hiroshima marks the 75th anniversary of the exact moment an atomic bomb was dropped on the japanese city. we hear from the last survivors. hello to you. the governing elite of lebanon is facing unprecedented criticism for tuesday's massive explosion in the capital. they‘ re being blamed for the failure to store properly tonnes of ammonium nitrate that blew up in the port area of beirut, killing at least 135 people. the government's promised a full investigation, and placed some officials under house arrest. teams are searching rubble for more than a hundred people still missing. 300,000 have had to leave their homes. a two—week state of emergency has been declared. quentin sommerville has the latest. in a country long battered by shock, a fresh, unnatural disaster has seized lebanon. the fires burned long here at the port. the cause, a powder keg of unstable chemicals, left to rot in the very heart of beirut. the shock could be felt in cyprus, syria and israel. the 2500 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser was the equivalent of a one kilotonne blast. this was lebanon's 9/11, they say. a catastrophe that shook the entire country. a small fire at the port had drawn people to their windows to watch. when the chemicals exploded, they received the brunt. more than 4000 have been hurt and lebanon is traumatised. it is a day they will never forget, especially for bride, israa seblani. explosion allahu akbar. in the small town of ras el harf, the buildings still stand, but the people are shuttered. jessy dawood was a nurse at beirut‘s saint george hospital. she died along with three other colleagues. she was 31 years old, and leaves behind her two—year—old ella, and her husband. the work of a nurse is to save lives of people, and take care of people. this is what she did. she was a hero. she died when she's on her duty. she's saving people, and she died. at jessy dawood's hospital, there is hurt and anger at a man—made disaster, a physical manifestation of the country's long dysfunction. this is a catastrophe, because, you know, we are one of the best functioning institutions in the city. we are helping with the covid effort, we're treating patients. already, the healthcare system is about to collapse. resilience is a word much overused in lebanon. in may melki's apartment, she sought a moment of peace among the wreckage. the 78—year—old has suffered months of power cuts, the loss of her savings and rising food prices. and now, this disaster. hopes? everybody says there is no hope, you know? but i cannot, i don't want to believe it. i want to keep hoping that each time these catastrophes happen, we stand up and start again. but everybody says, many, many years before, when i was in the united states, they asked me this question — is there hope for lebanon? i mean, there is no hope. the same politicians who created the earlier crises have to resolve this one. there is little hope they can do it alone, and there is a limit to how much more lebanon can endure. it was more that i was an homage to all those who are gone and who were less fortunate than us, and they were caught in this big catastrophe. quentin sommerville, bbc news. 0ur beirut correspodent corine torbey told us pressure is mounting on the government to say how they'll help the 300,000 people who lost their homes in an instant. the port is behind me. this is where the explosion happened. i'm not sure, with no electricity and so many ports of the capital, whether it is clear, but the damage is highly visible from where i am standing. and the damage is not only here, it is everywhere, in every single street of the capital. debris is everywhere, smashed cars, balconies falling from buildings, electricity cables hanging from rooftops but, mostly, a lot of houses that, at the moment, are absolutely not habitable. people will not be able to return to their houses and these are probably tens of thousands of people who have become homeless in a matter of seconds. we have seen a lot of community support. a lot of people offering their places to those who cannot return to their homes, but this is not a sustainable solution. the government should deal with this as a matter of priority. of course, it has a lot of priorities to deal with, at the moment, but this remains one of the top and most alarming issues at the moment, the number of homeless, the number of people who simply found themselves without homes from one day to another. anthony fauci has said he doesn't expect a vaccine to be developed before the end of the year. he stressed that political considerations would not be allowed to interfere in the regulatory process. we likely are going to have maybe tens of millions of doses at the early part of the year but as we get into 2021, the manufacturers tell us that they will have hundreds of millions and likely 1 billion will have hundreds of millions and likely1 billion doses by the end of 2021. so i think the process is moving along at a pretty favou ra ble process is moving along at a pretty favourable pace. as our north america correspondent david willis points out, what dr fauci is saying is quite different from what the president is saying, not for the first time. we see caution from the top medical experts here and optimism, bordering some might say on hubris, from the president of the united states who, today, a very short while ago ina who, today, a very short while ago in a white house briefing said that multinational pharmaceutical companies, johnson &johnson, pharmaceutical companies, johnson & johnson, the pharmaceutical companies, johnson &johnson, the big american company among them we re american company among them were doing, as he put it, a fantasticjob. were doing, as he put it, a fantastic job. that they were getting very close to developing a vaccine, the president said and we might have one available long before the end of the year, said mr donald trump. dr anthony fauci, for his part, said that he doesn't expect a vaccine to be available before the end of this year. what the two