The uks oldest travel firm, thomas cook, has announced it ceased trading after talks with creditors and shareholders to raise the 250 million to avoid collapse failed. Ministers say plans to fly holidaymakers back to the uk are in place. It was one of the Worlds Largest travel firms and employed 22,000 staff, 9,000 of whom are in the uk, and serves 19 million customers a year in 16 Different Countries. Simon calder is the travel editorfor the independent and he joins us from Manchester Airport in the north of england. The Tour Operator had been thriving for many decades and staff here are simply stunned by what is happening. The flights are still coming in. Aircraft arriving from cyprus, turkey, some en route across the north atlantic but when they land, they will find that the staff very sadly have lost theirjobs. The passengers will be the last people to enjoy the service and this is being repeated at airports across britain and germany as well as scandinavia. Last flights arriving at the same time, rescue operation getting under way. There are aircraft going away from here at Manchester Airport and across europe. Mainly heading to mediterranean airports. There, the passengers will be bought back hopefully on the day they were due to finish their holidays. They are in the good position. The less fortu nate in the good position. The less fortunate position of the million or so travellers who have forward bookings with thomas cook who are finding they dont have their vacations, sorry about the noise here, theyre vacations, sorry about the noise here, they re making vacations, sorry about the noise here, theyre making a lot of announcements, they are going to have to book new flights. That is an announcement telling people that the company has gone under and if you go to the check in area which is on a different floor from to the check in area which is on a different floorfrom here, its to the check in area which is on a different floor from here, its a very airy side. Nobody there, just a few travellers going up who have not heard the news. The first were due to go off an hourfrom now on heard the news. The first were due to go off an hour from now on they have not been going out and itjust means many people have lost their jobs, many people have lost their vacations and its going to be the end ofan vacations and its going to be the end of an era for this very, very historic farm. The founders pioneers of package travel in the world owes a great deal to thomas cook. 0bviously a great deal to thomas cook. Obviously its of a different era and it wasnt ready for 21st century. A lot of people will be asking, how did this happen . Do you think there was partial mismanagement or as you say, itjust didnt keep up with the times . M was using a model that was great for the second half of the 20th century where people would immediately go into their travel agency and book a package holiday for one week or two weeks and go off and enjoy it. Now, of course, everybody can pretend they are a travel agent at least, theyve got access to all the airline seats, or the car rentals in the world and they can put things together themselves and thomas cook, even though its great of full of great professionals, it simply wasnt differentiating enough, it wasnt differentiating enough, it wasnt making the most of its expertise and its mighty brand name soa expertise and its mighty brand name so a great deal of sadness that this company has folded and many, many sad company has folded and many, many sa d fa ces company has folded and many, many sad faces and many tears at Manchester Airport. Simon calder, travel editor of the independent, thank you very much for your time. The Civil Aviation authority here in the uk has had a lot to say about repatriating british people. Tim johnson, policy director of the Civil Aviation authority, had this advice for passengers. First and foremost, this is a very sad day for the employees and the customers of thomas cook company, that has been trading for 178 years. What is really important this morning if customers, passangers have a flight booked out from the uk today, unfortunately, your flight has been cancelled so please do not go to the airport. If you are overseas on a thomas cook holiday, then you can continue to enjoy your holiday. The caa is launching a repatriation, this is the largest repatriation since the second world war, and we will be bringing home everybody, back to the uk, as close as possible to their return date. We have lodged a website, a dedicated website, that has got all of the details of those return flights, and the address for that website is thomascook. Caa. Co. Uk. For people who are not british, who are watching, people from Different Countries who are on holiday with thomas cook, is there any advice for them . Should they be turning to the British Government or their own governments . The Civil Aviation authority is a focused on bringing back people to the uk. That is what our role is. In other countries in europe, the regulator and the governments will be responsible for the arrangements in their areas. So for your viewers who are elsewhere in europe, we would ask them to talk to or get in touch with the relevant aviation regulator or government who will guide those passangers as to what to do next. This must be a huge operation for the Civil Aviation authority. Are flights being charted . How is the authority going about getting enough planes to get people home . Youre right, this is a huge operation, 150,000 people currently abroad. We have charted over a0 aircraft and those aircraft are already in position and, in the next few hours, we will start bringing passengers home. It is a big operation, were talking about 55 destinations, a thousand flights over the next two weeks. Part of ourjob is to have this contingency plans in place, and in the last few hours we have been implementing those. The scale of the operation is really important. 