live from london. this is bbc news. help is here — the red cross delivers aid to nagorno—karabakh, the first consignment to arrive since azerbaijan captured the disputed territory four days ago. in the uk, borisjohnson urges the government not to scale back plans to build the h52 high speed rail link, amid speculation part of the route could be axed. ukraine says russian navy commanders were among those hit in friday's missile strike on the headquarters of the black sea fleet in occupied crimea. and as another incident believed to involve an american xl bully dog is reported in london, protesters march against the government's plans to ban the breed.

hello, i'm samantha simmonds. the international red cross says it's managed to deliver 70 tonnes of relief aid to the disputed enclave nagorno karabakh for the first time since azerbaijan captured the territory in a lightning operation five days ago. tens of thousands of armenians have sought refuge in the main city stepanakert, where food and medicine are running low, and power cuts are frequent. families remain stranded in the local airport, where russian peacekeepers are based. they are sleeping on the ground, cooking food on fire and not having an access to clean water. moscow said there were over 2,000 people, including 1,000 children, sheltering at the peacekeepers�* base camp. i was joined earlier by our correspondent rayhan demytrie who gave me the latest. the political situation is that karabakh armenians, they surrendered to azerbaijan.

they signed this ceasefire agreement on wednesday. and now what's happening is the process of disarmament, because that was part of the ceasefire agreement, that karabakh armenians agreed to lay down their arms. and this process is ongoing. today, the minister of defence of azerbaijan published a list of military equipment that has been seized so far. but of course, all eyes are on the humanitarian situation in nagorno—karabakh itself, in the regional capital, stepanakert, where there are thousands of people who were displaced by the conflict. and as we speak, they are in the basements with no electricity, no heating, very little food and lots of uncertainty. rayhan, if the ceasefire holds, is a big effect, could mark the end of a conflict that has raged on for decades. what's the sense in the region of whether or not this could be a long term end to this? well, for sure. what happened on tuesday was almost kind of finale of the war that began three years ago in 2020,

when azerbaijan launched a military offensive to retake its territories that it lost in the 1990s to armenia, and it succeeded militarily. three years ago, it retook lots of territories surrounding the enclave of nagorno—karabakh. and now, on tuesday, it finally moved to kind of establish full control over this territory. but once again, there is still quite a lot of uncertainty because azerbaijani authorities are not in the regional capital, stepa na kert. there were talks between azerbaijan and karabakh armenians and azerbaijan says that there will be many more needed to come to the terms and to start the process of reintegration, as they say. earlier i also spoke with jason straziuso, spokesperson for the international committe of the red cross. he brought us up to speed on the humanitarian work they are doing in the area. the last couple of days, we sent in several convoys,

70 tonnes of humanitarian goods. that was mostly wheat flour, but also yeast and some sunflower oil. obviously, the supplies can be used to make bread and other bakery items. that's an indication of how dire the situation is. not enough food, not enough medical supplies. that convoy that we sent in today did drop off some medical supplies but it also dropped off body bags. not so pleasant to think about, but an important aspect of this is dignified management of the dead. so it's a well rounded humanitarian effort from our teams the last couple of days. and take us through the geography. what areas are your aid managing to get through to? well, we're going into the region through two different roads. the roads that are available to us and that has...that...the main road, the last corridor has been blockaded for a while. we have moved through there.

we have done medical evacuations there over the course of the last several weeks. we did medical evacuations today of 17 people. we did nine yesterday. so over the last 72 hours, let's say, there has been an increase in humanitarian access. and what assurances have you received from the warring factions that you are going to be able to do your work to get into the areas that you need to? i think the sides understand that we are a neutral organisation, that we don't take sides. this helps facilitate the activity, the work that we carry out. we have close contact with both sides and we wouldn't be able to move through without permission and we don't seek to move through without permission. so those open channels of communication are in place all the time and allow us to carry out these these trips. you obviously have your own kind of stocks, but what's your expectation from the international community in this kind of situation? one of our approaches is to work

with other nations that might be allied or partners with the governments involved here and remind the governments involved that they do have a humanitarian duty, that medical supplies must be allowed through, the food must be allowed through, and that anyone who's wounded or sick must be allowed to receive medical care. so those kind of conversations do take place with other nations that might be involved in this region. here in the uk, dozens of business leaders have written to the government expressing "deep concern" over what they call the "consta nt uncertainty" which they say "plagues" the hs2 high speed rail link. the former prime minister borisjohnson has also warned ministers not to — in his words — "mutilate" the project by scrapping the birmingham to manchester leg. rishi sunak has refused to deny he might scale back hs2 because of spiralling costs. noor nanji reports.

