blocked by the bodies of those who had already died. i was watching out of the window, all of the building was on fire so i decided myself to jump first. ijumped down, my wife throw for me the baby, i catch him. i tell her to tie a bed sheet. she tied a bed sheet and came down it. i catch him. relief and shock etched on the faces of those who managed to escape, but the rows of body bags are a grim reminder of those who didn't. many who lived inside this building were migrants from across the continent. the residents here were living in overcrowded conditions without consistent electricity or water. authorities say it resembled an informal settlement with shack—like partitions of cardboard boxes and sheets that likely fed the fire. now that the flames have been extinguished, the realisation that not everyone is coming out has set in. translation: i couldn't get into the second floor- because the fire was so bad. someone found my five—year—old and rescued him but i lost my 2—year—old. i don't know what to do, i don't know where to go. the flames were so intense that people inside have been said to be burnt beyond recognition. i have got about 23 years in the service, i have never come across something like this in my whole life. we sympathise with the people who have lost their lives, the residents who have lost their lives here, but we must do something about it as a city, working together to make sure we prevent incidents like this one. this evening, a visit by the south african president. support for him evident even among those grieving. the ministers and the mses and the province and the city are working now full out to make sure that those who need assistance, from accommodation to trauma counselling to hospitalisation, are being looked after. while the cause of the fire is still unknown, authorities are promising a thorough investigation as loved ones in mourning demand answers about one of the worst fires in south africa's history. shingai nyoka, bbc news, johannesburg. well, for more, i spoke with patrick gaspard, former us ambassador to south africa. he gave his insight on what had happened. patrick gaspard, former us ambassador to south africa and president and ceo of the center for american progress, thank you forjoining us. during your time as ambassador and since then, i believe, you have been in buildings like the one that's been involved in this tragedy. can you tell us a little bit about what the conditions are like there? thank you for having me on. unfortunate circumstances though and let me just first say, condolences to all the victims of this horrible fire and to the people of johannesburg and south africa who are working to recover. i have precisely been in that community, around marshalltown, which used to be the central business district in the apartheid era. i saw it first in 1990 and then over the years as it deteriorated. there is a particular building which is not very far from that location, that i had the occasion to visit. it was full of migrant workers, a lot of struggling women with children, completely dilapidated, no running water, no electricity, people living literally one on top of one another inside the complex, but a complex that was taken over by a cartel that built out a kind of scaffolding, township type housing within the building that they then, under real threat of eviction, leased out to the workers at extraordinary sums per day, per week. all illegally. some of what happened today, unfortunately, one could see coming for a long time. earlier, the city of johannesburg confirmed it owned this building but that it had been taken over by cartels. can you explain to us how that situation comes about? sure, let's talk about this specific building because it actually is really tragic that the city allowed it to fall into such disrepair. that it is the albert street pass office where black south africans during apartheid had come through to get their papers to designate who is eligible to work in the city or not. it was a place of oppression. following apartheid, it was turned into a shelter for women and children, to build a new kind of legacy for the future of south africa. regrettably, the ngo that ran that shelter did not receive the kind of support it should have received from the municipal government. they eventually left. the space was abandoned. squatters moved in and cartels which have taken over close to 57 abandoned buildings in the city ofjohannesburg, then moved in and created a kind of corrupted market for shotgun housing for migrants and for very, very poor, low income south africans. they divide these properties, they bring in illegal wiring electricity, and end up taking them over and charging exorbitant fees and the city, which regrettably and shockingly has gone through six different mayors in the last 22 months, has really lost the ability to govern it effectively, in those spaces and not long ago, actually disbanded a task force that was intentionally put together to help deal with the crisis of these squalor buildings. in your view then, should the city have seen a tragedy like this coming? civil society groups injohannesburg have been warning about exactly this kind of tragedy for a long time. your viewers should understand that the city ofjohannesburg is facing multiple crises. it is a vibrant city that i love passionately, i am a joburg nationalist but it is going through lots of crisis. electricity crisis, with load shedding constantly through the days, through the weeks, and a water crisis, plus an economic crisis that has driving some folks out of the city and has driven up significant spikes into crime in certain hot pockets of the city, like marshalltown. civil society groups have been advocating against this challenge in housing in the city for some time. there are 20,000 people who are designated as homeless injoburg in approximatelyi million that are seen as having insufficient housing throughout. there has been a gentrification crisis injohannesburg where old buildings have been knocked down, newer ones put up and the city has not moved quickly enough with their resources that it has received from private sector development to build low income housing for core johannesburg residents and it has toppled a challenge into a crisis so, yes, they should have seen it coming. yet you had the president visiting there today, describing it as a wake—up call to begin to address