The Trump Administration is facing fresh turmoil over its dealings with ukraine. The secretary of state mike pompeo has been ordered by the house of representatives to hand over documents as an impeachment investiogation continues. Congressional committees have also summoned five state department employees, including its special envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, who has now resigned. President trump says this is just a witch hunt. Our north america editor jon sopel reports. God bless you mr president. Theres support, theres defiance, but also theres anger. In a twitter fusillade this morning he took aim at the Democratic House chair of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff, the person who will play a key role in impeachment hearings. The Inspector General found that serious allegation of misconduct by the president credible. Donald trump said of him. And then the whistle blower who revealed details of the president s conversation with his ukrainian counterpart volodymyr zelensky. But everything in the whistle blowers letter has been proved true. The call did take place. President trump did ask his ukrainian counterpart to investigate his Democratic Party rivaljoe biden. And the white house today confirmed the transcript of the call was moved to a more secure server. Voiceover but when President Trump asks ukraine to investigate corruption, the democrats want to impeach him. But now in a slick counter blast, the Trump Campaign is firing back. They lost the election, now they want to steal this one. Dont let them. Im donald trump and i approved this. But the speaker of the house is unmoved. She says she was left with no other choice but impeachment following all of this. But this is about National Security. This is about the National Security of our country, and the president of the United States being disloyal to his own oath of office, jeopardising our National Security, and jeopardising the integrity of our elections. And the woman donald trump beat in 2016 has also made a rare intervention to pile in. He has turned american diplomacy into a cheap extortion racket. He has denigrated and lets be honest stabbed in the back of the Career Foreign Service officers who serve bravely and selflessly no matter the politics of the administration that they are working under. The white house line on the whistle blower is that its all second hand information and inaccurate its anything but. So far everything hes said has turned out to be true. Republican lawmakers can say they dont really care and donald trump is free to do whatever he likes, much harder, though, to say theres nothing here. John sopel, bbc news, washington. Angela reddock wright is an employment lawyer and an expert on whistleblower legislation. I asked her how hard it will be to protect the whistleblowers identity. I think it would be difficult not because its necessarily disclosed by anyone in congress or anyone of a higher level. But because in this day and time, its so easy to hack information, to get information, so im sure the leaks have already begun. We dont know already the name of the whistleblower. At least there will be rumours of it. Under whistleblower law, how much protection is afforded . Well, in the traditional sense of the word, they are fully protected against retaliation or against any adverse action that might impact their employment but the reality of this situation is because of the high profile nature of this and the comments that have already been made about the whistleblower, i think it would be difficult to provide protection so im certainly hoping that the federal government is taking all steps to try to essentially put this person into the equivalent of witness protection to make sure they have security full time and they are being looked after, their emails are being protected, theirfamilies are being protected because this is a big deal and obviously, its being considered at a very high level. And this case is interesting, because a federal whistleblower law has never been used against a sitting us president , has it . So what does it mean, there is no precedent for this . It means that this will be an opportunity of first impression, that what happens in congress and what the courts ultimately do, President Trump and his team, have indicated a plan to File Court Action to stay the proceedings. Im not sure thats likely or that a court will find in the president s favour. The president has indicated he plans to use the executive privilege so that he doesnt have to speak to this, and others in his cabinet dont have to speak to it, but im not sure the privilege would extend to this situation. So its a matter of, its unprecedented because we simply havent dealt with this situation before. And so how congress handles it, how the courts handle it will be a matter of first impression. Within the past half hour polls have opened in afghanistan, where more than nine Million People are expected to cast their ballots to elect their next president. There are 16 candidates all of them men including former warlords, ex spies and members of the countrys former communist government. Jon ironmonger reports. After months of delays and continuing conflict, voting has now begun in afg hanistans pivotal president ial election. Tens of thousands of Security Officers have been deployed to guard polling stations under looming taliban threats. The militant group, which still controls large parts of the country, has described the election as a fake american process and has sworn violence against anyone taking past. People are scared, according to this photo. They want the Security Forces to work to secure the situation. We are worried that if we go to the voter centre, there will be explosions, this man says. Most people cant go to cast their ballots. The poll is considered a two horse race between the current president , ashraf ghani, and his power sharing rival, abdullah abdullah, the countrys chief executive. The previous election in 2014 was marred by massive corruption. This time, the government is desperate to claw back some credibility, with biometric fingerprint readers