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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm James Copnall. And in the early hours of Monday, the 20th of September, these are our main stories. The New York Times says it has obtained President Trump's tax records dating back two decades, which it says reveal chronic losses and years of tax avoidance. Mr. Trump has dismissed the report as fake news. The United States has joined Russia and the UN in calling for an end to the worst violence in years.

Nagorno Karabakh, the region disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The French leader, Emmanuel Macron, says he's ashamed of Lebanon's politicians for failing to agree a new government. Also in this podcast. In China, the impact of a covid-19 pandemic is now being felt in the sector thought to be the origin of the outbreak, the trade in wild animal meat.

For years, there's been controversy in the United States over the fact that President Trump's tax returns haven't been made public. Now, The New York Times says it's obtained those documents dating back two decades and claims that despite his huge business empire, Mr. Trump paid only 750 dollars in federal income taxes in the year he won the presidency. The president has dismissed the report as fake news. I heard more about the documents from the BBC's Gareth Barlow.

Well, they potentially show an awful lot of data. It's key to say that the BBC hasn't been able to verify this data for itself. But like you say, The New York Times releasing this information at such a crucial time, just weeks ahead of the election in early November. And it says it's got over 20 years of data of data filed to the IRS. That's the tax authority in the United States. And it says that in 2017, after Donald Trump became the president, he found only 750 dollars in tax payments to the IRS.

And in 10 of the previous 15 years, he didn't pay any tax at all. And that's because, according to The New York Times, he reported more losses than money made. So his losses outweighed his earnings and therefore he didn't have to pay anything. Donald Trump, of course, has this huge business empire from property to hotels to wines to golf courses. And it says that many of those signature businesses lost money. The golf courses, for example.

His image as a businessman is very critical to his political success. So how has he responded?

Well, he's been talking at the White House during a press briefing and the president Donald Trump was asked if it was true, that he only pays a few hundred dollars a year in tax. Let's hear what he had to say.

"It's totally fake news, made up, fake. So we went through the same story as you asked me the same questions four years ago. I had to litigate this and talk about it. Totally fake news. Now, actually, I paid tax and you'll see that as soon as my tax returns show it's under. They've been under water for a long time. The IRS does not treat me well. They treat me like the Tea Party, like they treated the Tea Party and they don't treat me well. They treat me very badly. You have people in the IRS, they treat me very, very badly."

Donald Trump, they're saying totally fake news, saying that he's treated very badly. A lawyer for the Trump Organization told The New York Times the president pays millions of dollars in personal taxes every year and has paid millions since his candidacy in 2016.

But these tax returns have been an issue for a long time.

Yes, they were a huge issue before the election and every president since President Nixon has published their returns. There's no legal requirement to do so. But that has been a convention now since the late 1960s, early 1970s. And there's long been speculation that the business of the president, perhaps in as healthy or as rich as he has suggested these tax returns will give some insight into that. There, of course, now be a lot of poring over them and a lot more to find out in the next coming hours.

Gareth Barlow staying in the US. And just a day after President Trump nominated Amy CONI Barrett for a seat on the Supreme Court, his opponent, the Democratic Party's candidate, Joe Biden, criticized the president's choice and its timing at a news conference. He urged Republican senators to, as he put it, stepped back from the brink and said President Trump's aim in trying to push through the nomination was to scrap health care legislation passed under Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act.

I asked our correspondent in Washington, Naomi Iqbal, if this was simply empty rhetoric as the Democrats didn't have much of a chance to stop the president's choice being confirmed. That's right.

They could probably delay it by about a week or so. There's various procedural options they could potentially use. But I think it's fair to say that this really isn't a battle anymore. The Republicans have the numbers that they need to confirm the nomination, which is 51. But he, of course, has to be seen to still be doubling down on what he's already said, which is, as we heard there, that the next president should decide. It's interesting, he's focused on health care as his line of attack.

You know, the Affordable Health Care Act is back again in the court before November. And, you know, given we're going through a pandemic, it's something that millions of Americans do care about. Look, it's had its controversy over the last 10 years, but surveys suggest that most Americans want to keep it. They just want it changed in some way. And so Biden will certainly be hoping that that line of attack appeals.

And when you listen to Joe Biden, talk to Democrats off the record and so on, are they most concerned about things like health care or is it perhaps a possible ruling on any election dispute in November?