men do agree on, mike, is that once a vaccine is developed then tens of millions of doses of it could be developed very quickly, within months in fact, because pharmaceutical companies here are being urged to produce, in mass, the vaccines that they are developing just in case one does prove to work and then it can be shipped out almost immediately. and thanks to the virus, of course, it is a time like no other and it looks like it will be an election like no other. absolutely. no ticker tape, no balloons, it is going to bea tape, no balloons, it is going to be a very subdued american presidential election. joe biden, the presumptive democratic nominee has said that he will be making his a cce pta nce that he will be making his acceptance speech from his home in delaware, and not going to milwaukee, wisconsin because it is thought that even though it is thought that even though it is going to be largely an online event, there would be a gathering of some democrats there in milwaukee and that is just deemed to be to unsafe and the current climate. donald trump has floated the suggestion that he might make his acceptance speech from the white house, raising all sorts of questions about blurring the lines about official presidential activity and political campaigning. a short while ago the white house chief of staff mark meadows was asked about this on cnn and he said that one way around it might be for the president to make this speech from the east wing of the white house which is officially the private residence, rather than somewhere like the oval office, but it is, of course, a taxpayer funded but it is, of course, a taxpayerfunded building but it is, of course, a taxpayer funded building and even some republicans have expressed disquiet about the president accepting the nomination from their. facebook and twitter have penalised us president donald trump and his campaign for posts in which he claimed children are almost immune to coronavirus. facebook deleted the post — a clip from an interview the president gave to fox news — saying it contained "harmful covid misinformation". twitter followed up by saying it had temporarily frozen an official trump campaign account until it removed a tweet of the same clip. it later appeared to have been deleted and the account is able to tweet again. in turkey, hundreds of demonstrators have taken to the streets of istanbul, urging the government to maintain membership of an international pact to protect women. the government has been looking to withdraw from the agreement despite the growing number of turkish women being killed by turkish men. alanna petroff has the story. chanting. even in the year 2020, people still have to come out to so their support for basic women's rights. protect women from violence, protect women from murder, criminalise violence against women. in istanbul, these demonstrators are calling on the government to stick with the istanbul convention. the 2011 agreement that was forged here in this city has been signed by more than a0 countries — now turkey is considering opting out. translation: the lives of women are already under threat in this country and revoking the istanbul convention is an enactment of slaughtering of women. that is why we're here today. the convention was designed to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence. it's also designed to promote gender equality. the agreement is especially important now, as turkey witnesses hundreds of femicides the intentional murder of women, because they are women. this has spurred the protesters on. translation: today, throughout turkey and across political divides all women need this convention. we are convinced with the strength of the women's union, we will prevent the withdrawal of this convention and even beyond that, we will enforce all the charters of the istanbul convention. the recent trend of women posting black—and—white pictures of themselves on social media took off in turkey injuly, part of a campaign highlighting violence against women. it turned into a global trend. but this wasn't just about selfies. in turkey, it was about survival. conservatives in turkey go against these protesters, they say the istanbul convention destroys the family structure and promotes lgbt rights. protesters say president recep tayyip erdogan and his government are discouraging their activism and their fight for gender equality. alanna petroff, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: why the rock star who's celebrated as the godfather of grunge is sueing donald trump's re—election campaign. the question was whether we want to save our people and japanese, as well and win the war, or whether we want to take a chance on being able to win the war by killing all our young men. the invasion began at two o'clock this morning. mr bush, like most other people, was clearly caught by surprise. we call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all the iraqi forces. 100 years old and still full of vigour, vitality and enjoyment of life. no other king or queen in british history has lived so long, and the queen mother is said to be quietly very pleased indeed that she's achieved this landmark anniversary. this is a pivotal moment for the church as an international movement. the question now is whether the american vote will lead to a split in the anglican community. welcome back. very glad to have you with us on bbc news. this is bbc news, the latest headlines: there's mounting anger in lebanon at the failure of politicians to prevent tuesday's devastating blast in which at least a 135 people were killed and 5,000 injured. more than a quarter of a million people have been made homeless, in large parts of the city every street, every building has been damaged. so many people wanting to know more about what exactly ammonium nitrate is, how it can do this. let's ask gabriel da silva, a senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the university of melbourne. good to talk to you, thank you very much for your time. 0bviously, very