bbc persian has spoken to them.e statement. we are hoping they would ta ke statement. we are hoping they would take action, investigate the matter. amends will be made. i am sure that this is an issue of high priority, ofa this is an issue of high priority, of a very serious nature, where the government should be able to find out why this is happening, whose doing it, and who ordered it. we have raised our concerns in turn as we do. the way it works is, we will communicate directly with the government and we will face beamed to the effect without prejudice to the truth of these allegations, if they are true, we are very concerned, and we raise very serious concerns concerned, and we raise very serious concerns with the government just over the last couple of days. earlier, i spoke to bbc persian regular describing the sense of the harassment. we have been through yea rs of harassment. we have been through years of intimidation and harassment. it started in 2009 around the dispute of the presidential election in whic

one of my colleagues from bbc persian on set to give us their first hand account. rico's power network.

iranian authorities initiated a criminal investigation into 152 bbc persian staff, former staff, andtributors. iran claims a conspiracy against national security, and has frozen the assets of bbc personnel. iraq's autonomous kurdistan region has offered to freeze the results of the referendum on independence and begin dialogue with baghdad. the move to break away resulted in iraqi troops seizing areas controlled by the kurds since 2014, including the disputed city of kirkuk. president trump has called to congratulate his chinese counterpart, xi jinping, for his reelection as communist party leader. china's president and his party tightened their grip on the country following a weeklong national corn costs -- national congress. john's ft. -- john sudworth has been granted a rare interview with the chinese human rights lawyer. reporter: we enter through the basement, in an attempt to avoid the surveillance. there are few occupations more sensitive in china right now than that of a human rights lawyer. he is the first to dare to speak out about his ordeal. >> they withheld food. they di

we will speak to our bbc persian correspondent based in new york. of iran. how serious would they be for the country? the ones that we re were announced today are not significant, because they are a continuation of going after certain companies' individuals that the us is deemed to be helping, the ballistic missile programme or the ballistic missile programme or the revolutionary guards. the ones that matter are the ones that possibly the united states congress could pass, with the blessing of president trump, as he has asked them to, which will trigger if iran does not abide by the new terms that the united states wants to impose or dictate individually and outside of the framework, the p five plus one. that remains to be seen whether the us senate and the us house of representatives will actually pick that up, will they passive, will be... what will be in it? but in whatever way they try to change the terms of the deal, that would basically amount to a violation of the deal by the united states and nobody, not just iran, the deal by the united sta

that story is on bbc persian. we have followed this closely.t follow orders from the spanish government if madrid moves to take back control over the region. it's after prime minister mariano rajoy set out plans to sack the region's government, which is led by carles puigdemont. take a look at this. earlier today, catalan ministers met for crisis talks in barcelona, ahead of a full meeting of the catalan parliament on thursday. ahead of that important session, the spanish government have said once again that any declaration of independence will be met with direct rule from madrid. translation: if, at the end, we see at thursday's plena recession that there is a temptation by the pro—independence parties to carry out a unilateral declaration of independence, this will make it clear to us as a parliamentary group, and the government of spain asa managing group, and the government of spain as a managing body, that we must act accordingly. but catalan leaders have reiterated they will not accept madrid reasserting control over the region. here's wh

i've been speaking to our bbc persian correspondent. donald trump want out of the deal. you think it's a bad agreement, he said it several times before. —— he thinks it is. he has said iran has gone against the spirit of the nuclear agreement. i presume he's referring to iran's ballistic missile programme and the ballistic missile programme and the ballistic missile programme the un security council enshrine that nuclear programme in that security council resolution. it has said its calls on iran not to carry out activities to do with ballistic missile is, just calls on iran not to do it. iran has been doing this but iran says these are not ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. there is debate on that. president trump has focused on that, saying that this is against the spirit of the agreement and he wants to re—negotiate as far asi and he wants to re—negotiate as far as i know this agreement and the iranians are adamantly against. we expect an announcement on thursday, we've heard from the iraqi nuclear chief, who s

the bbc has lodged an urgent complaint at the united nations against iran over its treatment of bbc persiantaff. and we'll look at how a small business in the us state of montana secured a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild puerto rico's power network. let's return to china and the conclusion of the communist party national congress. there's been lots of reaction on social media to the unveiling of the country's new leadership. more reaction from outside of the chinese mainland than inside it. a lot of it has focused on the make up of the committee. the gender balance is way off. this is carrie gracie‘s the bbc‘s correspondent. gender wasn't the only thing generating discussion — their appearance did too. they are very similar, all in their 60s, wearing similar black suits and a range of coloured ties similar to each other and some jokes followed from that. some say that the new look should have been something a bit more like this, but i think it's unlikely! i have been speaking to a member of the bbc monitoring staff who said that this is not a surprise. in the state

the bbc has accused iran of launching an offensive against staff at bbc persian service. rs. iran claims a conspiracy against national—security and has also frozen the assets of bbc personnel. this is beyond 100 days and still to come. . . saying goodbye to britain. we speak to the poles packing their bag and returning home — does brexit have anything to do with it? we'll be finding out. the uk's economy had higher than expected growth in the three months to september — increasing the chances of a rise in interest rates next month. the office for national statistics suggests the level of gdp, or the total amount of goods and services produced in the uk, rose by 0.4%, with strong performances being seen in the services and manufacturing industries. our economics editor kamal ahmed reports. not exactly firing on all cylinders but today better news on the economy that will have cheered the chancellor. he visited the francis crick research centre in london, just the kind of high—skilled innovation he would like to encourage. a little bit of autumnal sunshine fell on the econom