and better training of election officials. In spite of the security concerns, 5,000 polling stations are expected to open, including in remote hillsides where donkeys have been used to transport ballot boxes. A strong turnout is needed to give this election legitimacy but fearfulness and apathy could make that unlikely. We can now speak to bbc afghan reporter Shoaib Sharifi as we were seeing their it is a backdrop of violence and fears of corruption that will be very much at the forefront of peoples minds during these elections . Yes indeed. Both the security authorities as well as the Afghan Independent Elections Commission have got a most dealer track difficult as today, the abilities both of which have been marred by insecurity as well as literally corruption in every single other, fraud and corruption, elections we have had six of them in the last 18 years, but since yesterday, time and again, Afghan Security officials, jointly by the afg ha n security officials, jointly by the afghan election workers, until the very last 30 minutes, were on tv, assuring people that they have enough measures in place to secure these polling centres and that there are enough measures in place so that this election will be fair and acceptable. We are seeing live pictures of a polling station, it is looking empty, but of course it is extremely early in couple where you are. Do you think couple. Do you think the reassurances will be enough to bring people out . Kabull. The voting centres opened almost a0 minutes ago, people, because the level of threat is so real, election voting day security in the capital and provinces have been bad, the threat is very real, but it is early morning, people want to see how real is the security now on the streets of kabul. Perhaps you will see more soldiers and police than voters. In some cities, like jalalabad, one of the most insecure cities, people have started doing an hour before voting centres open, evenin hour before voting centres open, even in some centres, women were seen even in some centres, women were seen waiting for over 30 minutes for the polling centres to open. And in some parts of the country, like in the Southern Province of kandahar, people are waiting but election workers have not arrived. So it seems that people would like, want to wait and see, mostly in terms of security, and also they want there were irregularities in the autumn 2018 elections at the voting centres, so it is early to say how well will be the turn out later about the fear is real and we see a lot of measures across the country, in as well as the capital kabul, several layers of security in order to assure people that they will be safe while casting their vote. Thank you very much. Lets get some of the days other news. Haitian police in the capital Port Au Prince have been attempting to disperse the largest and most violent protests in months. 0fficers used tear gas and live ammunition while demonstrators threw stones. Anger over a nation wide fuel crisis has been spilling over into fury against the political classes and corruption. President moise is trying to calm the situation by offering a unity government. Brazils Environmental Agency says a vast oil slick running across the nations North Eastern beaches did not start in the country. The oil slick now spans over 1500 kilometres, affecting wildlife and polluting some of the nations top tourist beaches. Analysis of the oil shows it was not produced or sold by brazils state controlled oil company. They say its possible the oil could have been spilt by a tanker transporting the crude far from the brazilian coast. Chinas foreign minister has told the Un General Assembly that the trade conflict between beijing and washington could cause an international recession. Wang yi said that building walls between nations would not solve global challenges. Its been announced that a Police Watchdog will assess whether the Prime Minister Boris Johnson should face a criminal investigation over his friendship with an american businesswoman during his time as mayor of london. Its alleged that as a result of the friendship, Jennifer Accuri was allowed to go on overseas trade missions, and that she received about 1a,000 in sponsorship money. The Prime Minister denies the claims. Downing street has released a statement saying everything was done with propriety and in the normal way. 0ur uk Affairs Correspondent Daniel Sandford has more. The basis of the allegations is that, while he was mayor of london, borisjohnsons friend, Jennifer Accuri, received £11,500 in sponsorship for events organised by one of her companies, which came from organisations linked to the mayors office. And also went on three overseas trips with borisjohnson which, originally, shed been turned down for. Now, the Greater London Authority Monitoring officer has been looking at these allegations this week and so have we, in fact, and noticed that people who went on the trips with Jennifer Accuri felt that she seemed a bit out of place, as her companies didnt seem as substantial as those of the other people that were on the trips, and certainly we know that borisjohnsons office intervene to make sure that she went on one of the trips and the Greater London Authority Monitoring officer has now decided to call in the Police Watchdog, the iopc, to assess whether Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, should be investigated for the criminal offence of misconduct ion public office. The iopc are involved because when he was mayor of london, borisjohnson was in charge of londons metropolitan police. Borisjohnson has vigorously denied these allegations, saying to the bbc last night that people are barking up the wrong tree. His office insists that hes always acted with propriety. And he says very proud of his time as mayor of london. Stay with us on bbc world news, still to come 22 years on prince harry retraces his mothers footsteps, walking through a partially cleared angolan minefield. In all russias turmoil it has never quite come to this. President yeltsin said the day would decide the nations destiny. The nightmare that so many had feared for so long is