woman: this is "bbc world news america." is made possible b the freeman foundation; by judy and peter blum-kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs; and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. nada: this is "bbc world ws america."

reporting from washington, i'k.m nada taw it was an arms control treaty inked during the cold war era. now the u.s. is pulling out, accusing russia of a violating the pact. president trump's pick to become director of national telligence withdraws his name from consideration. and top honors for highflying photos. putting the focus on birds and their habitats has led to some amazing ima nada: for those watching on pbs and around the globe, welcome to "world news americ." today the u.s. has made it official, it has withdrawn from an arms control pact with russ d thes back to the cold war. the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty was a landmark agreement at the time, but now the u.s. accuses russia of violating it, which moscow denies. the fear is that without the restrictions, a new arms

race could getnderway. the bbc's diplomatic correspondent james landale looks back at the treaty's ucstory. james: it was a l moment towards the end of the colwar, the moment in 1987 when leaders of the united 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 an entire class of nuclear weapons. the mobile ground launch nuclear weapons were hard to detect andl costrike anywhere in europe within minutes. but in recent years, russia has begun testing and deploying a new cruise missile, which the u.s. says breaches 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 so they have withdrawn from the agreement, much to the concern of the international community.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 llistic missiles. regardless of what transpires, the parties should avoid destabilizing developments and urgently seek agreement on a new common path for international ms 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.s. for breaking the agreement. the risk is that it sparks a new arms racbetween 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 deploy land-based missiles. >> we don't want arms race. that is the reason why we will respond in a measured and defensive way. that is also the reason why we continue to work for arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament.

james: three decades ago, 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 order has been consigned to histlay. james ale, bbc news. nada: for more, i spoke wit the director of the atlantic council scowcroft center for strategy and security. what are the implication this decision? could this lead to a new agree nuclear arms r >> the arms race is already underway and it will be nuclear and conventional, and the reason for the u.s. official wi from the treaty is that russia was violating it, number one. number two, there is a hefty dose of chinese missile capabilities that have to be dealt with to strengthen deterrence. this is one element of ntinuity, which is a rare thing, between the obama administration and the trumpra adminion, as the obama administration was also highlighting the russian

y.violation of the tre this is sort of official policy catching up to reaty. nada: this will directly affect europe's security. what steps do you thk nato should take to basically guard against threats to their territory? nato has been taking steps more broadly to strengthen deterrence as russ's capabilities and activities increasingly threaten nato allies.ha yo the stronger u.s. presence in nato on european soil, greater defense spending among many of thnato allies. but i think if i had to look at the highest priority for u.s. defense planni, 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 art treaty, which actually expires, what, february 2021? is that deal as good as dead? barrth no, i don't agree 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 adcational russiabilities that are not yet in the new start reframework. wealking new forms of weapon systems, nuclear power, nuclear drones, those types of things. those have to be included.e but ase negotiating that, we should extend new start but y to include the new russian capabilities that are a concern. i don't think it is dead yet. i think that is too pmature. nada: do you think, looking at this bigger picture, is this is widerthat there breakdown on international cooperation on matters of global security like this that are so important, and instead we are seeing moves like thisal unilatoves? barry: i think this is part of the unfortunatpattern, and the oader pattern i see that i am most worried about is russia and china advancing and violating the rules, invading countries like ukraine, militarizing islands in international waters that are disputed, like cha. but i think -- and the t

perceptit the u.s. is withdrawing somewhat and is a less reliable ally. none of that is good for international security, none of that is good for the united states. i see this small move as a baby step toward some new equilibrium. i think it is important -- otherwise we only have the chinese and the russians taking these kinds of actions. nada: thank you very much. bay: my pleasure. urning to politics in th united states, president trump's pick to become director of national intelligence is no longer going for the job. today mr. trump tweeted that congressman john ratcliffe has been treated unfairly and has to stay in the house. but it is another presidential tweet which 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 him. the president tweeted, "really bad news, the baltimore house of elijah cummings was robbed too bad."

to which even former u.n. ambassador nikki haley responded, "this is so unnecessary." mr. trump clarified his wor b weng 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. reanthony: tere stories in tithe media quing his credentials, saying he inflated qualifications, particularly intelligence and national security qualifications, and at played into concerns in the senate that his resume was thin on national security to become ite head of the top intelligence agency within the house overseeing these intelligence community 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 oblem before? what does it say about his vetting process?th y: it calls into question his vetting process. s this is donald trump'yle. he nominates from the hip. he throws a name out there. he does not necessarily like having an open position. he wants to have a name, seem like sometimes he moves faster than his white house vetters. in that impromptu press conference, he ss that he relies on the press to do his vetting, it saves money. of course he was just slamming the press, saying they were .ibeling ratclif nada: as well, he said his tweet about cummings was sincere that , that he thought it really was too bad. ony: there is not a sarcasm font on twitter. i was looking at his earlier tweets looking for "too bad," and he used "too bad" to describe trade negotiations, democrats blking his agenda, fox news becoming too liberal.