much for your time. obviously, we have another chance to make a detailed study but from what you're seeing, hearing and reading, what do you think happened in beirut? yes, we don't know exactly yet but clearly it is an explosion of ammonium nitrate. and you can tell that from, well, the reports that there was ammonium nitrate stored there but also from the nature of the explosion itself, and the plume of smoke that went up. and there was footage clearly showing a fire before the explosion happened which would have contributed to it. and there's two ways you can set off ammonium nitrate explosion. it's actually quite difficult to make it happen. normally, when we store and use this material, it's quite safe. so you either need a very hotly confined fire or you need another explosion to happen first. so if you're using ammonium nitrate, as part of a mining explosive, you would set up mining explosive, you would set upa high mining explosive, you would set up a high explosive to trigger the destination. so we don't know if there were other chemical stored nearby that we re chemical stored nearby that were explosives or very vulnerable. but clearly, what of those two scenarios has happened to trigger this devastating suasion. and it is generally used as a fertiliser i think, but it has been used very effectively as a bomb. i know in the second world war, and the bali bombings, it was used for. and the oklahoma city bombing. there is this whole history of unintentional explosions. how is it that we don't learn the lessons about how to store it? two, and that isa how to store it? two, and that is a real tragedy here. we knew how to prevent this incident. the main uses of ammonium nitrate rsa fertiliser, so it is great for plants. but also asa mining is great for plants. but also as a mining explosive where it is mixed with fuel and designated in a controlled fashion. but there has been uses fashion. but there has been uses of it, illegally as explosives, but also there has been a number of industrial accidents. there was, what of the major industrial accidents in the us was in texas city in the 19405 where you had a ship load of ammonium nitrate explode. we learned a lot of le55on5 explode. we learned a lot of lessons from that and i think ina lot lessons from that and i think in a lot of countries, we now don't make the same mistakes that were there. but we need to be vigilant. in 2015, in china, there was a major ammonium nitrate explo5ion. there was a major ammonium nitrate explosion. the ammonium nitrate explosion. the ammonium nitrate wa5 nitrate explosion. the ammonium nitrate was to nitrate cellulose which is incredibly flammable, almost explosive on its own. it would clearly be something you shouldn't do. what has happened in beirut i5 that this is a seized ship of ammonium nitrate, it's being keptin ammonium nitrate, it's being kept in storage for six years, reportedly. and it just kept in storage for six years, reportedly. and itju5t seems like they didn't know what to do with it, maybe they didn't understand the risks, what they had on their hands, and it stayed there and eventually this is what's happened. thank you, gabriel, they‘ re this is what's happened. thank you, gabriel, they're from the university of melbourne. thank you. it is 75 years since the american airforce plane enola gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of hiroshima in western japan. three days later another was dropped on the city of nagasaki. somewhere between 150,000 and 220,000 people were killed. bell chimes in the past few hours, a ceremony in hiroshima has marked the anniversary of the bombing. there's been a silent prayer at the exact time the first nuclear weapon hit the city. the coronavirus pandemic has forced the scaling back of ceremonies to honour the victims. the experience 75 years ago left japan with a strong anti—nuclear movement that endures to this day. but the remaining survivors of hiroshima are worried the lessons of the 6th of august, 1945 are being forgotten. from tokyo, rupert wingfield—hayes. (no audio translation available) hirotomi igara5hi i5 a right—wing japanese nationalist who says it's time for his country to develop its own nuclear weapons. the group he leads his one of around 1,000 ultranationalist organisations in japan dedicated to scrapping the postwar pacifist constitution, and the alliance with united states. translation: we need to acquire nuclear weapons so that the bomb will never be dropped on our homeland again, especially now with the threat from china. china has some 300 nuclear missiles aiming atjapan, and we have north korea. that country is like a madman holding a knife. on august the 6th, japan stops to remember what happened at hiroshima. to mourn the tens of thousands who were incinerated, and to recommit itself to the abolition nuclear weapons. what happened to you when the bomb exploded? at 83, keiko 0gura is one of a dwindling number of survivors who witnessed the destruction with their own eyes. she is worried that as memories fade, japan's commitment to never building nuclear weapons is weakening. survivors have a strong fear because, you know, we have many power plants, that means there are materials. plutonium, we have. and we have the technology to create the nuclear weapons. it might be easy if we said, "go, now!" if it wanted to, experts believe japan could build a nuclear weapon very quickly. it has a stockpile of 47 tons of plutonium, more than any other non—nuclear weapon state. the whole issue of nuclear weapons is still taboo here, even to talk about. but the view that japan may one day need to build its own nuclear deterrent goes well beyond the far—right fringe, even into parts of the ruling liberal democratic party. and the logic is simple. japan faces real and growing threats from north korea, and from an increasingly aggressive and well—armed china. and since president trump's election, america's commitment to protect japan under its nuclear umbrella is increasingly shaky. for the first time in