playing out its final act here. Russians are killing russians in front of a grandstand audience. It was his humility which produced affection from catholics throughout the world. But his departure is a tragedy for the catholic church. This man, israels right winger, ariel sharon, visited the religious compound and that started the trouble. He wants israel along to have sovereignty over the holy sites. An idea thats unthinkable to palestinians. After a5 years of division, germany is one. In berlin, a million germans celebrate the rebirth of europes biggest and richest nation. This is bbc world news, the latest headlines the United States special representative to ukraine kurt volker has resigned after being named in a white house whistleblowers report. Mike pompeo has been given a week to hand over documents relating to it. Lets stay with that story now Andrew Howard is the managing editor of the state press newspaper at Arizona State university. I asked him how a Student Newspaper found out about kurt volkers resignation. Well, i think the most important thing to us as we always try to find well, i think the most important thing to us is we always try to find a way to localise national issues. So we wanted to see why this would be important to our community and we saw that, director of the mccain institute, which is an asu programme, kurt volker, was involved so we decided we would pursue it in the way we knew how and await that affected Arizona State university and our reporting led us do this. What have the university been saying about it, if anything . They havent really commented other than saying they cant speak to matters of whether or not he will stay at the university and then confirming that he resigned from his duties as a special envoy. How significant do you think, andrew, his resignation is in all of this . Im not sure i can speak to the significance, im just here to do the reporting and serve the community in any way that i can for Arizona State so im not sure id be the best person to speak on the Overall International significance of the issue. Have you had any other media approaching you about this . There must be quite a lot of demand, right . My phone has basically been broken all day, my twitter wont work anymore and ive had a few calls about how we did this. Surely its a great scoop for you already and youre not even out of university. Its very exciting, yeah. Im only a junior this year, so im not even 21 years old yet so its very exciting. Its more exciting for the whole paper, i did not do this alone, we have an amazing staff and im grateful for all of them for helping with all of this. Police in nigeria have freed some 500 people, many of them young children, from a building where they have been allegedly chained, tortured and sexually abused. To protect their privacy we have decided to conceal the identities of the victims in this report from mayenijones in lagos. Captives in chains, boys, teenagers, and grown men held in a so called Islamic School and unable to leave. Police received a tip off from relatives of children held here that suggested this place was not what it seemed. I say, ok, take this loaf of bread and take it to them. So when we go back home now, we had a family meeting, so we said, ok, the only thing that shall report this issue to the police station. Exactly that is what we did. The police said this was no educational institution. We discovered that we have small, small children, today, underfive graduates. Civil servants i hear. Most of them are chained. Chained as far as im concerned, this is modern day slavery. Millions of students are in Islamic Schools across nigeria. Parents in this deprived region often have to leave their children in religious boarding schools. These institutions have been dogged with allegations of abuse. Earlier this year, the government said it planned to ban them. But wouldnt say when. As the victims are treated and reunited with their families, this latest incident may be a reminder of the need for reform. Mayenijones, bbc news in lagos. Half a million schoolchildren, University Students and adults marched through the canadian city of montreal on friday, in another climate strike inspired by the swedish activist, greta thunberg. The city centre was turned into a sea of demonstrators and placards. 0rganisers said it was quebecs largest ever gathering. Earlier, ms thunberg had met the canadian Prime Minister, justin trudeau. She told him and other World Leaders that they were not doing enough to curb Greenhouse Gas emissions. Large scale protests also took place in many other countries around the world. 0ur correspondent Anna Holligan reports from the hague in the netherlands. What do we want . Crowd Climate Justice some schools here in the hague have actually cancelled classes and brought the pupils out to protest instead, building climate consciousness into the real life curriculum. Too many people, there is no oxygen there. This is the only chance we have. So we need to take our chance and make the world better. Of course the netherlands has a lot to be conscious of, with almost a third of the country lying below sea level. They are super aware of those rising tides. This country of course has a reputation clean, green living, cycling, windmills, renewable energy. But actually its record has a lot to be desired. Children here in the netherlands have the highest instances of asthma caused by pollution anywhere in europe, and they are struggling to reach those targets of reducing emissions by a9 by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. So the message here in the hague is clear, and it is reverberating again all over the world today. We are here, this not good what the world is doing, and now we hope thats the, um, the rechter, we do for the world, and were doing for the world, thats better. These are the superheroes of the future. Their relationship with the environment today will determine what it looks like in the future. More than 20 years ago, diana princess of wales, walked through a minefield in angola to highlight the threat posed by landmines. On friday, her son prince harry, retraced her steps to see how much has changed, and what still needs to be done to combat the problem. 