I think it's both. I think it's lots of different issues they're worried about. Could be at risk with a six three conservative majority on the bench. But also Donald Trump has said he wants an uneven number of justices on the bench in case the election is decided. He keeps saying it's going to be a contested election because of the fraud. Two things will happen due to the postal voting, no evidence of that whatsoever. So I think that's something that they're concerned about, you know, overall.

But ultimately, the Democrats are unhappy about the hypocrisy over it because, of course, they were denied the chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice back in 2016 when Justice Scalia died.

Naomi Iqbal in Washington. The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate halt to fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. After a day of the fiercest fighting in years, officials in the breakaway region, which is controlled by ethnic Armenians, say 16 soldiers have been killed, with more than 100 others wounded. Armenia's prime minister Nikol Pashinyan warned of the risk of full scale war, blaming Azerbaijan for the violence. He said that Azerbaijan's Turkish allies had to be prevented from intervening.

"I call on the international community to use all the leverages of influence it has to prevent any possible interference on the part of Turkey, which will definitely destabilize the situation in the region."

The Azeri president, Ilham Aliyev, has said he hopes to take back control of the entire territory. He laid the blame for the breakout of hostilities squarely on Armenia.

"It's no secret that the first shots, including artillery, were fired by Armenia and the first to die Azerbaijani servicemen. Azerbaijan gave a decent response to the enemy and they could not move an inch."

Our correspondent Rayhan Demytrie is in Georgia, which borders Armenia and Azerbaijan. I asked her what exactly led to this escalation.

Prior to Sunday's heavy fighting, there have been days of very aggressive rhetoric and Armenia accused Azerbaijan of our military buildup in the days before the Sunday fighting. On September the 24th, just a few days ago, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, he used his speech, online speech at the UN General Assembly to accuse Armenia of kind of preparing for a fresh fighting. He called for sanctions against Armenia and also called for Armenia to withdraw its troops from occupied Azeri territory. So it didn't all come out of the blue. But, of course, the extent of this fighting, the use of this heavy military equipment and the reports that the fighting is happening along the entire contact line is very, very worrying.

Another thing worrying analysts, presumably people in the region, too, is the wider implication, Turkey saying it might get involved and Russia might, too.

Well, that's right. You played this clip from Nikol Pashinyan talking about Turkey. What we've seen, well, you know, back in July, there was a serious kind of flare up, not in Nagorno-Karabakh, but on the international border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 17 people were killed, including civilians and military, including an Azeri army general. So there was quite a serious flare up a few months ago. Following that incident on the international border in early August, there was a joint military exercise between the Turkish and Azeri armies. So the military exercise lasted for two weeks. And following that exercise, there was a statement from the Azeri defense minister, Zakir Hasanov, who said that Turkey demonstrated to the entire world its military might and that with Turkey's help, Azerbaijan will fulfill its sacred duty.

Rayhan Demytrie. President Macron of France has strongly condemned Lebanon's leaders for their failure to form a new government following last month's devastating explosion in Beirut. Mr. Macron has worked to persuade the country's political class to put in place a new administration.

Alan Johnston reports.

A furious Mr Macron castigated Lebanon's leaders. He said they betrayed their promise to put in place a new government. They put their own interests before those of their country.

Politically Bednarz, the Lebanese political forces, the leaders of Lebanese institutions clearly, resolutely, explicitly did not wish to respect the commitment made to France and the international community. I see that the Lebanese political forces made the decision to favour their partisan and individual interests to the detriment of the country's general interest.

He said he was ashamed of them, but that he would give them some more weeks to follow a set of French proposals for political and economic reform. Mr Macron was speaking a day after Lebanon's prime minister designate, Mustafa Adeeb, resigned, saying he had failed to persuade the political parties to support his cabinet line up.

Alan Johnston. Voters in Switzerland have given a resounding yes to keeping free movement with the European Union. In a nationwide referendum, almost 62 percent of those voting rejected a proposal from the right wing Swiss People's Party to end free movement. Switzerland is not a member of the E.U., but has a complex series of interdependent treaties with Brussels on trade, transport and open borders. The Swiss government had warned that abandoning free movement could risk access to Europe's free trade area.

Imogen Foulkes reports from Bern.