the situation of housing in the inner—city. why would he say that given everything you have described? i expect rapid government action in partnership with ngos and the private sector to try to turn around this crisis in that city but the writing has been on the wall for some time that something like this could happen. former us ambassador to south africa, patrick gaspard, thank you forjoining us. thank you for having me. the african union has condemned the military takeover in gabon. it also suspended the country from all participation in its activities. previously, the gabonese junta said it would phase in what it's calling transitional institutions, after the removal of president ali bongo in a coup. the soldiers gave no details on how long these institutions would remain in place or whether power might be handed back to a civilian government. a court has sentenced two members of the far—right proud boys militia to long prison terms for storming the us capitol building injanuary 202i. joseph biggs, a former leader of the proud boys, was given 17 years — one of the longest sentences among the hundreds convicted for the capitol attack. prosecutors say biggs was a key figure in the organised attempts to forcibly overturn presidentjoe biden�*s 2020 election victory. another leader, zachary rehl, received 15 years. brazil's former president, jair bolsonaro, and his wife, michelle, have faced police questioning over allegations they failed to declare and illegally profited from official gifts they were given by other countries. both chose to remain silent. they deny wrongdoing and say they won't respond because federal police don't have jurisdiction in the case. our south america correspondent katy watson has the latest. jair bolsonaro and his wife, michelle, were questioned in different rooms. it comes after the homes and offices of several people involved in the case were raided. the accusation is that his former aide, mauro cid, sold these two watches in question and gained about $70,000. the question is — where did that money go to? and why were those watches sold? those are just some of the questions that they wanted to get to the bottom of. but jair bolsonaro and michelle refused to talk. he has said in the past that he's denied any wrongdoing and that mr cid, his former aide, had a lot of autonomy, so he didn't tell him ever to do anything. but this is just one of several cases against the former president. earlier this year, he was barred from running for office after being accused of sowing doubt in the electronic voting system, and was accused of an abuse of power. he also has several supreme court cases against him. i'll list some of them now: interference with police. the leaking of official data. false accusations over the pandemic. anti—democratic acts relating to the run on congress back in january. all of these cases could actually land him injail. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news: grant shapps has been named as the uk's new defence secretary in a mini reshuffle of prime minister rishi sunak�*s cabinet. shapps replaces ben wallace, who is leaving politics. the appointment was not widely expected, with shapps having held five ministerialjobs in the past year. us supreme courtjustice clarence thomas has disclosed he took three trips aboard a republican donor's private plane last year. justice thomas cited security concerns as the reason he accepted the travel. the conservative judge says failing to previously report the jet travel had been inadvertent. supreme courtjurists are required to file annual financial disclosure forms. a ban on electric scooters for hire has officially come into effect in paris. the city of light was the first in europe to welcome the vehicles five years ago. but since then there's been a push to quote, "calm down" the streets, leading to a referendum in april to ban the two—wheelers. privately—owned scooters will still be allowed. you're live with bbc news. wagner chief yevgeny prigozhin alluded to threats to his safety in a newly surfaced video which appears to have been filmed days before he died in a plane crash. the clip was posted on social media thursday — the mercenary leader saying, "everything's okay", to those discussing his well—being. the bbc has not been able to verify the location or the date of the video. it comes as there are reports russian president putin will travel to china in october. it would be his first trip abroad since the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for him in march because of the russian leader's alleged involvement in the forced deportation of ukrainian children. earlier, my colleague, sumi somaskanda, spoke with beth van schaack, the ambassador—at—large for global criminaljustice at the us state department, about what can be done to stop these forced deportations. ambassador, thank you very much forjoining us on bbc news. thank you. i want to start with the forced deportation and transfer of ukrainian children to russia. if you look at what the un commission of inquiry on ukraine said back in march already, they said that more than 16,000 ukrainian children had been forcibly transferred to russia — that number, as we know, could be much higher by now — and they call this, "a violation of international humanitarian law" and said it amounts to a war crime. do you agree? i do agree. this is one of the most egregious and actually cruel elements of russia's terrible war of aggression in ukraine. taking children from their families, from their legal guardians, often very far from ukraine, subjecting them to re—education, political indoctrination, even military training, their — the ties to their family and guardians are severed, there's no way to keep in touch with them, and parents — usually mothers and grandmothers — have to now go into russia and try to track those children down in order to bring them back to their homes and families. so, what recourse is there for ukraine to make sure these children are returned, and how can the us in this role will help? they're trying to set up tracing mechanisms and using open source investigations to determine where these children are. russian officials have posted photographs of them looking happy with their "new families" and also, adoption websites — putting these children up for adoption or foster care — so, using some of these open source techniques, ukraine has been able to