i don't know if there was sarcasm in that, but it does seem glib about someone's home being broken into. lenada: for nikki to say you have gone too far, that was a real slap back to the ent. anthony: it's true. republicans were starting toim second-guess that was a big thing. another member of congress said it was beneath the off fe and childi him. he was already starting to get pushback. ouen you view it in the context of what he said elijah cummings and baltimore as well, it is hard to see this as him just being sympathetic. nada: anthony zurcher, thank you very much. the u.s. economy has had quite a few jolts this week, from an interest rate cut to the latest jobs report. many are looking to where things are headed next. busamong the biggest moves the president's decision to slap additional tariffs on china starting september 1, and today athe doubled down, saying f things don't go america's way, he could go even further. pres. trump: china has to do a lot of things to turn it aund.

they have got to do of things. it goes on on septem and frankly, if they don't do them, 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 famously once said that trade wars are good and easy to win. but speaking this week to the bbc, the president's former economic advis gary cohn took a different view. gary: i think everyone losesn a trade wa in the united states, we buy imported goods. the less we can pay for those goods, more services we can buy. nada: four more i spo to diane swonk of grant thornton. she joined me from chicago. aoking at how rattled the markets have bee investors now betting on a prolonged trade war? 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, more tariffsad have beed 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 bit better at this point in time. japan is also in the target range, vietnam is in the target range. it could easily -- b could easiback to the tariff levels we saw in the early 90's before w 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 i u the world, aike japan, they have tentacles into every other economy in the world, and that hasla had cral damage already to europe. add something like brexit to it and other weakness and you have a snowball effect. what youre risking, and why

the fed is so concerned, is that you are risking headwinds that could actually even 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. tlda: as you said, the fed cut interest rates pto offset the tariffs. now, given president trump'sou latest aement, promise of new tariffs, do you think there will be another interest rate cut?ev diane: i do bethere will be another interest rate cut. not only is the economy slowing, we had gd, solid economic gains in jobs numbers today, but they are down 20% from almost 30% from the pace we saw last year. manufacturing hours are way down the lowest rate in july since 2015. down 1.5% from year ago.fa these arors feeding in from the tariff war already and compounding as we go into the latter part of the year. e fed is going to have to cutag n. the irony is that the president and the administration would coke to see the fed cutting rates to juice themy in an

election year when the most they can do is offset the uncertainty. that is how they 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 confidence we havera now because of. you see investment retrench last quarter, and that is because people are treading with caution instead of confidence when you the cycleis late see much more euphoria out there. nada: what does all of this say about the impact of president trump's tax cuts on the economyr and whether is any benefit left to be gained from them? diane: last year, fourth-quarter growth and when x cuts had the biggest impact on the economy in 2018, we grew 2.5% instead of the 3% initially reported, a full half percen. le much of the weakness occurred in the fourth quarter as china started to slow and this shockou effect of the t of a full-blown trade war with china blew up.

you saw consumers pull in at y at point in time during the height of the holiason just because of the fear factor alone. that is something that the fed is trying to offset right now. it really showthe fragility in the economy, and even with all the tax cuts we have, we only have 2.5%, so the threat of a trade war was already taking a toll and weakness abroad and t contagion effect that china has were already hurting the u.s. economy. nada: thank you, diane swonk. a quick look at some r news around the world. swedish judge has ordpeed american rasap rocky to be released from custody until a verdict is announced in his assault trial. the artist has been in jail for a month in sweden and pleadedgu noty to the charges. president trump tweeted that the rapperas free and on his way home. the head of brazil's space research institute has lost his joafter a public row with president jair bolsonaro over the speed of deforestation in the amazon. en. bolsonaro accused the of falsifying data suggested a

sharp increase in the at which trees were being felled. hong kong's civil servantst defied governmrnings 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 warnsy t could lose their jobs if they take 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. the idea is they sho td be loyal to 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 me. we are heading into the third month of this crisis in hong kong with no sign of ending.t this is the fi 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 support of the police. sunday, another rally. monday, talk of a generalik s . all over this city you cannot get away from thisolitical crisis. as i say, there is no opening for an end as of yet. there is no way, it 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-democracy 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. yowsare watching "bbc world america." still to come on tonight's