0ur royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell sent us this report. Minefields. A massive problem in angola, and an issue with a particular resonance for harry in memory of his mothers efforts to make the world do something to deal with them. Harry was taken into one of the minefields being cleared by britains halo trust. He saw the painstaking work of the mine clearance teams, combing the ground metre by metre. Explosion. He detonated a mine which had been found a few days ago. And then on to huambo, angolas second city. It was here 22 years ago that diana, princess of wales, was filmed walking along a safe corridor through a minefield. It brought the whole issue to the worlds attention and led eventually to an international ban. Today the spot which had once been a minefield is a city street, but a place for a proud son to visit and to reflect on what his mother had achieved. To walk in her footsteps is clearly quite emotionalfor me, but i think as much as she did then, there is still so much to do, but without question, if she hadnt campaigned the way that she did 22 years ago, this could arguably still be a minefield, so im incredibly proud of what shes been able to do. He went on to the newly renamed Princess Diana 0rthopaedic centre where the victims of landmines are treated. He metjustina caesar, she lost her leg when she was three and met Princess Diana on her visit in 1997. There is no end to injuries like hers, a reminder that though angolas civil war ended fully 17 years ago, landmines are still causing life changing injuries. 22 years after diana died, and there are still more than 1,000 minefields here in angola. Harrys message, expressed today lets finish thejob. Nicholas witchell, bbc news, huambo. Now some news from deep in space where for the first time, a black hole has been caught on camera. Its the work of this nasa satellite, known as tess. It happened some 375 million light years away, and you can see how the sphere shape of the star is sucked into an oval, before the gravity of the super massive black hole the big black circle on your screen rips it apart, and starts pulling the debris into an ever decreasing orbit. More on our website. Hello there. If you are out across the northern half of the uk in the next few hours, and you have clear skies, you may be treated to the northern lights. But it has been a very turbulent end to the week, and it is going to be a rather wet and windy weekend for many of us, and there is growing concern with this next deep area of low pressure now developing, that more rain on already saturated ground, with river levels high, will result in further flooding. As well as that we are going to have some strong winds around this low pressure system coinciding with high tides, because of the new moon, the full moon, so there could be coastal flooding too. A band of rain moves across Northern Ireland, northern england, southern scotland. Any mist and fog to the north will clear away. The showery rain across Northern Areas does tend to ease, the showers or showery rain further south eases away, so a day of sunny spells and showers, probably not as heavy showers today as we saw yesterday, but nevertheless, they are still around, still wet. It should feel pleasant enough, though, with light winds and some sunshine, but as the day progresses, the afternoon progresses we are in for a big change, theres more tropical air tied in with this area of low pressure, so there will be widespread, heavy intense rain, actually some thundery rain in there as well, and strong to Gale Force Winds blowing in that rain and coinciding with high tides. We could have coastal inundation. So really wet and windy through the night as we move into sunday. And that rain is really slow to clear, could be scotland and Northern Ireland escape the worst of the rain, and as the day goes on we change our wind direction and pick up a colder north north westerly, but that will have a sting in its tail, you can see for england and wales, wevejust got more rain re entering around the area of low pressure. So temperature really academic on sunday but feeling colder in the north, and later in the day as the winds switch direction they may have a sting in the tail, we would have strong to Gale Force Winds crossing into wales and later into england and down the north sea coast, potentially corresponding or tying in with high tides here, so well concern ourselves with some coastal flooding here as well late on sunday. So lots to keep our eye on, it certainly looks really unsettled through the weekend. Heavy rain, gales. There are warnings out from the met office, theyre on the website, and those high tides as well. Further afield, were expecting rain for the rugby which continues into the weekend, japan ireland on saturday, potentially having some heavy downpours around here, and for australia and wales, i wouldnt like to rule out downpours either. It is much cooler, though, as we go into the new week back home, as you can see, and it remains unsettled, perhaps a respite in the middle of the week. Bye bye. This is bbc news. The headlines the us envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, has resigned. It comes after a whistleblower claimed donald trump put pressure on ukraine to investigate the former Vice President joe biden. Its claimed that mr volker tried to arrange meetings for mr trumps personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, in the country. In washington, the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, has been ordered to hand over documents to an impeachment inquiry looking into mr trumps dealings with the ukraine government. Mr pompeo will have a week to comply with the subpoena. More than nine Million People are expected to cast their ballots in afg hanistans president ial election. Its a poll which has been overshadowed by violent attacks, claimed by the taliban, which have left many dead in recent weeks. Thousands of thomas cook staff are taking legal action
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