it's a massive, decades—long project, meant to create more capacity and speed up journey times. but hs2 has also been plagued by delays, cuts and spiralling costs. it was only earlier this year the government announced it was pausing work on the new central london terminus here at euston. now question marks are hanging over the line that links the west midlands and crewe, before moving on to manchester. recently, the prime minister rishi sunak and chancellorjeremy hunt have not been willing to say that they are committed to hs2 being built to manchester, casting fresh doubt over the project's future. the labour shadow chancellor rachel reeves has also refused to commit. in a letter to government, business leaders and companies including manchester airports group, british land, virgin money and the northern powerhouse, have called for clarification and renewed commitment to hs2. the letter expresses deep concern over the constant uncertainty over the project, adding that repeated mixed signals were damaging the uk's reputation

as a place to do business. i hope the prime minister takes the weekend to reflect on being a northern mp and what he should be putting first. the future of the country, or the short—term interests of the conservative party. because former tory leaders and britain's leading business people are all telling him he needs to think again before he makes what might be his worst decision as prime minister. today, the chair of the national infrastructure commission warned against truncating the line. the importance of this railway line is that it connects the three principal cities in britain, london, birmingham, manchester. it's a significant part of the government's levelling up agenda, it has already started to create big opportunities in birmingham and it will do the same in manchester and across the north west. it will link into the government's new railway which it is planning to build between manchester and leeds. this is a fundamental part of levelling up. and to stop it now would be a tragedy. former prime minister borisjohnson has also weighed in, urging the government against building a "mutilated" version of hs2.

on thursday, the chancellor insisted no decisions had been made, but once again the route ahead for hs2 seems uncertain. noor nanji, bbc news. paul chapman, seniorfellow at the sayeed business school and vice president at the association for project managers, gave us his analysis of the costs of the project. if i were a betting person, those costs are also likely to go up further and that's where i think the government really needs to be clear on what the benefits, on what the purpose of the project is. a big project like this needs the government to own the why, why are we doing that, and help make that clear. do you think that case was ever really made? i think it's one of the issues that has dogged this project. it was called high speed 2 and then there was this change of the narrative. oh, it's about economic development across the nation and more recently we've heard it's about capacity.

i think it would be super helpful if we got back to why. if i was to make one simple recommendation, it's also a railway, people need to get across the country and around the country. we've not had a whisper of what a timetable is. when can i go on this train? at eight o'clock in the morning, at what time will i arrive at my destination? how many trains now will there be? we saw a bit of that with crossrail. so crossrail, now the elizabeth line, also had a period of time when it was really struggling. what we've got now is people love the elizabeth line and what they love about it is how often the trains run. so i think it started quite simply, three orfour trains an hour, and now it's a train about every three minutes and you know what time you're going to get to that destination. so to bring some of that confidence, which needs to percolate around government, let's start the story with passengers and why

people would want to go and use the railway. ukraine says russian commanders were among those injured in friday's missile strikes on the headquarters of russia's black sea fleet in occupied crimea. the building in sevastopol appears to have been hit by at least two missiles, causing extensive damage. there are reports that the missiles used were storm shadow missiles supplied by britain and france. it comes as reports in us media suggest america is planning to give ukraine more advanced, longer—range missiles to help with its ongoing counteroffensive against russia. meanwhile, russia's foreign minister, sergey lavrov, has used his address to the united nations general assembely in new york to criticise the united states, nato and the european union for trying to force the world to play according to their own "self—centered rules". translation: the collective west has a calling card and it's long been - to reject the principle of equality and their total inability