program, parts of russia are being ravaged by wildfires. we are on the scene with the latest. nada: many of us felt it, and now there is evidence that july may have been the hottest month world has ever had. provisional 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 world, record temperatures in finland a heatwave in china, tos and now it i official, july is one of the hottett is not the t on record. july isn't alone. 2019 has been very warm globally. each month so far is among the four warmest for the month in

question and june has been the highest ev. >> this particular month has been very warm, but it is not really the main poin not only was this month very warm, but last month was everyone. all months in 2019 were very warm compared to other use, and that trend is not likely to stop unless weut do some thing abo cutting greenhouse gas emissions. pallab: the results are based on millions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations all across the world. accomputer models of the iof climate change predicted that more summer temperature records are likely to be broken all across the world moren. a separate assessment by the worldri weather ation group shows the fingerprint of climate change on the current heatwave in western europe. temperatures are up to three degrees hotter than they otherwise would have been because of greenhousecr gases ted by human activities.

individuale heatwaves canno pinned to human have been global warming, but the extremes of weather we are beginning to see is in line with addictions made by climate change experts, and they say they are likely to get worse and more frequent. nada: russia's arctic north and far east are being ravaged by huge wilires, with more than 7 million acres ablaze and vast areas engulfed by smoke. while fires are common this time of year, record-breaking summer temperatures and strong winds have made the situation worse than usual. teour moscow correspondent rosenberg has traveled to a remote regioof siberia and sent this report. steve: for weeks now, siberia has been smoering. vast swathesf forest shrouded in smoke, and many ravaged by fire.ld

res are common here, but not on this scale. in siberia, an area the size of beium is burning. the kremlin has sent in the army. military planes doing what they can to extinguish the blaze. the fires are sparked by hot weather and thunderstorms. m they aainly in remote areas, but cod the effects be more widespread? there is concern that carbon emissions from here may be melting ice in the arctic and beeding up global warming. >> black carbon ck small particles which falls down onth ice and turn them from white to black. e ice cannot reflect sun radiation. sun starts to heat the ice inlt arctic and it faster. steve: as if fire wasn't bad

enough, there have been floods, too. in june, a dam burst following torrential rain.di 23 people . 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 dd inpa largs of this region. victor's house is uninhabitable. in they make people tou siberia. "russians are ready for any challenge," victor tells me. b "we'll g" picking up the pieces after a natural disaster -- for russia, it is becoming second nature. steve rosenberg, bbc news, siberia.

nada: now, how do you pepture thect wildlife photo? for the past 10 years, the audubon photo competition has celeated the best of bird photography, images that capture the beauty and quiet moments of r feathered friends. a judge for the competition explains to the bbc what it takes to snap the golden shot. >> i think we had a large number of finalist images that really showed a very creative approach to bird photography. enthere were a lot of diff angles, different point of views. we felt very strongly amongst the judges that photographers are tryi to push the envelope in terms of how can we take a picture of aird differently.

instead having a pretty bird sitting on a branch with perfect lighting, perfect tech all which is a great picture, all these added elements created an invigorating collection of images for us jues 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 approaches. the eagle withhe 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. the moment had to be perfect, the temperature had to be perfect.

it had to have the sunrise quality. the picture she she is kind of ly grail. the national audubon society has taken a stance on ethical bird photography. we are promoting best practices in terms of how to take a great photo. the basic premise is that a picture is never worth harassing the bird. ncda always so impressive to see how much patthose photographers have to get the perfect shot. i am nada tawfik. thanks for watching "world news america. announcer: funding for this presentationss is made le by... the freeman foundation; by judy and peter blum-kovler foundation,

pursuinga'olutions for amerneglected needs; and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. ank you. announcer: now you can access more of your favorite pbs shows than ever before... with pbs passport, a member benefit that lets you binge 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? ou are. woman: there's literally nothing like this in the world. announcer: support your pbs station and get passport, yours.icket to the best of

captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc g >> woodrufd evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: out before he's in president trump's much- criticized pick to be director of national intelligence withdraws from consideration less than a week after he was named. then, an island in crisis. the embattled governor of puerto rico steps down, a new one sworn in, but legal challenges to come. warnings from greenland-- billions of tons of ice lt into the ocean, sparking fears of how it will exacerbe the global climate crisis. plus, after president trums attacks on members of congress who are racial mit