150,000 thats a population equivalent in size of a town like 0xford or huddersfield. We are doing our absolute best but wed ask passengers to bear with us if there is a bit of disruption. The most important thing for everybody is to go to the website thomascook. Caa. Co. Uk and thats got all of the details for what passangers currently overseas should do, but particularly if youre in the uk and expecting to go out on a flight from the uk, wed say, please, do not go to the airport because very sadly yourflight has been cancelled. 0ur undestanding is that, even before the news came out, that thomas cook had gone into liquidation, that the Aviation Authority was actually sending aircraft to destinations, it was preparing. How early did you start those preparations before news of what happened even broke . We have contingency plans in place for all sorts of different outcomes. We have been prepositioning some aircraft in the last few hours but really it is only when the directors of the companies, the ones who are legally responsible for running the company, made that decision to put the company into administration and got the necessary legal agreements to do that from the court this morning, that is the point at which we put the operation into a live status and that has been running for the last hour or so. How did you get the news that the company had folded . We got the news through the Court Proceedings. Theres a short sort of Court Proceeding which is the official step to put into administration and, as soon as that happened, we were given notice that the company had gone into administration and that is the point at which we officially launched and formally launched our plans. That website is now up thomascook. Caa. Co. Uk and that has got all the information that anyone would need so they know what to do next. What i would ask if you have friends and family, either who were due to go on holiday today or are currently overseas on a thomas cook holiday, wed ask them just for you to get in contact with them and just make sure they are aware of this news and draw their attention to the website. We have talked about the difficulty for staff and you said this is a very sad day for those who work for thomas cook, for those pilots arriving in those planes and the staff who are landing at airports, how will they find out the news . How will they know that they essentially no longer have jobs . I think you are right, this is incredibly sad news for all the employees of thomas cook. There will be representatives at the airport who will obviously sort of talk to those staff and what i would like to say is a number of thomas cook staff will be staying on in helping us with the repatriation effort and we are incredibly grateful to them and to other members of the Aviation Community who are helping us organise this repatriation, but particularly for those thomas cook employees that are helping us at this difficult time we are hugely appreciative of their efforts. We have talked a lot about people who are already on holidays. People who have booked flights but obviously they cannot now take them, how will they be reimbursed . Can they expect to be reimbursed . For customers who have not yet started their holiday, we will shortly be publishing details of how they can claim a refund. Again, details of that will be on the website. If customers are protected they will get their moneys refunded. We will have details of that on the microsite no later than next monday. Talking to us about what customers should do now that thomas cook, that holiday tourism company, has collapsed. We will keep you across all the latest there as it continues to have develop. Lets get some of the days other news. Israels president has called on the two main rivals in last weeks election to come together to form what he called a stable coalition. President Reuven Rivlin held talks on sunday with representatives from Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahus likud party and benny gantzs blue and white. The arab list meanwhile, which came third, has thrown its support behind blue white. The chairman of the Us House Intelligence Committee says the contents of a telephone conversation between donald trump and his ukrainian counterpart could be grounds for the president s impeachment. Adam schiff said if it was proven that mr trump pressured Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate the democratic president ial frontrunnerjoe biden, impeachment would be the only option. The Rugby World Cup injapan saw three games on sunday, england beating tonga 35 points to 3 in their opening match. Ireland beat scotland 27 3, while italy hammered namibia 47 22. Wales will face georgia later on monday. Stay with us on bbc news, still to come. Well have more on our breaking news this hour. The British Travel firm thomas cook has collapsed, stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the world and triggering a huge repatriation effort. Ben johnson, the fastest man on earth is flying home to canada in disgrace. All the athletes should be clean going into the games. Im just happy that justice is served. It is a simple fact that this morning these people were in their homes. Tonight, those homes have been burned down by serbian soldiers and police. All the taliban positions along here have been strengthened, presumably in case the americans invade. Its no use having a secret service which cannot preserve its own secrets against the world and so the British Government has no option but to continue this action even after any adverse judgement in australia. Concorde have crossed the atlantic faster than any plane ever before, breaking the record by six minutes. This is bbc world news. The latest headlines britains oldest travel company, the partly chinese owned firm, thomas cook, has ceased trading. Officials are now