of the red bull formula 1 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. 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. 0thers 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. 0ur 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 different jobs. 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 0scar 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, 0scar 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. that's it from us for now. there is no on the bbc news

website, bbc.com/news. you can find me on twitter — i'm @richpreston. please get in touch. from all of us in london, thank you and goodbye. 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. 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 people

joined a rally in support of protesters in iran. it's the biggest demonstration by the iranian diaspora ever.