Category: BBC

The United Nations has imposed a fresh round of sanctions on North Korea after its sixth and largest nuclear test.

The measures restrict oil imports and ban textile exports – an attempt to starve the North of fuel and income for its weapons programmes.

The US had originally proposed harsher sanctions including a total ban on oil imports.

The vote was only passed unanimously after Pyongyang allies Russia and China agreed to the reduced measures.

The sanctions, which were passed at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, were met with anger by North Korea.

A statement on state news agency KNCA warned that if the US did eventually push through harsher sanctions, North Korea would “absolutely make sure that the US pays due price”.

The US call last week for a total ban on oil imports was seen as by some analysts as potentially destabilising for the regime.

The new sanctions agreed by the UN include:

• Limits on imports of crude oil and oil products. China, Pyongyang’s main economic ally, supplies most of North Korea’s crude oil.
• A ban on exports of textiles, which is Pyongyang’s second-biggest export worth more than $700m (£530m) a year.
• A ban on new visas for North Korean overseas workers, which the US estimates would eventually cut off $500m of tax revenue per year.

A proposed asset freeze and a travel ban on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were dropped.

The US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, told the Security Council after the vote: “We don’t take pleasure in further strengthening sanctions today. We are not looking for war.”

A South Korean presidential office spokesman said on Tuesday: “North Korea needs to realise that a reckless challenge against international peace will only bring about even stronger sanctions against them.”

• North Korea crisis in 300 words
• Can the world live with a nuclear North Korea?

Monday’s resolution was the ninth one unanimously adopted by the UN since 2006.

What have previous sanctions achieved?

 

• 30 November 2016: UN targeted North Korea’s valuable coal trade with China, slashing exports by about 60% under a new sales cap. Exports of copper, nickel, silver, zinc and the sale of statues were also banned.
• What happened next? On 14 May 2017, North Korea tested what it said was a “newly developed ballistic rocket” capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead.
• 2 June 2017: UN imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on four entities and 14 officials, including the head of North Korea’s overseas spying operations.
• What happened next? On 4 July, North Korea claimed it carried out its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
• 6 August: UN banned North Korean exports of coal, ore and other raw materials and limited investments in the country, costing Pyongyang an estimated $1bn – about a third of its export economy.
• What happened next? On 3 September, North Korea said it tested a hydrogen bomb that could be miniaturised and loaded on a long-range missile.China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday (link in Chinese) that North Korea had “ignored international opposition and once again conducted a nuclear test, severely violating UN Security Council resolutions”.

  It also repeated its call for a “peaceful resolution” instead of a military response, adding: “China will never allow the peninsula to descend into war and chaos.”

  The BBC’s China editor Carrie Gracie says Beijing is treading a fine line and wants sanctions tough enough to signal its displeasure to Pyongyang and avoid American accusations of complicity, but not so tough as to threaten North Korea’s survival.

  • North Korea crisis: What will Russia do?
  • How do you defend against North Korea?

  Both Russia and China reiterated their proposal that the US and South Korea freeze all military drills – which anger North Korea – and asked for a halt in the deployment of the controversial anti-missile system Thaad, in exchange for Pyongyang’s cessation of its weapons programmes.

  Beijing believes Thaad, which employs a powerful radar, is a security threat to China and neighbouring countries.

  Ms Haley last week dismissed this proposal as “insulting”.

 

About 6.5 million homes in Florida, two-thirds of the total, are without power after Hurricane Irma cut a deadly path through the state, officials say.

Relief operations are under way and engineers are working to restore power, but many areas remain stranded.

The islands of the Florida Keys and western parts of the US state bore the brunt of the category-four hurricane.

Irma hit Florida on Sunday and weakened to a tropical storm before becoming a tropical depression early on Tuesday.

The storm was downgraded as it moved north towards Atlanta, with maximum sustained winds of 56km/h (35mph) later recorded, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a statement.

The NHC statement added that while heavy rain was expected to continue across south-eastern states, all storm surge and tropical storm warnings had been discontinued.