organising the uks largest ever peacetime repatriation for tens of thousands of tourists. Lets stay on that story, and our reporter simonjones has been following the story. He gave me this update. Thomas cook, one of the biggest and best known firms that has been trading for 178 years, last year dealt with around 19 million customers and the news came in the early hours and it was from the Civil Aviation authority here in the uk, and it was fairly brutal and to the point. It basically said thomas cook had ceased trading with immediate effect and that means all flights of thomas cook and all future holidays are cancelled with immediate effect. That has left hundreds of thousands of people stranded abroad, 150,000 uk holidaymakers and lots of other people from countries across europe and around the world, particularly a lot of german holidaymakers and people from scandinavian countries as well, 600 thousand people currently affected abroad. There were bookings for another million or so people for travel dates in the future. We have heard from the Civil Aviation authority in the last few minutes saying International Customers are going to have to talk to their governments to get home. What is the British Government doing about british customers . They are launching what they are calling a huge enormous operation to bring british holidaymakers back home. It is going to be the biggest repatriation of uk citizens since the second world war. When monarch went bust a few years ago, they brought back almost 100,000 passengers. Here we are talking about an extra 50,000 on top of that. The uk authorities have charted more than a0 planes over the next two weeks, this operation will take a couple of weeks to sort out, they will run Something Like 1000 flights to return people home. They are warning that inevitably when you are dealing with that number of people in a complex situation, there are likely to be some disruption and delays along the way, but it is expected that people can continue on their holidays at the hotel they are currently at, if they are abroad at the moment, and theirflights should in theory operate on the same day they were due to return to the uk. There may be a case where some people might have to fly to different airports or the flight might be changed by a day or two, but they are trying to stick to a timetable as much as possible. It is not a case of britain will try and get all 150,000 people out today or tomorrow or the next few days. It is going to take a couple of weeks. Holidaymakers are told although it is fairly uncertain times, not to panic, continue to enjoy the holiday, but we are talking about people who are on holiday at the moment. People have bookings in the future, it is a different situation. China is expected to face further pressure to reduce its Carbon Emissions when Global Leaders meet at the un on monday for a special summit on climate change. Renewable Energy Sources have increased in china, but coal is still the largest source of electricity generation. With the un pushing for a commitment to end the use of coal by 2030, our correspondentjohn sudworth asks whether china can deliver. On average, china has built a solar farm as big as this one every day for the past three years. A rush to renewables personified by cai xiaohu. He used to work in a coal mine. Translation our solar plant can save 50,000 or 60,000 tons of coal each year. Im proud doing thisjob and working in this industry. But there is a long way to go. With its massive coal reserves still used for 60 of its energy, china produces more than a quarter of the worlds Carbon Emissions. And it may bear more than its fair share of the consequences too. Asias High Mountain glaciers, a vital source of water for millions, are under serious threat. They are retreating very fast, its about one metre per year by thickness, as much as 50 metres a year by mass. 50 metres a year . The largest, yes. So, thats why some glaciers in the south eastern Tibetan Plateau will be disappearing very soon. The countrys communist rulers do have what might be called an authoritarian advantage huge powers to support and promote new technologies. China is now producing and installing these panels in such volume that the economies of scale means something extraordinary and very important is happening. The industry is reaching what it calls grid parity, the point at which getting electricity from these things is now cheaper per unit than generating it from coal. But chinas authoritarian system also protects vested interests. There are troubling signs that its recently resumed Building Work on new coal power stations. To tell whether china is a real climate leader or not, this is really the moment. China, on one hand, is indeed now the largest investor of some of the most advanced Renewable Energy technologies in the world. But on the other hand, china also has its darker side. Chinas stance at the new york conference will be watched closely. Despite big positive steps, its coal habit will be a hard one to break. Awards season in the us has just kicked off with the Emmy Television awards. Brit Phoebe Waller bridge has taken gongs for best writing and best actress in a Comedy Series a short while later, both for her hit show fleabag. Bill hader also took the nod for best actor in a Comedy Series for barry. Meanwhile, game of thrones which ended this year is still expecting to win big. Its nominated in a record 32 categories. And sandra oh and jodie comer from the bbcs killing eve are up against each other for lead actress. Thousands of Indian Americans have attended a joint rally by President Trump and the indian Prime Minister, narendra modi, in texas. The howdy modi rally was described by organisers as the largest ever reception for a foreign leader in the United States other than the pope. Both leaders were full of compliments, as they addressed the crowd. We are