anne soy reporting there. it's now believed more than i,a00 people have died, after catastrophic flooding across several south asian countries. this year's annual monsoon season has been particularly heavy. in all, around ai million people have been affected, in bangladesh, nepaland india. millions have been left homeless, and more than 950,000 homes have been destroyed. parts of india's financial centre, mumbai, are under several feet of water, and in the eastern state of bihar, more than 500 people have already died. our south asia correspondentjustin rowlatt is there and sent us this report. those least able to cope are the hardest hit by the floods. villages and fields were transformed into great lakes here in bihar, one of the poorest states in india. budhia devi says her life has been ruined. translation: i have lost everything. i had a cow and a goat. they were both killed. my house is totally broken and i'm just left sitting here by the side of the road. i have nothing left. i just don't know what to d

anne soy, there. more than moo people are now known to have died after the catastrophic flooding across several south—east asian countries. this year's monsoon season has been particularly heavy, affecting tens of millions of people in bangladesh, nepaland india. many left homeless are now sleeping on roadsides and in makeshift shelters, short of food and clean drinking water. the bbc‘sjustin rowlatt reports from bihar, in northeastern india. those least able to cope are the hardest—hit by the floods. villages and fields were transformed into great lakes here in bihar, one of the poorest states in india. budhia devi says her life has been ruined. translation: i've lost everything. i had a cow and a goat. they were both killed. my house is totally broken, and i'm just left sitting here by the side of the road. i've got nothing left. i just don't know what to do. the people here are subsistence farmers, some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. the floodwaters have begun to drain ba

anne soy. and you can get much more on this story at our website, including this piece by our correspondent alastair leithead, looking at what's next for kenya. within the past few minutes, plumes of thick black smoke have been seen rising from a chemical plant in texas, which was hit by severe flooding earlier this week. the owners of the plant have warned the cooling systems have failed and it is impossible to stop it catching fire. authorities have evacuated residents in a 2.5 kilometre radius around the plant. it is located about a0 miles south—east of houston. that information coming in the last few of a chemical fire in texas. the floodwaters around houston itself have begun to recede. president trump will visit the area on saturday. in his weekly address, the president outlined his relief plans for storm harvey. at the request of the governor i declared a major disaster in the state of texas to ensure that federal aid is available for state and local recovery efforts. i also approved a

anne soy, bbc news, nairobi. a little earlier, anne explained why the international election monitors who declared the vote to be free and fair have come under fire after the ruling. the international observers were criticised for rushing to endorse a process, even before the final result was announced. but they did also emphasise the importance of seeking legal means of dispute resolution, and we believe that that pressure is what led to the petition that was decided today. thejudges made a radical decision. it goes against the norm, even in the commonwealth, wherejudges generally tend to show restraint. but then, by so doing, they have demonstrated their independence. more than 1,400 people are now known to have died after the catastrophic flooding across several south asian countries. this year's monsoon season has been particularly heavy, affecting tens of millions of people in bangladesh, nepal and india. many left homeless are now sleeping on roadsides and in makeshift shelters, short of food and clean drin

anne soy, bbc news, nairobi. more than moo people are now known to have died after the catastrophic flooding across several south asian countries. this year's monsoon season has been particularly heavy — affecting tens of millions of people in bangladesh, nepaland india. many who've been left homeless are now sleeping on roadsides and in makeshift shelters — short of food and clean drinking water. plumes of thick black smoke have again been rising from a chemical plant in texas, which was hit by severe flooding earlier this week. owners of the arkema plant, north—east of houston, had warned that its cooling systems had failed and that they would not be able to prevent it catching fire. the authorities have evacuated hundreds of homes nearby. president trump will head back to the storm—affected areas of texas on saturday. at his weekly address, he outlined his relief plans. at the request of governor abbott, i declared a major disaster in the state of texas to ensure that federal aid is available for state

