explosive, to that missile and could fire it to the areas we've talked about — guam and possibly mainland usa. when it comes to the h—bomb test that allegedly happened today, from what i understand, although it was 6.3 on the richter scale, i gather seismologists have decreed that is probably a yield of 100 kilotonnes, much bigger than the atomic weapons he's already tested, but way short of a hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear device. so in sum, i think he does not possess a viable hydrogen bomb that he could put on his current missiles. but we have so underestimated his capability thus far that if we don't do something soon, he will have that ultimate terror capability. kim jong—un has absolutely got to believe that there will be a us and coalition of the willing first strike, predominantly the permanent five, and i would like to see russia and china be far more demonstrative in this. of course we want a diplomatic solution. but as you rightly said, nothing else is having a great effect. sanctions are not necessarily going to have an impact, and unless he believes his nuclear capability is going to be taken out, we are going to continue down this line. and as i said previously, all the time we give him will allow him to develop the terrifying h—bomb which he desires, and an h—bomb would flatten a city like london or mumbai or new york, whereas his current atomic capability would just flatten a few blocks. now on bbc news, meet the author. a story about storytelling, about myth and belief, about human curiosity, and our weakness for a secret. marcel theroux's new novel the secret books is a kaleidoscopic tale of religion and politics that moves from tsarist russia, to the belle epoque in paris, then india and eventually to the brink of the second world war and the holocaust. on every page, the same question teases and torments you — what's true and what is not? welcome. i'm not sure if classification of novels is a good idea or not, but in the case of this very original story, i want to hear how you would describe it as a book. that is a tough one. for me, it is an adventure story, at the heart of it. i wanted it to have the energy and vigour of a classic adventure story. the book itself sprang out of my obsession with another book, which i brought to show you. it's the unknown life 0fjesus christ, published in 1894 in paris by a russian emigre. christ, published in 1894 in paris i have always been interested in this story ofjesus, and particularly the big gap in the gospel between his childhood and the beginning of his ministry in galilee, and i always wondered what he was up to in those years. and i came across this apocryphal tale that he had been in india studying buddhism, and it turns out it originates with this book. the writer claims to have discovered it in a tibetan monastery. the how, why and where of that story was the seed. we live in an age of conspiracy theories, and this is a great one. and it produced one of the most famous forgeries which was used as an anti—semitic thing. that period, the writer is a russian in this part of the empire, and he is possibly up to no good. it is fascinating that he is there in the first place. then he comes up with this gospel that sounds like something out of indiana jones, showing that jesus is a buddhist. what a lovely idea that would be, you might think about as you say, when you look at the historical background and what was going on in the 1880s and 8090s, which is a period that weirdly resembles ours, it was a busy time for fake news, a very busy time for conspiracy theories. in many ways, it is a book about stories, about how important they are, and about how we try to work out what is true and what isn't. this leads us to think religious belief. it is a story about story telling wrapped up in a piece of storytelling. that is why i think that the novel is the right form to tell his life, because his life is about telling stories. as i was writing it, i was thinking about the fact that it seems like in the last ten years the word narrative has seized hold of people's imaginations. i don't think people talked about narrative 20 years ago. it is one of the legacies of the blair era. it was peter mandelson that i remember saying the labour party needed to find a new narrative. you could be talking about rasputin! i thought, how weird. what does that word mean? people are so self conscious now about the need to construct stories, to have a back story, a charismatic central figure struggling to do something. and it seems like the techniques of novel writing have been adopted wholesale by spin doctors and political analysts and movers and shakers. when you were writing it, you must have been aware that the whole political debate about fake news, the now famous phrase, about truth, falsehood, the manipulation of truth, had really been taken and thrust into the limelight for us all in a way that wasn't the case five years ago. that was the weird thing about the book. i finished it last spring. fake news wasn't a word when i handed the book in to my publisher, and i had a weird tingling in my spine when people started arguing about the truth and falsehood, and alternative facts, and i thought, this is so bizarre. i suppose there is nothing new under the sun. this book deals with anti—semitism, and that is the oldest hatred of all. it seems evergreen and like it will never disappear. of course, it is a perennial subject for novelists, and yet, there is nothing familiar about that theme in this book — oh, here we go again — because it is wrapped up in this enigmatic figure who clearly fascinates you, almost