Media reports link at least four deaths to the storm in Florida. Last week it killed at least 37 people in Caribbean islands.

• Pope condemns climate sceptics
• Damage mapped
• Florida assesses cost of Hurricane Irma

  White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert said it will be some time before residents in the Florida Keys are able to return to their homes.

  “I would expect that the Keys are not fit for re-entry for regular citizenry for weeks”, he said.

  Speaking as he went on an aerial tour of the Keys, Florida Governor Rick Scott said: “Power lines are down throughout the state. We’ve got roads that are impassable, so everybody’s got to be patient as we work through this.”

  The Keys are cut off from the mainland, as the 42 bridges that link them are being assessed for damage. Reports say that 10,000 people decided to ride out the storm.

  • Hurricane Irma: Visual guide
  • In pictures: Irma blasts Florida
  • Rare animals survive storm
    

    How big will the disaster response be?

    Although Miami was spared the worst, large parts of the city are under water. Winds have snapped power lines and 72% of homes there are without electricity, officials say.

    On the west coast of Florida, drone footage from Naples, a town on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico about 125 miles (200km) to the north-west, shows rows of shattered suburban homes on streets under water.

    President Donald Trump has released emergency federal aid for Florida, describing the hurricane as a “big monster”.

    • UK plan to bolster hurricane relief effort
    • Cuba stunned and suffering

    How have residents felt the impact?

    “We feel the building swaying all the time,” restaurant owner Deme Lomas told Reuters news agency by phone from his 35th-floor apartment in Miami.

    At least four deaths have been connected to the storm:

    • Two police officers died when their vehicles collided in Hardee County in central Florida
    • A person died in a single-car crash near Orlando
    • A man died in the town of Marathon in the Florida Keys when his vehicle hit a tree on Saturday

      Some 6.3 million people in the state were told to evacuate before Irma arrived.

      Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Miami International Airport were closed on Monday.

      Night-time curfews have been imposed in areas such as Miami, where 13 people were arrested on suspicion of looting.

      • The deadly danger from Miami’s ubiquitous cranes
        

        Which areas were hit before Florida?

        Irma is the most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade, and caused widespread destruction on several Caribbean islands:

        • Cuba: At least 10 people were killed by the storm on the island, officials say. Three quarters of the population are without power
        • St Martin and St Barthelemy: Six out of 10 homes on St Martin, an island shared between France and the Netherlands, are now uninhabitable, French officials say. Nine people had died and seven were missing in the French territories, while four are known to have died in Dutch Sint-Maarten
        • Turks and Caicos Islands: Widespread damage, although extent unclear
        • Barbuda: The small island is said to be “barely habitable”, with 95% of the buildings damaged. One death has been confirmed
        • Anguilla: Extensive damage with one person confirmed dead
        • Puerto Rico: More than 6,000 residents of the US territory are in shelters and many more without power. At least three people have died
        • British Virgin Islands: Widespread damage reported, and five dead
        • US Virgin Islands: Damage to infrastructure was said to be widespread, with four deaths confirmed
          Another hurricane, Jose, has been weakening over the western Atlantic, with swells due to affect parts of Hispaniola (the island split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, later this week.
          • ‘Island looks like a bomb site’
          • Irma’s trail of destruction in Caribbean
          • ‘I have never been so scared in my life’

Parts of the Florida Keys, the low-lying islands which bore the brunt of Hurricane Irma when the category-four storm struck on Sunday, are to re-open.

Entry is being restricted to residents and business owners as work continues to clear roads and check the state of bridges linking the islands.

Some 60% of homes in the state are still without power.

Irma, which has since rapidly weakened, is being linked to 10 deaths in the United States.

Six people died in Florida, three in Georgia and one in South Carolina.

The storm also left a trail of destruction in the Caribbean, where at least 37 people were killed.

French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived to see the storm damage for himself, while the UK’s Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, is heading to the British Virgin Islands.