witnessing history in the making mr president. You have introduced me to your family in 2017. And today. I have the honour to introduce you to my family cheering and applause i have also come to express my profound gratitude to the nearly 4 million amazing Indian Americans across our country. Applause. You enrich our culture. You uphold our values. You uplift our communities and you are truly proud to be american and we are proud to have you as americans. Cheering and applause. We thank you, we love you and i want you to know that my administration is fighting for you each and every day. Music these days can be consumed in so many ways. You can stream the latest releases, or download a song to your phone. But many still want something physical to hold in their hands. And if you like vinyl, theres a place in new york that will definitely hit the right note. The bbcs tim allman explains. There are record collections, and then there are record collections. This is the archive of contemporary music, what claims to be the largest collection of popular music in the world. Bob george began the archive in 1985 world. Bob george began the archive in1985 in world. Bob george began the archive in 1985 in manhattans tribeca neighbourhood, when the rents were cheap. Although he was a little relu cta nt to cheap. Although he was a little reluctant to begin with. After a couple of years i had 117,000 records. Then i wanted to give them away. But no one was really interested because they were mostly reggae, punk, experimental music. And hip hop. Freak out the collection consists of around 3 million recordings, more than 20 million songs. Spanning the range of pop, rock, funk, country, hip hop, to name but a few. And this isa hip hop, to name but a few. And this is a collection that is only getting bigger and bigger. We just said yes, yes, yes to everything, and thats a problem, because people keep dropping stuff. People dont have space in new york. Thats great. Spaceis space in new york. Thats great. Space is so expensive. We are getting more and more every year. The most obscure trucks can be found in this treasure trove of musical history. Tracks. When the Grammy Museum wanted the details for some 3000 record labels and cutters, they came here. But there is one rule. Classical music is not allowed. A reminder of our top story. The British TravelCompany Thomas Cook has ceased trading, stranding more than 150,000 customers overseas. The uks Civil Aviation authority has launched its biggest ever repatriation operation. Passengers in the uk expecting to travel with thomas cook have been told not to go to the airport. The top chinese shareholder has called the folding of the company disappointing and the business secretary, andrea leadsom, here in the uk, is going to ask for a fast tracked investigation into the circumstances of the failure. Hello. It was a weekend of two halves. We had plenty of sunshine for most places on saturday followed by more showers on sunday. But on both days, it was warm, with temperatures above 27 celsius. This was the scene as the sun went down sunday night in cornwall, some clear skies, but some shower clouds still around too, and really, through the week ahead, were looking at a pretty unsettled autumnal feel to the weather, wet and windy at times and itll feel quite a bit cooler than it has done. Monday is, of course, the autumn equinox and right on cue, we are welcoming this area of low pressure from the atlantic. Now, some of this rain is much needed rainfall, particularly across parts of the south east of england, where weve had less than 20 of the expected rainfall so farfor september. Now, during monday morning, most places starting dry. Bit cloudy and damp for the north of scotland. This area of rain will work in to the south west of england, wales and Northern Ireland, winds picking up through the day, central and eastern parts of england, up to southern scotland, you should stay dry all day. And in the sunshine, temperatures reaching 21 degrees, certainly fresher than it has been. Typically, the high teens when you are under the cloud and the rain in the west. Now, moving through into monday night and overnight into tuesday, we see that rain becoming quite heavy for a time, especially across parts of south wales, southern england as well, the winds also picking up with that heavy rainfall. It will be a mild night, certainly frost free, as it will be really for much of the week ahead. Were not expecting to see any frost this week, but what we are going to see is some strong winds and heavy rain on Tuesday Morning courtesy of a bit of a wave developing on this weather front here moving in from the atlantic. So, with all that rain and also the strong winds to contend with too, we may well have a bit of disruption to travel Tuesday Morning, especially for parts of southern england, into south wales as well. Therell be a lot of standing water, i think, on the roads. This area of heavy rain works its way gradually eastwards across england and wales. That will be followed by more heavy showers and thunderstorms packing in from the south west. I think Northern Ireland and the north west of scotland should stay predominantly dry through the day. Temperatures only around about 15 19 degrees. Much cooler than it has been and plenty of really quite heavy showers around. Not only the showers, but lets look at the wind gusts. 30mph gusts inland, a0 or even 45mph gusts along the south coast and through the English Channel too. All that wet and windy weather moves eastwards, but well still see some rain in the south east i think for wednesday morning. It will be a less windy day by the time we get to wednesday with a mix of sunny spells, a few scattered showers but not a particularly wet day on wednesday. Temperatures around 16 20 degrees and it stays unsettled through the rest of the week. 00 28 57,055 4294966103 13 29,430 bye bye