obsesses you. i found him so strange. here is this guy, in british india, what is he doing? he finds this book and says that jesus was studying buddhism. he then turns up in a lot of other people's books. in real life, the writer of the book actually does. but you only see flashes of him. there is no biography. we don't know when he died, we're not 100% sure when he was born, but he flashes up a lot of times in declassified documents from british india. i have to say that what i have read about him, he doesn't seem like the nicest person in the world. he seems to have inspired distrust above all. but the fact that he was there doing this thing, and that he disappeared from history, ifind extraordinary. in a way, the post—cold war world, with all those horrible certainties removed, has produced, as everybody knows, a version of political chaos that we are living through, and it seems to me that what you are trying to catch there is something that flavour, almost exactly a century before. what is weird is that that period, it seems that so many other stories that are covered are re—emerging, stories about communism, liberalism, what rights we are fighting for, and a lot of very noble ideals lead to rights and extending the franchise to women, all these things. this is a cocktail of very modern ideas, and even the technology is modern. they get the first long—distance telephone lines. ok, you can only call as far as belgium from paris, but still. we think of our period as unique and special in terms of the speed with which news travels, the wave fake news can be the way fake news can be disseminated around the world. it really wasn't that different in paris in the 1880s. it is also ultimately i think our hymn of praise to the art of storytelling, which can be manipulated and can be damaging, but it is part of the building of a nation, and you feel that with every bone in your body. i do, and i love stories and long to be seduced by them. when i was writing it...my wife came home from a book festival with a bag that said, stories are bridges to other worlds. i thought, that's true, but stories are also other things, they are also propaganda, poison, lies. and i wanted both for the reader to feel like this story involves them, but also for them to emerge with their eyes open to the manipulations of story, and to see how ubiquitous these forms of storytelling are. marcel theroux, author of the secret books, thank you very much. just a lucky few in the east of the uk have seen sunshine today, much hazier than yesterday. for many areas, cloudy, for some, a very wet story, across parts of wales and south—west england, as the day began. as this weather system has shunted the rain further east and will continue to do so overnight the rain will turn increasingly light and patchy, plenty of coastal hill fog to the south and west, humid air that moved inside temperatures not moving down to four overnight. let's look at monday morning. plenty of cloud, still some coastal and hillfort, a misty, murky story. sunshine to begin with, hard to come by and from the cloud areas of light rain and drizzle, more especially with the old weather front f 49,5, england system i;g7§7z§§l5:i 5::il:5:_:5§i£5: i_él:: to comer? rain 7' i;g7§7z§§l5:i 5::il:5:_:5§i£5: i_él:: to comer? rain will 7' eoised to come—in. rain will sgread» gi-i, ‘zelw 77 west of if 599tlflné' " ' w ssgtlgné when ”' f " ssgtlgné when it ”' " "w " ssgtlgné when it moves = ssgtlgné when it moves in, i ssgtlgné when it moves in, another scotland when it moves in, another speu scotland when it moves in, another spell of brisk winds, still gales around the northern isles, with lighter winds we had today, it will brighten a bit across parts of england and wales into the afternoon. there will be a chance of catching the odd that the shower, given any prolonged sunshine and we could seek to bridge is up to 24 celsius although most places will fall short of that and it should be quite muggy. through monday evening and night this weather system moving out of scotland and northern ireland should pep up the gain of wales and northern ireland and on tuesday six southeast and behind this weather fronts this cooler, fresh air moving in. a quick moving band of rain pushing south east through tuesday morning, following behind, some showers coming in, write to breezy, a sunnier coolerfresher showers coming in, write to breezy, a sunnier cooler fresher picture with those temperatures back down into the mid to upper teens, colour and fresherfor into the mid to upper teens, colour and fresher for wednesday and thursday, variable cloud, sunny spells, pleasant sunshine, cooler overnight and the chance for some showers especially in the north and west so the story of this week ‘s weather cooler and fresher by the end of tuesday and potentially wet and windy by friday. this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 8pm: north korea claims to have tested its most powerful nuclear device yet, provoking international condemnation. mr president will you attack north korea 7 we'll see. president trump considers his response and threatens to cut trade to any country doing business with pyongyang. the brexit secretary says the eu is making itself look "silly" by insisting talks with the uk are making little progress. a man is arrested after four people were injured when a car smashed through the side of a house in york. also in the next hour: walter becker, one of the founder members members of the influential 70s band, steely dan, has died. the band sold more than 40 million albums, with hits such

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