Both France and Britain have been criticised for not doing enough to help their nationals in overseas territories affected by the hurricane.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander spent Monday night on the Dutch side of St Martin, an island shared between France and the Netherlands.

• Damage mapped
• Florida assesses cost of Hurricane Irma

“Even from the plane I saw something I have never seen before,” the Dutch royal told the NOS public newscaster. “I have seen proper war as well as natural disasters before, but I’ve never seen anything like this”.

“Everywhere you look there’s devastation, you see the collapse,” he added.

‘It’s horrible’

Florida Governor Rick Scott used the same word – “devastation” – after flying over the Keys on Monday.

“I just hope everybody survived,” he said. “It’s horrible what we saw. Especially for the Keys, it’s going to be a long road.

“We saw a lot of boats washed ashore and we saw any, basically, any trailer park there overturned.”

Thousands of people are believed to have ignored calls to evacuate last week, and clung on in the dangerously exposed islands during the storm.

However, Governor Scott added: “I didn’t see the damage I thought I would see.” Storm surges had turned out to be “not as bad as we thought”, he said.

Teams are still working to clear Highway 1, the road connecting most of the inhabited islands, and bridge inspections are continuing.

People with authorisation are being allowed into the towns of Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada from 07:00 (11:00 GMT), the authorities in Monroe Country said.

They were warned that services on the islands were limited: most areas were still without power and water, mobile phone signals were patchy and most petrol stations were still closed.

The US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln has arrived off Florida and other navy ships are due in the area on Tuesday to help distribute food to the Keys and evacuate residents.

Relief in Miami

Other parts of the state escaped the storm lightly compared to the Caribbean islands.

“The storm surge flooding in Miami is a mere fraction of what would have happened if the core of the storm had been further east,” Rick Knabb, former director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a tweet.

Miami’s Mayor, Carlos Gimenez, was relieved the damage was no worse.

“We were spared the brunt of this storm,” he said. “We came out much better than other parts of the state and we have to thank God for that.”

Returning to her home in Miami’s Little Haiti neighbourhood, evacuee Melida Hernandez, 67, found her home split down the middle by a tree.

“I wanted to cry, but this is what it is, this is life,” she told Reuters news agency.

President Donald Trump has released emergency federal aid for Florida, describing the hurricane as a “big monster”.

The storm was downgraded as it moved north towards Atlanta, Georgia, with maximum sustained winds of 35mph (56km/h) recorded, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a statement.

• Pope condemns climate sceptics

Which areas were hit before Florida?

Irma has been the most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade, and caused widespread destruction on several Caribbean islands:

• Cuba: At least 10 people were killed by the storm on the island, officials say. Three quarters of the population are without power
• St Martin and St Barthelemy: Six out of 10 homes on St Martin, an island shared between France and the Netherlands, are now uninhabitable, French officials say. Nine people had died and seven were missing in the French territories, while four are known to have died in Dutch Sint-Maarten
• Turks and Caicos Islands: Widespread damage, although extent unclear
• Barbuda: The small island is said to be “barely habitable”, with 95% of the buildings damaged. One death has been confirmed
• Anguilla: Extensive damage with one person confirmed dead
• Puerto Rico: More than 6,000 residents of the US territory are in shelters and many more without power. At least three people have died
• British Virgin Islands: Widespread damage reported, and five dead
• US Virgin Islands: Damage to infrastructure was said to be widespread, with four deaths confirmed
  Another hurricane, Jose, has been weakening over the western Atlantic, with swells due to affect parts of Hispaniola (the island split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, later this week.
  • UK plan to bolster hurricane relief effort
  • Cuba stunned and suffering
  • ‘Island looks like a bomb site’

Nato’s general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, has said North Korea’s nuclear programme “is a global threat and requires a global response”.

“That of course also includes Nato,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

But he refused to say whether an attack on the US overseas territory of Guam would trigger the military alliance’s collective defence pact.

Article 5 of the Nato treaty says that an attack against one member is considered an attack against all.

Guam, an island territory of the US in the Pacific Ocean, is a key military outpost and has been the subject of heated rhetoric from Pyongyang.

