BBC News

The broadcast began with efforts to end the war in Ukraine. President Zelensky was due to meet President Trump in New York this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, and Zelensky said the meeting could change a lot, citing diplomatic momentum and ideas for de-escalation and addressing fundamental security issues. Moscow had suffered what the mayor called its biggest ever drone attack on Sunday, with Russian officials reporting three people killed and about 20 wounded in strikes on residential areas and the Moscow oil refinery hit; Russia said it would intensify strikes on Kyiv. The attack came on the final day of Russia's parliamentary election, where early results showed President Putin's party on course to win and a correspondent reported United Russia well ahead. A former US ambassador to Ukraine discussed hopes that Trump would pressure Moscow and noted a newly signed bill giving leverage, including secondary sanctions. The broadcast also reported UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham was preparing his first face-to-face meeting with Trump at the UN General Assembly, expected to congratulate him on a Greenland security deal with Denmark, with Ukraine likely to be a significant focus and other UK-US differences noted.

In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to stay on after state election results he called a disaster. Preliminary results indicated his Christian Democrats were voted out of the regional assembly in the northeast, with the far-right AfD set to win most votes, while in Berlin the CDU was trailing a far-left party. The report described a gloomy public mood and anxiety over immigration, the economy and the cost of living, and poor approval ratings for Merz, though he insisted meaningful reform was needed for German prosperity and economic recovery. A Deutsche Welle editor said the next 48 hours would be crucial as Merz faced his party, and that he had cancelled a UN trip. Separately, the United States proposed a mechanism to China for notifying each other about AI incidents that pose a threat to national security; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced it after a meeting with Chinese officials in New York, saying the two sides would set up a US-China AI dialogue, meet again and work toward shared goals and threats. The broadcast noted President Xi Jinping would be in the US later for an in-person meeting with President Trump.

In Indonesia, a BBC investigation uncovered a years-long cover-up at a prominent Islamic boarding school involving sexual crime allegations against the son of its founder, known as Becky. He was jailed in 2022 for sexually assaulting a student, but BBC Eye recorded footage of him as a free man after serving less than half his sentence, and the investigation uncovered further allegations and evidence the school tried to suppress them. The report included testimony from Ira Puspita Sarri, who said she was raped for several years from age 15, and said Becky was secretly released after about three years; Indonesia's Ministry for Immigration and Corrections said he received early parole due to legal sentence reductions. The BBC put the allegations to Becky and he did not respond. Later, Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer told the BBC his nephews William and Harry would not be surprised by claims in his book, including that the king, then Prince of Wales, said 'we'll forget her soon enough' after Diana's death. Buckingham Palace said the pain of fraternal grief can affect judgment and colour memory, and the report noted no further comment from the king or his sons. A royal biographer discussed the serialisation and the likely continuing attention, saying the Earl had made damaging remarks about the King but that the portrait did not match the King he knew.