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nada: this isworld news america." reporting from washington, i'm nada tawfik. it was an arms control treaty inked during the cold war era. now the u.s. is pulling out, sing russia of a violati the pact. president trump's pick to become directorf national intelligence withdraws his name from consideration. and top honors for highflying photos. putting the focus on birds and their habitats has led to some amazing images. nada: for those watching on pbs and around the globe, welcomes o "world nerica." today the u.s. has made it official, it has withdrawn from an arms control pactrussia that dates back to the cold war. the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty was a landmark agreement at the time, but now e u.s. accuses russia of violating it, which moscow

denies. the fear is that without the restrictions, a new arms race could get underway. the bbc's diplomatic correspondent james landale looks back at the treaty's history. james: it was a crucial moment towards the end of the cold war, the moment in 1987 when leadersi of thed states and the soviet union signed the treaty. ronald reagan and mikael gorbachev promised to destroy all missiles with ranges between 300 miles and 3400 miles, eliminating at a stroke la entire of nuclear weapons. the mobile ground launch nuclear weapons were hard to detect and could strike anywhere in europe within minutes. but in recent years, russia has begun testing and deploying a new cruise missile, which the u.s. saybreaches the inf treaty. so they have withdrawn from the agreement, much to the concern of the international community.

>> the world removes an invaluable brake on nuclear war, and this will likely not reduce the threat posed by ballistic missiles. regardless of what transpires, the parties should avoid deabilizing developments and urgently seek agreement on a new common path for international arms control. james: the u.s. had given russia six months to comply with the treaty, but moscow denied the new missile broke the rules and blamed the u. for breaking the agreement. the risk is thatt sparks a new ms race between russia, china, and the u.s. nato leaders promised to ensure that the alliance's defenses remained credible, but said they would not mirror russia and deoy land-based missiles. >> we don't want a new arms race. d at is the reason why we will respond in a measud defensive way.

that is also the reason why we continue to work for arms control, nonproliferation, and essarmament. james: three decgo, the leaders of the world's superpowers acted to reduce the nuclear threat in europe. their treaty is now dead, and another part of the international rules-based ordern has been con to history. james landale, bbc news. nada: for more, i spoke withct e di of the atlantic council scowcroft center for strategy and security. liwhat are the impcations of this decision? could this leato a new agree nuclear arms race? >> the arms race is already underway and and conventional, and the reason for the u.s. official withdrawal from the treaty is that russia was violating it, number one. number two, there is a hefty dose of chinese missile capabilities tha dealt with to strengthen deterrence. this is one element of continuity, which is a rare thing, between tra obama adminion and the trump

administration, as the obama administration was also highlighting the russian violation of the treaty. this is sort of official policy catching up to reality. nada: this will directly affect europe's security. what steps do you think nato should takto basically guard against threats to their territory? >> nato has been taking steps more broadly tstrengthen deterrence as russia's capabilitiesnd activities increasingly threaten nato allies. you have the stronger u.s. presence in nato on european soil, greater defense spg ding amny of the nato allies. but i think if i had look at the highest priority for u.s. defense planning, they are looking more towards asia and china. nada: john bolton wasn't a fan of this treaty. he is also not a fan of the new start treaty, which actually expires, what, february 2021? is that deal as good as dead? barry: no, i don't agree with that. there is time, less time then

-- than there should be. i personally think that treaty is very important to extend, even as there are additional russian capabilities that are not yet in the new start framework. we are talking new forms of weapon systems, nuclear power, nuclear drones, those types of things. those have to be included. but as we are negotiating that, we should extend new sadrt but nce quickly to include the new russian capabilities that are a concern. i don't think it is dead yet. i think that is too premature. nada: do you think, loising at igger picture, is this evidence that there is wider breakdown on international cooperion on matters of global security like this that are so important, and instead we are seeing moves like this, unilateral moves? barry: i think this is part of the unfortunate pattern, and the s oader pattern i see that i am most worried aboutssia and china advancing and violating the rules, invading countries like ukraine, milirizing llands in international waters