to reach agreement. being used to looking down at the rest of the world, americans and europeans make all sorts of promises and they take on commitments, written ones and legally binding ones, and then theyjust don't fulfil them. as president putin pointed out, the west is one that is truly an empire of lies. russia, like many countries, knows about this first—hand. earlier i spoke to phillips 0'brien, professor of strategic studies at st andrews university. he told me there was a lot missing from mr lavrov�*s address. it was a speech that you would say really comes from the point of view of weakness on ukraine, that he couldn't even mention the ukraine war, that there was no discussion of russia's right to invade ukraine, of russia's annexation of ukraine, the parts of ukraine. so, in that sense, it was really running away from the story of the moment which is the fact

that the russian army is an ukraine and fighting a huge war. so i think we have to say it is expected but it is not a speech of strength. yeah, he also said that ukraine's peace formula was completely not feasible. what do you mean by that? is that about president zelensky saying that russia would have to leave every inch of ukraine for a peace to be declared? that is exactly right. the ukrainian position now is that ukraine has its internationally recognised borders and peace can be achieved when russia leaves ukraine and so that ukraine is restored to its original borders. the russian position actually legally now, it is against international law but the russian parliament has annexed parts of ukraine, so they are saying those are now parts of russia. basically, the visions of a peace treaty now are too far away. neither side has any sort of reason to negotiate with the other at present and so i think lavrov

was just simply saying, don't think there is going to be a peace deal because there won't. so let's talk about the war itself and these reports that the us is to give kyiv long—range atacms missiles. just tell us what those are and what difference they could make in the warfor ukraine. unlike the storm shadows which we have been hearing about a lot for the last few weeks, "attack—�*ems", they're usuallyjust referred to as "attack—�*ems", are ground—based, they are fired from the himars system, they are very long range, they are actually a little bit longer range than the storm shadows, and the storm shadows go up to 250 kilometres, attack �*ems can be 300, so they are a little bit longer range and they are very explosive, they carry a big punch, so itjust will add greater range to the ukrainian campaign on crimea. what we are seeing now is a real concerted ukrainian campaign on crimea, and that is something the attack �*ems could make a really big difference on as they can hit basically anything in crimea,

and they can do a great deal of damage. the comedian and actor russell brand says it has been �*an extraordinary and distressing week�* after rape and sexual assault allegations were made against him. in a video published on social media he thanked his fans for their support and criticised news outlets, the government, and tech companies. ellie price reports. hello there, you awakening wonders. a direct appeal to supporters, with no direct mention of the allegations against him. obviously it's been an extraordinary and distressing week and i thank you very much for your support and for questioning the information that you've been presented with. in this three—minute video, russell brand talks instead about media corruption and collusion. i need your support now more than ever and more than i ever imagined i would. july the 1st 2012 was when my rape happened... this week russell brand faced allegations of rape and sexual assault following claims made by four women in the channel 4 dispatches programme

and the times and sunday times. he denies the claims and insists his relationships have always been consensual. the bbc has also heard from one woman who said the comedian exposed himself to her in a bathroom in this building in los angeles where he was recording his radio 2 programme. he then joked about the alleged incident minutes later on air. by now you're probably aware that the british government has asked big tech platforms to censor our online content and that some online platforms have complied. youtube has now suspended russell brand from making money from adverts after it said he had violated its creator responsibility policy. 0nline retailer asos has asked for its adverts to be pulled on rumble, the digital platform on which mr brand plans to post his next video on monday. the bbc has made several requests to talk to mr brand over the past week but he has avoided questions and scrutiny, choosing instead to speak directly to his followers on social media.

but the questions keep coming. and the investigations into his alleged behaviour continue. please, if you can, stay free. ellie price, bbc news. now it's time for a look at today's sport with lizzie. hello, from the bbc sport centre. we start at the rugby world cup where the joint favourites, south africa and ireland, are playing each other. it's very low scoring so far. we are into the second half, south africa are leading eight points to seven. earlier, england sliced apart pool d's weakest opposition to all but qualify for the quarterfinals. wing henry arundell scored five tries — the most tries by an england men's player in a test. he's also now the tournament's top try—scorer. england will complete their pool—stage campaign in a fortnight�*s time against samoa, and could even be assured of their last—eight place before then, should other results work their way. portugal narrowly missed out on what would have been the country's first rugby world cup win — two tries from winger