• North Korea crisis in 300 words
• How should Trump handle North Korea?
• How do you defend against North Korea?

“I will not speculate about whether Article 5 will be applied in such a situation,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

“What I will say is that we are now totally focused on how can we contribute to a peaceful solution of the conflict and press North Korea to stop its nuclear missile programmes.”

He called on North Korea to stop its development of nuclear weapons, saying it was a blatant violation of UN security resolutions and “a threat to international peace and stability”.

Nato has condemned Pyongyang’s tests but, as a military alliance, is not directly involved in the related diplomacy.

The comments from Mr Stoltenberg come as members of the UN Security Council differ on how to deal with the crisis following North Korea’s latest missile test over Japan.

The US has drafted a resolution to increase sanctions and cut off some of the last remaining sources of income for Pyongyang, as well as imports of oil.

Russia, however, has expressed scepticism about more sanctions, which have had little effect so far.

Appearing separately on the same programme as Mr Stoltenberg, British defence minister Michael Fallon said the US would have a right to ask other members of the United Nations to join any defence of its territory – but that should be avoided.

“What we have to avoid at all cost is the spilling over in to any kind of military conflict,” he said.

“So we’re working flat out at the United Nations to get a better resolution there, to enforce the existing sanctions. We are looking at sanctions across the European Union and of course we are trying to persuade China to keep its neighbour in check.”

Analysts believe a military conflict with North Korea would be devastating for both Pyongyang and South Korea; and some say that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seeking a nuclear deterrent rather than planning for open war.

George Clooney has said he “felt sick” while directing some scenes in his new movie Suburbicon.

The film’s plot sees a black family move into a predominantly white suburban community in the 1950s.

“The trickiest part [of shooting] was, we were in a very racially diverse neighbourhood in Fullerton, California,” Clooney said.

“And we had about 350 extras who were going to hurl a lot of racial slurs and say a lot of pretty terrible things.”

Clooney added: “Everybody who was making the film, we all just felt sick while we were doing it.”

Image copyright TIFF

Referring to the way the family is treated in the film, the director said: “These are things that happened – [neighbours] sang church hymns, they hung confederate flags over the fence, they built a fence around their house, these are things that really happened.

“But it was sickening to be part of it quite honestly, so that was one of the most difficult things to shoot.”

The movie, which is currently showing as part of the Toronto Film Festival, was conceived during the run up to the US election of November 2016, which was won by Donald Trump.

Clooney said: “We’d seen some things on the campaign trail where they were talking about building fences, and scapegoating Mexicans and Muslims, and we’re always reminded that these aren’t new things and new moments in our history.

“So we thought it would be interesting to talk about it, but we wanted the film to be entertaining, not a documentary, we didn’t want it to be an eat-your-spinach piece of filmmaking.

Image copyright Getty Images

“So we merged it with [an existing Coen Brothers script] Suburbicon, because we thought it was a funnier idea to put it in the suburbs in the 1950s where we all thought everything was perfect – if you were a white straight male.”

The actor and director said the real-life political climate the film was shot in ultimately altered the tone of the movie.

“While we were shooting, Trump was elected, and it changed the temperature of the film in a weird way,” Clooney explained.

“The country got angrier, whichever side you were on. We had to cut some of Josh Brolin’s scenes out, and one of the reasons is they were really slapstick funny, and it felt like the wrong tone suddenly.”

The film stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Karimah Westbrook – who drew parallels between her character (the mother of the African-American family) and her own experience of the entertainment industry.

“I think early on there was a lot of correlations as far as what I’ve experienced in Hollywood,” she said.

Image copyright Getty Images

“I wore my hair natural for a very long time, so when I first moved to Hollywood I had an afro, and my manager said ‘You’ll never work with your hair like that, you’ll have to straighten it’.

“I struggled with that for years, my looks, my hair… but I feel like things have changed so much in the industry, we have so many African-American women starring in shows now, so I feel there’s been progress, but there’s still a lot of things we’re facing on both sides.”