that are disputee china. but i think -- and the perception that the u.s. is withdrawing somewhat andsss a eliable ally. none of that is good for international security, none of that is good for the united states. absee this small move as a step toward some newm. equilibr i think it is important -- otherwise we only have the chinese and the russians taking these kinds of actions. nada: thank you very much. barry: my pleasure. nada: turning to politics in the united states, president trump's pickec to become dr of national intelligence is no longer going for the job. day mr. trump tweeted th congressman john ratcliffe has been treated unfairly and has decided to stay in the house. but it is another presidential tweewhich is raising controversy after congressman elijah cummings confirmed there was an attempted burglary at his home early last saturday before the president unleashed a series of attacks on hi the president tweeted, "really

bad news, the baltimore house of elijah cummings was robbed. too bad."ve to whichformer u.n. ambassador nikki haley responded, "this is so unnecessary." mr. trisp clarifi words were being misinterpreted. i spoke earlier to the bbc's anthony zurcher. walk us through what happened from five days ago when john ratcliffe was nominated to the -- this decision. anthony: there were stories in the media questioning his credentials, saying he inflated qualifications, particularly intelligence and national security qualifications, and meat played into concerns in the senate that his reas thin on national security to become the head of the top intelligence agency within the white house overseeing these intelligence mmunity people. this drumbeat of negative information reached a crescendo. it was getting clearer and clearer that support in congress and the senate was not there for confirmation.

nada: what does this say that the president has had this problem before? what does it say about his vetting process? anthony: it calls into question his vetting process. this is donald trump's style. he nominates from the hip. he throws a name out there. he does not necessarily like having an open position. heants to have a name, seem like he is being decisive. sometimes he moves faster than his whe house vetters. in that impromptu press conference, he says that he relies on the press to do his vetting, it saves money. of course he was just slamming the press, saying they r were libelicliffe. nada: as well, he said his twe about cummings was sincere that , that he thought it really was too bad. anthony: there is not a sarcasm font on twitr. i was looking at his earlier tweets looking for "too bad," an he used "too bad" to

describe trade negotiations, democrats blocking his agenda, fox news becoming too liberal.ow i don't f there was mercasm in that, but it does seem glib about e's home being broken into. nada: for nikki haley to say you have gone too far, that was a real slap back to the president: anth it's true. republicans were starting to second-guess him. that was a big thing. another member of congress said it was beneath the office and childish for him. he was already starting to get pushback. when you view it in the context of what he said about elijah cummings and baltimore as well, it is hard to see this as him just bng sympathetic. nada: anthony zurcher, thank you very much. the u.s. economy has had quite a few jolts ts week, from an intrest rate cut to the lat jobs report. many are looking to where things are headed next. but among the biggest moves was the president's decision to slaf additional t on china starting september 1, and today he doubled down, saying that if things don't go america's way, f he could go evther. pres. trump: china has to do a

lot of things to turn it around. they have got to do a lot of things. it goes on on september 1, and hem,kly, if they don't do i could always increase it substantially. in other words, i could increase it, if i wanted to, to a much higher number. nada: the president famous once said that trade wars are good and easy to win. but speaking this week to the bbc, the president's former economic adviser gary cohn took a different view. gary: i think everyone loses in a trade war. in the united states, we buy importedleoods. th we can pay for those goods, more services we can buy. nada: four more i spoke to diane swonk of grant thornton. she joined me from chicago. looking at how rattled the markets have been, are investors now betting on a prolonged trawa diane: i don't think they have

gotten -- targets are a goal, not a tactic. i think they are a goal of the administration. even with the tariffs that have been rolled back, moiffs have been added on. by next year, depending on how much we do in terms of levying tariffs on china and whether or not we do any kind of retaliation on europe or preemptive strike on europe, europe looks a little att better his point in time. japan is also in the target range, vietnam is in the target range. it could easily -- we could easily be back to the tariff levels we saw in the early '90'before we did nafta and things like that, which is a big reversal. nada: what impact would that have, diane? diane: china is already weak. this has exacerbated their weakness. the second largest economy in the world, and unlike japan, they have tentacles r to every otonomy in the world, and