anne soy, bbc news, nairobi. with me now is vincent magombe, director of the african journalist's network. when you heard this earlier what did you think? i was not surprised because recently when they announced the elections i was here at the bbc. and thought the leaders needed to be playing a proactive, positive role, which it seems they did. and now we have this results, which brings in new questions, questions, are the leaders going to get you playing that type of role? because we've seen that type of role? because we've seen the reconciliation voice and tone. though i think when he starts saying just a fewjudges are sapping the powers of the people, there is a problem. but 0dinga on the other side needs to tone down his tone and make sure both of them start asking people to accept that new elections are coming and be ready to accept to lose or win. because the fear is there is a history, recent history, of violence in kenyan elections and people do not want a repeat. first of all i have to say that what has

anne soy, bbc news, nairobi. with me now is nic cheeseman — professor of democracy at university of birmingham. he's in sri lanka this evening. good evening and thank you for joining us. what do you make of the significance of events in kenya today? it's a tremendously important day. i think most of us didn't believe this would happen. it's very rare for a supreme court to rule against the sitting president in the case of an election, almost. certainly the first case we have seenin certainly the first case we have seen in sub saharan africa and one of the first cases around the world. this has set a new precedent both in africa and kenya. as your correspondent was saying, it seems to set the burden of the quality of the election pretty high. the supreme court has not ruled on the of rigging in terms of the number of votes disputed by the opposition. instead what they have talked about todayis instead what they have talked about today is process and the quality of that process. they said the quality of that proc

anne soy, bbc news, nairobi. alex vine is with me, head of the africa programme at chatham house. welcome to the programme. this is a remarkable moment of maturity for kenya isn't it, the dispute over the election being settled in the court rather than on the streets. yeah, nobody would have imagined the supreme court coming out today declaring the election result is null and void and they'd have to be held again within 60 days. this is important for kenya, really important, also really important for africa because this has never happened before on the african continent. the implications go beyond the borders of kenya itself? absolutely. increasingly elections are absolutely. increasingly elections a re close absolutely. increasingly elections are close and contested through the courts. this is a really important watershed moment for democracy in africa. we know the elections have to be rerun within 60 days, i suppose there may be security concerns around it. yes, there will be security concerns. the market have already shown they are nervous. the kenyan shilling has weakened and

anne soy reports from nairobi. celebrating a new lease of life. veteran politician raila odinga gets one more chance to run for president. a last—minute decision to challenge the result of the presidential election paid off. the presidential election held on the 8th august 2017 was not conducted in accordance with the constitution and the applicable law, rendering the declared result invalid, null and void. a shocking and rare judgment. the judges did not limit themselves to what happened on election day until the results were announced. rather they looked at the electoral process in its totality from voter registry on to civic education as well as the campaigning and procurement of election materials. in a sense this judgment sets a strong precedent for election disputes globally and a high threshold for the conduct of elections. outside the court, celebrations erupted among opposition supporters. it's now back to the drawing board for presidential candidates. as much as i disagree with it, i respect it. i disagree with it, because, as i have s

let's talk to our correspondent anne soy in nairobi. what happens now? well, the electoral commission is back to the drawing board. they have to organise another election within 60 days, that's the amount of time provided by the constitution. but already the opposition says that it does not have faith in the current commission and therefore it will be interesting to see what they demand next. important to note that this commission was put in place after weeks of protests, sometimes daily protests. the judges told to look at the entire electoral process, it's not just what happened the entire electoral process, it's notjust what happened on voting day and the count. they concluded the electoral commission did not follow the law in conducting the election from the voter registration throughout for the voting. so it is a very interesting precedent that's been set and a very high threshold they have set for the conduct of elections. thank you very much. nearly half of young, low paid parents are struggling to juggle childcare with work, according to a survey

our correspondent anne soy in nairobi gave us this ordid the or did thejudges say or did the judges say was wrong? they complained about the complaints of mr bustard's party. after people had gone to vote the results started coming in. but the documents that we re coming in. but the documents that were supposed to accompany them to verify these results were legitimate, those documents were not being made public, that's what the opposition had a problem with. what does this mean for the electoral commission? at this moment the electoral commission is pretty much discredited because they have been trying to show they could hold this election in a transparent manner. all of that now is out of the window. opinions on both sides of the political divide will be wondering whether they can have the next election in a transparent manner. the electoral commission says it is opening itself up for scrutiny and investigation to see whether any of its staff broke the law in this process. at the time of the result being announced, odinga was accused of being a sore loser. indeed, at the time he even s