The BBC’s Paul Blake and Laura Bicker report from the British Virgin Islands, where Hurricane Irma’s force has destroyed communities, and left at least five people dead.

The flight into the island of Tortola should feature sweeping views of lush green hillsides and translucent-blue bays. Today it looks like the victim of a bomb blast.

On approach to the airport on Saturday, boats could be seen piled on top of one another like children’s toys. Others laid lop-sided on dry ground or semi-submerged offshore.

A car ride to the governor’s office gave a street-level view of the destruction. Many neighbourhoods have been flattened, their residents can be seen trying to cook and clean amidst the rubble.

Hill sides were strewn with debris and dotted by houses disembowelled by the storms powerful winds.

Around them, the earth looked scorched – not by fire, but by wind and water that has ripped away vegetation.

Power lines snaked across roads while residents drove over them in vehicles with blown-out windows.

Residents recalled the storm with horror, with many believing that the hurricane had spun off tornadoes, which then cut through buildings like a jigsaw.

As they tried to assess the damage, many asked with trepidation about Hurricane Jose – a smaller storm loosely following Irma’s path – and whether it was coming their way.

We met one survivor who was still trying to comprehend what had happened to his home. Arron Glasgow says he and his brother were fighting to keep the wind out when the roof suddenly blew off.

Standing in what used to be the family’s living room, he says “I’ve lost everything. What you see me have on – perhaps one other shirt – is what I have.”

Flipped cars and boats in the street meant driving was slow and treacherous.

Downed trees and power poles were buttressed by flimsy boards so that cars passed underneath.

With stagnant water pooling in the streets and a decimated utility system, there is now a concern that disease and other public health threats could emerge.

Image copyright Paul Blake/BBC

Image copyright Paul Blake/BBC

Some residents have criticised the UK government’s response as “pathetic and slow”. British troops have now arrived to help.

The Royal Engineers and Commandos co-ordinated by Joint Force Headquarters have retrofitted the arrivals lounge into something of a home base, where they are organising security and recovery operations.

Mid-afternoon on Saturday, those operations came into full swing with the arrival of a Royal Air Force A400M transport aircraft. As the massive prop plane came to a halt, its rear hatch cracked open.

Dozens of soldiers jogged out with gear that is being used to establish a sort of base of operations inside the arrivals lounge.

Over the coming days they’ll be working to reinstate law and order on the island and help jump-start the recovery process.

At the governor’s mansion, British soldiers were working to establish satellite communications with the outside world, while Brigadier John Ridge was liaising with governor Gus Jaspert about what operations needed to be prioritised.

At a local police station – we are told – British Army commandos are working with officers to try and re-establish control after reports of looting. For his part, the governor has imposed an overnight curfew to keep criminality at bay.

It is being billed as a military exercise, but when Russian and Belarusian forces start Zapad-2017 this week, many neighbouring countries will be looking on nervously.

Zapad-2017 (“West-2017”) is a joint strategic-level exercise involving Russian and Belarusian military forces, expected to begin on 14 September in Russia’s western military district Kaliningrad, and across Belarus.

It is scheduled to last about a week, but may well go on for longer. The exercise is part of a four-year rolling cycle of manoeuvres that focus each year on one broad region or “front” (“West”, “Eastern”, “Central” or “Caucasus”). This year’s Zapad exercise though is drawing much greater attention than did its predecessor in 2013.

The context has changed significantly. Russia has seized and annexed Crimea; it has supported a separatist war in eastern Ukraine with weaponry, training and, for periods, its own combat units. Russia is thus seen by several Nato countries as much more threatening.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has described Russia’s build-up for the exercise as “preparations for an offensive war on a continental scale”. Ukrainian border defences, he said, are being bolstered.

He also pointed to the fact that in his view, Russia has form here, using the pretext of an exercise to mobilise and position forces to conduct offensive operations. President Poroshenko said he could not rule out the possibility that the drill “may be used as a smokescreen to create new Russian army assault groups to invade Ukrainian territory”.