raffaele storti levelled it at 18—ll with georgia. nuno guedes then missed a penalty kick with the last chance of the game so portugal had to settle with merely avoiding defeat in a world cup match for the first time. 0nto football and manchester united are hoping to end a run of three defeats — they're a goal up at burnley in the late premier league kick—off. while league leaders manchester city comfortably beat nottingaham forest despite having a player sent off — rodri was given a red card just inside the second half. phil foden and earlin haaland scored the goals. that's played six, won six for city so far this season. i think it's not hard with the leaders that we've got in the group, the likes of kyle, reuben and even the manager, they always want more, they're always determined to keep winning and that feeds through the team and everyone feels the passion. i think this year we've had

a really strong start, even better than last year, and we want to keep doing that now and keep playing good football. elsewhere luton finally have their first point of the season, after a hard fought draw against wolves. crystal palace and fulham cancelled each other out in a goalless draw at selhurst park and everton had their first win of the seaosn at brentford. in spain, three goals in the final ten minutes helped barcalona fight back in la liga against celta vigo and go top of the table on goal difference. two from robert lewandoski and another from joao cancelo meant the score finished 3—2. they now leapfrog real madrid and girona who've had made an impressive start to the season — they beat mallorca 5—3. 0sasuna—sevilla was a goalless draw. it's fair to say things are going well for england captain harry kane in the bundesliga. he scored his first hat trick today as bayern munich thrashed bochum 7—nil. kane has now scored seven goals in his first five matches

for the german table toppers. in italy's serie a, juventus came back twice from a goal down, but suffered their first defeat of the season in a 11—2 thriller with sassoulo. joint leaders ac milan won at home against hellas verona. europe's golfers staged an incredible fightback at the solheim cup to make it all—square with the usa going into the final day. after starting 5—3 down, europe clawed it back to 8—all in andalucia, with just the singles matches left tomorrow. the cricket world cup is now less than a fortnight away and defending champions england have shown they have plenty of strength in depth. an experimental second string team with four debutantes set ireland 335 to win their second one day international at trent bridge. man of the match willjacks hit 94 and sam hain made 89. in reply, barry mccarthy made 41 with craig young and josh little adding 55 for the last wicket before ireland were bowled out

for 286, losing by 48 runs. the series concludes in bristol on tuesday. and that's all the sport for now. pope francis says that european governments must do more to care for migrants crossing the mediterranean. closing a meeting of bishops and young people from around the mediterranean in marseille, he said migration is "a reality of our times, a process that involves three continents around the mediterranean and that must be governed with wise foresight." the pope also warned againt the spread of infammatory propaganda. translation: many mediterranean ports have however closed. it has resonated and fuelled people �*s fears, invasion and emergency. ports close themselves but those who risk their lives at sea, doesn't invade. they

are looking for shelter, for life. a man's been taken to hospital in london after being attacked by a dog, believed to be an american xl bully — the same breed that prime minster rishi sunak has pledged to ban. meanwhile, demonstrators rallied in central london in opposition to the proposed ban. mr sunak has promised to ban the breed under the dangerous dogs act by the end of the year in response to a series of attacks, but owners are not expected to face a cull of their pets. instead they could face a requirement to neuter their dogs and muzzle them in public. the bbc has learned that the government has disbanded a taskforce that was set up to improve energy efficiency in homes. ministers wrote to the group yesterday saying its work would be "streamlined" into ongoing government activity. on thursday, rishi sunak announced he was scrapping energy efficiency regulations for landlords, as part of an overhaul of green policies. jonathan atkinson is the director of the manchester—based carbon co—op that helps people reduce home carbon emissions.

he told me he was confused by the decision to scrap the energy efficiency taskforce. six months ago, jeremy hunt got up in parliament and said we needed this task force because it was a great priority for the government, that we needed to reduce our dependency on foreign gas and the price spikes that we have seen since the war in ukraine and that we needed to reduce bills. and as a result they wanted to put in a long—term strategy in place and to establish an energy efficiency task force. fantastic, we welcomed that, so, six months later, where are we? is it mission accomplished? we are not seeing any long—term plans and certainly what happened on wednesday suggests a rowing back. i would like to highlight the fact that it was a year ago that liz truss's government put in place financial support for very high bills. and we have spent £40 billion in the last year supporting householders, so what happens when the next price hike comes along?