that has had collateral damage already to eurine. add somelike brexit to it and other weakness and you have a snowball effect. what you are risking, and why thatfed is so concerned, is you are risking headwinds that could actually en tip us over. the hope is that we can avoid that, but it is hard to offset bad trade policies with interest rate cuts alone. nada: as you said, the fed cut interest rates partly to offset e tariffs. now, givenresident trump's latest announcement, promise of new tariffs, do you think there will be another interest rate cut? diane: i do believe there will be another interest rate cut. not only is the economy slowing, we had good, solid economicmb gains in jobs s today, but they are down 20% from almost 30from the pace we saw last year. manufacturing hours are way down. ate in july since 2015. down 1.5% fr year ago. these are factors feeding in from the tariff war already and compounding as we go into the latter part of the year. the fed is going to have to cut

again. the irony is that the president and the administration would like to see the fed cutting rates to juice the economy in an election year when the most they can do is offset the uncertainty. that is how ey are looking at this, not as an interest rate cut, but as a confidence sure rob for the uncertainty -- shore up for the uncertainty and the lack of confidenceve now because of trade. you see investment retrench last quarter, and that is because people are treading with caution inead of confidence when y usually this late in the cycle see much more euphoria out there. nada: what does all of this say about the impact of president ecump's tax cuts on thomy and whether there is any benefit left to be gained from them? diere: last year, fourth-qua growth and when the tax cuts had the biggest impact on the economy in 2018, we grew 2.5% alstead of the 3% initially reported, a fullpercent less. much of the weakness occurred in the fourth quarter as china started to slow and this shock

effect of the thought of a full-blown trade war with china blew up. you saw consumers pull in at ththat point in time durin height of the holiday season just because of the fear factor alone. that is something that the fed is trying toffset right now. it really shows the fragility in the economy, and even with all the tax cuts we have, we only have 2.5%, so the threat of a roade war was already taking a toll and weakness and the contagion effect that china has on that were already hurting the u.s. economy. nada: thank you, diank. a quick look at some other news around the world. swedish judge has ordered american rapper asap rocky to be released from ctody until a verdict is announced in his assault trial. d e artist has been in jail for a month in sweden eaded not guilty to the charges. president trump tweeted that the rapper was free and on his way home. the head of brazil's space research institute has lost his job after a public row with president jair bolsonaro over

the speed of deforestation in the amazon. mr. bolsonaro accused the agency of falsifying data suggested a sharp increase in the rate at which trees were being felled. hongo's civil servants defied government warnings and held a rally in solidarity with protesters who are calling for democratic change in the territory. the government says they must serve the chief executive with total loyalty and warns they could lose their jobs if they ta to the streets. stephen mcdonell was on the scene in hong kong. stephen: hong kong's civil servants were warned not to turn out for this rally i. the idthey should be loyal to the government. but by the thousand they have ignored that and come to this garden, where the rally has just wrapped up i and people are heading home. we are heading into the third month of this crisis in hong kong with no sign of ending.

this is the first of what will be four days of protests. tomorrow there is another pro-democracy rally and another rally in port of beijing -- support of beijing. i suppose you could say in suppt of the police. sunday, another rally. monday, talk of a general strike . all over this city you cannot get f awaym this political crisis. as i say, there is no opening for an end as of yet. there is no way, seems, to wind it up. what is interesting is that despite the violent street clashes we have seen, despite people being arrested, there is broad support for this pro-democrac movement amongst shopkeepers, taxi drivers, small business owners. whatever that support holds up, i think we can see this just rolling on and on. nada: stephen mcdonell in hong

kong. you are watching "bbc world news america." igstill to come on t's program, parts ofussia are being ravaged by wildfires. we are on the scene with the latest. nada: many of us felt it, and now there is evidence th b july may han the hottest month world has ever had. provisiol figures suggest global temperatures last month werew 1.2 degrees above preindustrial levels. here is halep gosh. p-- pallab ghosh. pallab: it has been the same story across many parts of the urworld, record temper in china, a heatwave in too. and now it is official tjuly is one hottest is not the hottest on record. july isn't alone. 2019 has been very warm globally.