Image copyright EPA

Units on the move

Nato watchers and insiders do not necessarily share this concern about an all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Russia expert Keir Giles, a fellow at Chatham House think tank, acknowledges that “previous Russian exercises on this scale have prepositioned troops for undertaking military operations, against Georgia in 2008 and against Ukraine in 2014”.

However, he says, “both of those moves were precipitated by an immediate political crisis – currently absent in Europe.

“And there have been plenty of other major Russian exercises in between,” he says, “which did not end up with somebody getting invaded”.

US backs Baltics against Russia ‘threat’

Nato fears fast-moving Russian troops

Eastern Ukraine: A new, bloody chapter

Russia’s information warfare in Europe

Nonetheless, the fear of a resurgent and more aggressive Russia is real enough. That is why, over the past year, Nato has sent small multi-national units to Poland and to each of the three Baltic republics to underline its deterrent message. And that is why this year’s war games will be watched so closely.

Just how closely is a contentious issue. Russia, unlike Belarus, has been far more reluctant to invite Western observers in any number. This despite the fact that, as a member of the OSCE international security body, it is obliged to send out broad invitations if an exercise numbers more than 13,000 troops.

Mr Giles notes that, while Russia may be “content to see Europe alarmed at the prospect of Moscow throwing its military weight around”, Belarus seeks instead to calm the situation. The siting of the exercise in ranges across the middle of the country – not near the Polish and Lithuanian borders – was a deliberate policy decision intended to reduce the chances of misinterpretation, or incidents when Russian troops and aircraft come close to Nato borders.

Image copyright AFP

Belarus has been much more open towards international observers. Clearly satellites, airborne radars and other national intelligence collection measures will be used by Nato countries.

In addition, efforts are under way to mobilise concerned citizens in Belarus to observe military movements in their area and post them online for the benefit of non-government, open-source analysts and experts.

How many troops?

So just how big is this exercise and what will Western analysts and observers be watching for? Here assessments differ widely.

The Russians say some 12,700 troops will be involved in total, including a significant contingent from Belarus. (Notice this takes it below the 13,000 OSCE threshold.)

Western experts watching the preparations, especially the marshalling of railway flat-cars – the main way of moving heavy armoured formations to the exercise areas – say it will be considerably more.

Image copyright AFP

Some estimates suggest that up to 80,000 troops could be involved, but since there are a range of drills, exercises and spot mobilisations it is hard to be precise about numbers.

Russia will be testing its capacity to contain and respond to some form of outside aggression and will be deploying units from different services: heavy armour; airborne troops; “spetsnaz” elite reconnaissance teams; and electronic warfare specialists.

The Baltic Fleet will be involved, as will units from the 14th Corps based in Kaliningrad. One point of interest may be the part played at the tactical and strategic levels of “information operations troops” – a relatively new formation in the Russian order of battle.

Indeed, while there may be much to learn about Russia’s use of artillery, its capability in electronic warfare (already manifest in the fighting in Ukraine) and the growing importance of precision-guided munitions in Russia’s thinking, it may be this information aspect that is most important. For beyond the troop movements, Zapad-2017 is part of a wider propaganda effort to influence and shape opinion in the West.

Atmosphere of suspicion

The US analyst Michael Kofman in a fascinating piece on the War on the Rocks website, describes Zapad as “a good window into the Russian mindset.

“For all the modernisation and transformation of the Russian armed forces,” he writes, “in reality the Russian leadership is probably still afraid: afraid the United States will try to make a bid for Belarus, afraid of American technological and economic superiority, afraid the US seeks regime change in Moscow, and afraid Washington desires the complete fragmentation of Russian influence in its near abroad, or even worse, Russia itself.”

“Zapad,” he argues, “is the most coherent manifestation of these fears, and a threat from Moscow to the United States about what it might do if the worst should come to pass.”

And what of those lingering fears in some quarters that this could be much more than just an exercise? Mr Giles remains unconvinced by much of the media hyperbole surrounding Zapad.