identify these children. there are also a number of investigations happening around the world because these are a war crime. they are a violation of the fourth geneva convention, which protects civilians — and children in particular — so, we know that the international criminal court has now issued two arrest warrants, one for president putin himself and one for his children's rights commissioner — which is a misnomer if i've ever heard one, maria lvova—belova. both of them will be prosecuted for the unlawful transfer or deportation of children from ukraine into russian—controlled areas or russia itself. we'll come back to the questions of those arrest warrants in a moment but i want to ask about a bbc investigation that we had that looked into prisoners of war who said that they were tortured in russian prisons. is that something that your office is investigating, and what can be done there? indeed. that report is very consistent with what we are seeing with regard to any individuals who find themselves within russian custody, whether civilians or prisoners of war. individuals who have been released or who have escaped have reported consistently they are receiving what amounts to torture, mistreatment, even electrocution, sexual violence and so, these stories of prisoners of war being released are very consistent. what the laws of war demand is humane treatment to anyone held in custody during a wartime situation, and that is not what individuals are receiving when they are in russian custody. but can russia be held to account for that? russian officials can, both individual perpetrators who were doing the mistreatment and detention at the working level, at the, you know, rank—and—file level, but also up the chain of command because there's enough of a pattern in practice here that indicates that russian superiors and political officials either know or should've known or perhaps even have ordered these crimes to happen and so, any of those forms of responsibility can be prosecuted as war crimes under international and domestic law. i want to talk about the architecture of international law, which is something your office is working closely with. you said that there are essentially five pathways to justice for ukraine. just to go through them — so, cases in ukrainian courts, the international criminal court that you mentioned, european and other courts, us courts, and some sort of special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression. that's right. talking about us courts, you we see russian war crimes tried in us courts? and what would that look like? indeed. last term, congress amended us law to enable the united states to prosecute war crimes when the perpetrator is found here, regardless of the nationality of the victim, of the perpetrator or the place of commission, so if there were a russian perpetrator here in the united states, we could press war crimes charges against that individual in federal court. is there precedent for that? there is not. that statute has never been used before, in part because it had some limitations in it that congress has now lifted, but we do have a special war crimes unit within the department ofjustice that is dedicated to investigating these cases and bringing charges under the whole suite of international crimes statute in our federal penal code. coming back to the international criminal court and its arrest warrant foeradimir putin, the president of russia. russia is not party to the rome statute, the us is not either, so how can the us actually support such an investigation and the work of the international criminal court? there are a number of ways that we have in the past and can in the future support the work of the icc, even as a non member. we can provide information sharing. we can assist with witness protection and witness relocation. we have, in the past, helped identify, find and transfer two suspects to the court — both of whom were then ultimately found guilty for war crimes and crime against humanity. we can also apply a range of diplomatic support, and congress recently allowed for the united states to provide financial assistance, if funding was available for that purpose, so even as a non—party state, there are many ways that we can support the court, which occupies a very important place in this larger ecosystem of internationaljustice. but critics say the us has no moral authority on this question because it is not a member, it's not party to the statute. should the us be a member specifically in situations like this? i think there's lots we can do without being a member and so, if congress sees fit to ratify the rome statute, then we can participate as a full member. but even as a non member, there are things that we can and should be doing because the court plays an important role in partnership with national courts around the world that have primaryjurisdiction over international crimes. ambassador, great to have you with us. great to be here, thank you so much. officials in the philippines have told the bbc they will not be intimidated, after a chinese ship used a water cannon against filipino coastguards near a contested reef. china has long claimed a considerable expanse of the sea as its own waters — the area within the red dotted line you can see here. that's in contrast to the internationally recognised system that you can see marked here in blue, assigning countries in the region, waters 200 nautical miles out from their coast. in the centre of this part of the sea are the disputed spratly islands. our asia—pacific correspondent laura bicker sent this report from near there on the island of palawan in the philippines. on the edge of this filipino paradise, survival depends on the sea. if you don't fish, you don't eat. they are used to battling wind and tide but this country is also in a stand—off with beijing over who owns which part of the south china sea. the crew of this ship used to fish near contested waters. from the age of 14, the deputy captain spent months on those shoals, but not any more. translation: we might not return there, ma'am. - we are now scared. we're scared of china. we were harassed and even asked to leave. the fishermen have been asked tojoin a militia to help defend filipino territory. but life is already bathed in saltwater and sweat while steering boats made of simple bamboo. they have no wish to take on a global superpower. translation: you feel guarded. how can we feed our families? what we need is to fish — that's our goal, out in the sea. the chinese might fire their water cannons. we just have a wooden boat. we're really afraid of going back there. this is what the fishermen are afraid of. the chinese took this action against the filipino coast guard. these are philippine waters, according to un law. resolved to keep hold of their reefs, manila deliberately ran aground a rusting world war ii ship on what is known as ayungin shoal. but recent monthly efforts to supply troops on board with food and water have become increasingly tense. china argues that it is doing what is necessary to protect its sovereignty, its claims over the south china sea. the problem is that beijing's tactics and beijing's actions are pushing american allies in this region closer together, against what they see as aggression. in a show of solidarity, australia held its first large—scale joint exercises with the philippines last week. they practised retaking an enemy—controlled island. and in manila bay, japanese and us navy warships sit side by side, ready forjoint drills. allied support has emboldened the philippines to speak out. really, it is a david versus goliath issue butjust like david, we will continue to pound and double down on the need to protect the resources which are important for the future of the philippines. the outcome of this dispute could have a profound impact here. where once their future was determined by ocean currents, now it may depend on the resolve of world leaders. laura bicker, bbc news, palawan. us presidentjoe biden will travel to florida on saturday to survey the damage from hurricane idalia. mr biden thanked federal emergency officials for their response during the storm. he also formally approved a major disaster declaration for the state. the weakened storm moved offshore thursday after marching through the southeastern us, causing building damage, flooding, and power outages. it's back—to—school season here in the us, but battles are brewing over what's being taught inside classrooms. according to the american civil liberties union, 17 states have passed more than 30 new laws that restrict lg btq—related education. florida is among those states, with an expanded law that restricts educators from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation. here's us secretary of education miguel cardona. we recognise that the attack that public school is under in places like florida and we recognise that when politics enters the classroom, our students lose. and we'll have more from that interview with secretary miguel cardona in a special edition of bbc news focusing on education. it'll air friday at 8:00pm eastern, which is 1:00am saturday for viewers in the uk. before we go, you might remember a time capsule from westpoint military academy, which was recently opened and thought to be empty. well, it certainly wasn't. a closer look has revealed the box held a medal and five coins dating back two centuries. this is the oldest — a coin minted in 1795 — when george washington was still us president. thats all from us here in washington, i'm caitriona perry. we leave you with these live pictures of london, thanks for watching bbc news. good morning. well, with the change of month, once again, we're likely to see a change of weather fortunes. high pressure is going to build as we head into the weekend and for the first week of september. yes, we'll see some early morning mist and fog first thing but on the whole, for most of us, it will be dry, sunny and increasingly warm. ahead of that, though, we've still got to get rid of this messy—looking weather front that's going to produce some low cloud and some drizzle first thing in the morning, particularly through northern ireland, scottish borders, down into the north of england. now, to the north of that, clear skies and a chilly start but sunny start for scotland. to the south of that, a cloudy start but the cloud will thin and break and a few scattered showers break out. one or two of those could be quite hefty. top temperatures generally between 17 and 22 celsius. now, as we move into the weekend, we are likely to see that frontal system easing away and the high pressure starts to build from the west. we could start off with a little bit of patchy low cloud, mist and fog across central and eastern england. clearer skies further north here. single figures to start off our saturday. so, that mist will take its time to clear away but on the whole, it's all about high pressure. a weak weather front will bring some breezier and wetter conditions to the north but with lighter winds first thing in the morning, it could start off a little bit murky and disappointing. it won't be long, though, before we see some sunshine breaking through and the warmth starts to build. so, as we go into saturday, yes, a grey start for some. more sunshine further north and west. this weather front trying to push in but really, not making too much of an impression for the first half of the weekend. as we go through the afternoon, there'll be some decent sunny spells and temperatures will start to climb, 23 or 2a degrees — that's into the mid 70s fahrenheit. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday, there's that weatherfront, bringing some breezier conditions and rain to the far north—west but on the whole, sunday will be a dry day with plenty of sunshine coming through and a degree or so warmer by the middle part of the afternoon — mid 20s quite possible across central and southern parts of england. warmer still as we go through the week ahead — in fact, some places could see temperatures into the high 20s by the middle part of the week. take care. voice—over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi. the conflict that broke out in april between two rival generals in sudan has created a humanitarian crisis. civilians have borne the brunt of the violence, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, losing their lives. more than four and a half million have been forced to flee their homes, health care is scarce, water and power supplies are intermittent, and there are food shortages everywhere. sudan is in the grip of a war that shows no signs of ending, as general al—burhan, the army chief and de facto president, is locked in a battle with the commander of the paramilitary rapid support force,