postwar history, there is now a president in the white house who has openly and repeatedly said, "it's time for japan to defend itself." i think that is the biggest change. and sort of the biggest cause for concern. and ifjapan is moving in a direction of relying more on its own capabilities, i believe that's primarily because of a loss of credibility in us security guarantees. for the 75 years since hiroshima, japan has lived under american protection. now it is beginning to wonder what would happen if the americans really went home. rupert wingfield—hayes, bbc news, in tokyo. neil young is suing donald trump's re—election campaign for repeatedly using his music without his permission. the rock star says the trump campaign breached copyright laws by playing his songs at political rallies and events. the campaign has not yet made any official comment. a warning, there is flash photography in this report from the bbc‘s tim allman. rock music playing. it was the moment donald trump launched his campaign for the white house, and his introduction to presidential politics was accompanied by the music of neil young. how you doin‘? but the veteran rocker has long called for the trump team to stop using his work, a request he says has been wilfully ignored. now he's taking his grievance to court. in a statememt, his lawyers said: he's not the only rock star wanting to distance himself from the trump campaign. 0nly last month, sir eltonjohn joined the rolling stones and aerosmith in signing an open letter calling on politicians to obtain permission before playing their music at political events. and the family of tom petty issued a cease and desist letter when his song ‘i won't back down‘ was used in a rally at tulsa. we love you, man! neil young, who is now officially a us citizen, is seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each time one of his songs was played. ‘rockin' in the free world' playing. forthe trump campaign, it may not be such a free world after all. tim allman, bbc news. we will let you know how that one works out. just before we go, we wanted to share this video with you of uganda's president yoweri museveni leading by example. here he is, working out in his office to encourage citizens to exercise at home during the pandemic. he appears jogging barefoot, before hitting the deck to do 40 push—ups. not too bad for a 75—year—old. president museveni released a similar workout in april, when he had banned outdoor exercise to curb the spread of the virus. please don't, at me, i know he is doing, not doing terrifically good press ups. but they are fine. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter, i'm @bbcmikeembley. hello. while some parts of the uk have had some pleasant sunshine occasionally this week and stayed dry so far, albeit rather windy, others have been very wet — particularly into parts of scotland but not just scotland. 0ther spots had some heavy downpours during wednesday. but it is looking, for thursday, drier and warmer. high pressure building a little further. coming around to a southerly and that is going to lift temperatures again particularly into england and wales on friday. there will be another surge of heat with temperatures in the 305 for some as we will see in a moment. temperatures as we start thursday will have held up overnight across a large part of england and wales. so, a rather muggy start. could be a few mist and fog patches around. a zone of thicker cloud into parts of southern england, could be a bit drizzly with that pushing into parts of wales and the midlands during the day. could stay misty along some spots along the english channel coast. whereas elsewhere across the uk, it's a mix of cloud, some occasional sunny skies. it will be dry. best of the sunny skies in scotland towards the north. it is warmer, and temperatures peak in the upper 205 in the warmest parts of the east and south—east of england, just a gentle southerly breeze. 0n through thursday night, into friday morning, keep a bit of cloud, clear, keep some clear spells too — in fact clearing up across more of england and wales going into friday morning. and what will be another rather warm and muggy night. a warmer night in scotland and northern ireland. though by friday morning there's a weather front close to northern ireland and for here and then eastwards across scotland, there will be some showery rain moving in. a few late showers and thunderstorms can't be ruled out in england and wales but the main story here will be the sunshine and the heat again. upper 205, low 305, and hottest parts of the east and south—east of england, mid—305, 35, maybe 36 celsius around the london area. temperatures nowhere near that high in scotland and northern ireland — it'll be heavily cloudy with the chance of rain during the day. high pressure building back in for the weekend and that does mean a lot of dry weather particularly on saturday. by sunday there is an increasing chance of some thunderstorms around, particularly into parts of england and wales. and where friday is going to be so very hot, it will slowly cool a touch into the weekend but more noticeably elsewhere. this is bbc news, the headlines: there is widespread criticism in lebanon of the country's politicians, who are being blamed for tuesday's massive explosion in beirut, which killed at least 135 people, injured 5,000, and made a huge number of others homeless. teams are searching rubble for at least a hundred people still missing. a number of officials at the port are to be kept under house arrest while investigations go on. lebanese officials say the storage of around 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate at a warehouse in the port caused the blast. bell tolls thursday in japan marks 75 years since the united states dropped an atomic bomb on the city of hiroshima, killing thousands. there's been a silent prayer at the exact time the nuclear weapon hit the city. the coronavirus pandemic has forced the scaling back

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