each month so far is among t four warmest for the month in question andune has been the ghest ever. >> this particular month has been verym, w but it is not really the main point. not only was this month very warm,ut last month was everyone. all months in 2019 were very warm compared to other use, and that trend is not likelyo stop unless we do some thing about cutting greenhouse gas emissions. the results are based o millions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, ana weather statio across the world. computer models of the impact of climate change predicted that more summer temperature records are likely to be broke across the world more often. a separate assessment by the world weather attribution group shows the fingerprint of climate change on the current heatwave in western eope. temperatures are up to three degrees hotter than they otherwise would have been

because of greenhouse gases created by human activities. individual heatwaves cannot be pinned to human have been global remes of but the e weather we are beginning to see is in line with addictions made te change experts, and they say they are likely to get nada: russia's arctic north and far east are being ravaged by huge wildfires, with more than 7 million acres ablaze and vastea engulfed by smoke. ilfires are common this time of year, record-breaking summer temperatures and strong winds have made the situatioworse than usual. our moscow correspondent steve rosenberg has traveled to are te region of siberia and sent this report. steve: for weeks now, siberiabe ha smoldering.

vast swathes of forest shrouded in smoke, and many ravaged by fire. wildfires are common here, but not on this scale. in siberia, an area the size of belgium is burning. the kremlin has sent in the army. helitary planes doing what can to extinguish the blaze. the fires are sparked by hot weather and thunderstorms. they are mainly in remote areas, but could the effects be more widespread? there is concern that carbon emissions fr here may be melting ice in the arctic and speeding up global warming. >> black carbon is black small particles which falls down on the ice and turn them from white to black. the ice cannot reflect sun radiation. sun starts to heat the ice in

arctic and it melts faster. steve: as if fire wasnt bad enough, there have been floods, too. in june, a dam burst following torrential rain. 23 people died. now the town has flooded again. from forest fires to flooding, so far this has been a summer of hell for people in siberia. it is because of the wildfires and the floods that a state of emergency has been declared in large parts of this region. victor's house is uninhabitable. but they make people tough in siberia. "russians are rey for any challenge," victor tells me. "we'll get by." picking up the pieces after a natural disaster -- foia, it is becoming second nature.

steve siberia. bbc news, nada: now, how do you capture the perfect wildlife photo? for the past 10 yearau the bon photo competition has celebrated the best of bird photography, images that capture the beauty and quiet moments of our feathered friends. a judge for the competition explains to the bbc what it a kes to snap the golden s >> i think we harge number of finalist images that really showed a very creative approacha to bird photy. there were a lot of different angles, different point of views.we elt very strongly amongst the judges that photographers are trying to push the envelope in terms of how can we take aur piof a bird differently.

instead of having a pretty bird sitting on a branch with perfect lighting, perfect technique, all gwhich isat picture, all these added elements created an invigorating collection of f imag us judges to look at. we had a lot of fun judging, and we felt refreshed. some of us have been judging this contest for years now. this year we were excited about the freshness of some of the approach.ea the with the rabbit, these pictures were perfect, decisive moment type of images, where everything coalesces into this perfect picture. catherine spent many, many, many days tracking this picture.

ment had to be perfect, the temperature had to be perfect. it had to have the sunrise quality. the picture she shot is kind of the holy grail.ti the al audubon society has taken a stance on ethical bird photography. t are promoting best practices in terms of how e a great photo.ba thc premise is that a picture is never worth harassing the bird. nada: always sompressive to see how much patience those photographers have to get the perfect shot. am nada tawfik. thanks for watching "world new america." announcer: funding for this presentation is made possible by... the freeman foundation;

by judy and peter blum-kovler fodation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs; and by contributions to this pbs statio from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: now you can access more of your favorite pbs shows than ever before... this is the future! with pbs passport, a member benit that lets you bing many of the latest shows and catch up on your favorites... we really are living in the modern world. any time you want... man: wow! how about that? anywhere you are. woman: there's literally nothing like this in the world. announcer: support your pbs station and get passport, your ticket to the best of pbs.

captioning sponsored by wshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm juhe woodruff. onewshour tonight: out before he's in. president trump's mu criticized pick to be director of national intelligence thdraws from considerati less than a week after he was named. then, an island in crisis. the embattlegovernor of puerto rico steps down, a new one sworn in, but legal challenges to come. warnings from greenland-- billions of tons of lt into the ocean, sparking fearsxa of how it willrbate the global climate crisis. plus, after presidenp's attacks on members of congress

who are raci minorities, how