But he has this caution: “The time to watch troop deployments most closely,” he says, “is likely to be after the exercise proper has ended.”

The final day of Zapad is 20 September but, he notes, “Russian troops are only scheduled to leave Belarus by 30 September – after the observers have departed, and when the media interest will have died down. That will be the time to decide whether Zapad this year has in fact passed off peacefully.”

Irma continues through Florida

After making its way through the Caribbean, causing death and destruction, Hurricane Irma has hit Florida. It’s brought winds of up to 120mph (192km/h), leaving 3.4 million homes in the US state without power, while parts of the city of Miami are under water.

Irma has been downgraded from a category three to a category two storm, but that will provide little comfort to the three million people living in the Tampa Bay area, which it is approaching. Some 6.3 million people in Florida were told to evacuate ahead of Irma’s arrival and US President Donald Trump has approved a major disaster declaration and emergency federal aid for the state.

You can follow the latest developments as Irma continues its journey through the US using our live page.

Police and prison officer pay cap to be lifted

Since 2013 pay rises for most public sector workers have been capped at 1% per year. But the BBC understands that the restriction is to be lifted for the first time for police and prison officers. Political correspondent Iain Watson said it was the “first concrete example of the pay cap being dismantled”. Other public sector workers may get the same news soon, it’s understood. Unions, Labour and some Conservative MPs have been calling for the cap to go.

MPs warned against Brexit ‘chaos’

MPs will vote later on the government bill which aims to end EU law’s supremacy in the UK. Labour is opposing the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, claiming that it allows ministers too much power to act without consulting Parliament. But Brexit Secretary David Davis is warning that not backing the legislation would lead to a “chaotic” Brexit. The bill would also convert all existing EU laws into domestic ones, to ensure there are no gaps in legislation after the UK leaves.

A foldable gift from China

By Tim Harford, BBC World Service

The Book of the Marvels of the World was full of strange foreign customs that Marco Polo claimed to have seen. But there was one that was so extraordinary, he could barely contain himself. “Tell it how I might,” he wrote, “you never would be satisfied that I was keeping within truth and reason.” What had excited Marco so much? He was one of the first Europeans to witness an invention that remains at the foundation of the modern economy: paper money.

Read the full article

What the papers say

“Irma tears up Florida,” says the i, as most of the newspapers concentrate on the hurricane’s deadly effect on the south-eastern US. The Financial Times shows a street under water, reporting that it could take weeks to restore power in some areas. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail quotes the families of British people stranded in the Caribbean saying they feel their relatives have been “abandoned” by the UK government. Meanwhile, the Guardian says a United Nations report finds ministers are “flouting” their duty to protect citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution.

Animals and plants may be living in warm caves under Antarctica’s ice, according to a study.

Australian researchers said that Mount Erebus, an active volcano on Antarctica’s Ross Island, is surrounded by caves hollowed out in the ice by steam.

Soil samples retrieved from the caves have revealed intriguing traces of DNA from mosses, algae and small animals.

The research has been published in the journal Polar Biology.

“It can be really warm inside the caves – up to 25C in some caves. You could wear a T-shirt in there and be pretty comfortable,” said co-author Dr Ceridwen Fraser, from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.

“There’s light near the cave mouths, and light filters deeper into some caves where the overlying ice is thin.”

Dr Fraser said that most of the DNA resembles that found in plants and animals from the rest of Antarctica. But that some sequences couldn’t be fully identified.

Co-researcher Prof Craig Cary, from the University of Waikato in New Zealand, said previous research had found that a range of bacteria and fungi lived in Antarctica’s volcanic caves.

“The findings from this new study suggest there might be higher plants and animals as well,” Prof Cary explained.

But Prof Laurie Connell, a co-author from the University of Maine, said the results did not confirm plants and animals were still living in the caves.

“The next steps will be to take a closer look at the caves and search for living organisms. If they exist, it opens the door to an exciting new world,” she explained.

There are a number of other volcanoes across Antarctica, the researchers pointed out, so sub-glacial cave systems could be common across the continent.