do we simply spend that money again or do we invest in a long—term strategy? well, that is the point. it is a long—term strategy. as we understand it, the government says this task force, the work that they were going to be doing was streamlined into other government activities so hopefully not an end to it, or certainly that is their explanation. how important is it, though? obviously you think it is clearly very important but the work they were doing, do you know that there were any tangible outcomes from it? was there anything specific that had come out of that task force in the past six months that was going to change the way that people operate in their homes and improve energy efficiency? there was a lot of ambition around it. one of the things is looking at a coherent strategy where we are joining things up so there was a lot of hope that good things would come out of it, but it simply hasn't been put in place long enough for it to come out with anything constructive, and as i say, it is very confusing that they should be disbanding now because surely now is the time

that they will be coming forward with some concrete proposals and hopefully actually seeing things change on the ground. the liberal democrats are in bournemouth for their autumn conference — theirfirst in—person conference in four years. party leader sir ed davey said he was "firing the starting gun" on the next general election. the lib dems have promised to double statutory shared parental pay to £350 per week, and increase shared parental leave to 46 weeks. they've also promising free nursing home care in england — partly funded by nhs savings. and finally, some small signs of hope sprouting in hawaii, after wildfires devastated an iconic banyan tree on the island of maui. this is what the 150—year—old tree looked like after deadly fires ripped through the town on lahaina in august, with some residents fearing it might die altogether. but now the tree is showing fresh signs of life. you can see green leaves shooting up along what is believed to be the largest banyan tree in the country — giving a signal of hope to those still recovering from the devastating fires.

stay with us here on bbc news. hello. in many parts of the uk, cloud amounts have been increasing during today, signalling a change for the rest of the weekend. some warmer but wetter and windier weather on the way. it's all thanks to a weather system that contains the remnants of what was hurricane nigel. certainly not a hurricane any more but providing an injection of tropical moisture into this area of low pressure. some very heavy rain across some western areas as we head through tonight. further pulses of rain returning to the south west of england and wales later on, quite windy for a time, particularly around western coasts and much, much milder than it was last night. by the end of the night, we will be between 10 and 16 degrees. sunday morning starting on a mild note but with low pressure firmly in charge, a couple of different frontal systems which will provide some

outbreaks of very heavy rain. this rain tending to affect western and northern parts of the country, so western england, wales, northern ireland, western scotland seeing some outbreaks of rain. further south and east, more in the way of dry weather, some spells of sunshine and actually with the southerly winds it is going to feel pretty warm in the south—east corner. large swathes actually of england and wales up to 20 or 21 degrees, even further north could see 18, 19, 20 across some northern parts of scotland. as we head through sunday evening, this band of very heavy, squally rain pushing across south—west england and wales. northern ireland very wet for a time and that rain really setting in across scotland, perhaps enough rain for some flooding and disruption. gusts of wind of 50 or 60 mph. through sunday night into monday, that frontal system sweeps away eastwards but low pressure will still be firmly in charge of our weather, so for monday, yes, there will be spells of sunshine, i think parts of england and wales will stay dry but northern ireland and scotland seeing some pretty hefty showers, it stays quite windy.

temperatures of 15 to 22 degrees, so broadly speaking above the norm for the time of year. then as we head towards the middle part of the week we will have to keep a close eye on this one. a developing area of low pressure. huge uncertainty aboutjust how deep this low might become, exactly where it will move across the uk, but the chance for some very heavy rain and possibly some very strong winds around the middle part of the week. broadly speaking, a very unsettled week ahead.

this is bbc news, the headlines... in the uk, borisjohnson urges the government not to scale back plans to build the hs2 high speed rail link amid speculation part of the route could be axed. the british government has disbanded a taskforce that worked to speed up the insulation of homes and the installation of better boilers. it's part of wider changes involving weakening some environmental targets. britain has some of the oldest and least energy—efficient housing in europe. russell brand posts a video online saying it's been an "extraordinary and distressing" week — his first public comments since sexual assault allegations were made against him. he didn't address the claims directly, but has previously said his relationships were "always consensual". and as another incident believed to involve an american xl

bully dog is reported in london.