For almost 30 years, the Swiss People's Party has campaigned often successfully against immigration and against the European Union. But today's big no to ending free movement is a sign voters are getting tired of. That trade with the EU is vital to Switzerland's economy. 60 percent of its exports go to Europe. Half a million Swiss live in the EU and one point four million EU citizens live in Switzerland. It's time, says pro Europe campaigner Renato Pollini, to stop the endless votes and accept that ties with Brussels are positive.

The immigrants to foreigners, they help to make Switzerland as successful as it is. So I really hope that no is the last no. And then we can think about the future, about the even bigger challenges considering EU politics in Switzerland.

That next big challenge is Europe's demand for a framework agreement with Switzerland, in which the Swiss adopt most EU policy automatically. And far from being cowed by today's defeat, Swiss People's Party member of Parliament Martina Buescher is preparing to fight that tooth and nail if they come through.

We lost the vote today, but the next fight is just beginning. We're going to summon all our strength and work together as hard as we can to defeat the framework agreement with the European Union.

And so Switzerland's debate over Europe continues. A framework agreement, even if passed in parliament, will have to go to the ballot box to Swiss voters, as they did today, not just over free movement, but over the introduction of paternity leave. Yes, the relaxation of the laws on hunting wolves know, and the purchase of new fighter jets very narrowly. Yes, always have the final say.

Immagine, folks in Switzerland. Still to come, our sense of humor needs to shift as we raise and status. So there's a really tight relationship between what's going to fly when you're a junior person versus what's going to fly when you're CEO.

So how important is a sense of humor in the office? Next, we go to Belarus. There were more protests on Sunday against the controversial re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were on the streets for the seventh Sunday in a row and police in balaclavas and riot gear were out in force again to the interior ministry said they made more than 200 arrests. Footage on social media showed officers dragging people out of restaurants and bus shelters. James Coomaraswamy spoke to the BBC's Jonah Fisher, who is in Minsk.

So how did Sunday's protest compare to those of previous weekends?

Well, a pretty similar story, really large numbers of people turning out. And what we saw in the sort of the gathering period where smaller groups of people start assembling ahead of the demonstration, they're being pretty brutally dragged away and put in vans by the masked security forces here, the ammann, these kind of riot police. So a fair amount of brutality around the sides of the demonstration. But the main event itself, which probably in the high tens of thousands of people attended, was once again simply too big for the authorities to try and crush in itself.

So that went ahead and a fairly safe and good spirited way. And then it dispersed and one of the suburbs of Minsk. So a pretty similar pattern to what we've seen over many of the other weekends since the election in early August.

Now that Alexander Lukashenko has essentially inaugurated himself in this semi secretive manner where the message is different in any way.

Yeah, that was reflected in many of the signs and the way people are dressed up that they are pretty imaginative crowd here in Belarus when it comes to demonstrations. So there were lots of people wearing kind of cardboard crowns that they'd made themselves to mock President Lukashenko secret ceremony. There was a woman who was walking along. She had a cross above her with a stuffed rat on it, because at one point in the past, President Lukashenko had referred to the demonstrators as being rats.

So she had a rat on the top of her class and she was very proudly waving around. So each week, really, there tends to be a theme of these of these demonstrations. In the past, it's been political prisoners. It's been the treatment of the opposition this week. It was a chance, I think, for people to come out and and have a good laugh, if you like, President Lukashenko, because what they take away from this secret inauguration, which took place on Wednesday of last week, was really that he scared the fact that he didn't want to put it on or live on state TV.

The fact that it wasn't announced in advance, they almost see as a win for themselves that this is someone who is not confident in their own popularity and is now having to rather do their things in private and be very, very wary of triggering a public reaction.

Jonah Fisher in Belarus, the coronavirus pandemic has caused huge economic challenges around the world. And in the part of China where the virus was first recorded, the impact is being felt in the sector, which is suspected to be the origin of the outbreak. The trade in wild animal meat, breeding snakes and types of rat for food or medicine has been a crucial source of income for some of the poorest people in the country. But the Chinese government introduced a swift ban on the trade after the virus first emerged and still doesn't know whether it will make that permanent.

Robyn Grant reports from southern China.

There are dogs barking, but it's not dogs that we've come looking for. It's not the chickens around my feet at the end of the path that we want to see, either the sign out the front has a cobra in the corner. This is a snake farm, but there are no snakes here. It's only the.

OK, so there's just a single white plastic tree on the dusty floor and it's full of their empty eggs. There's a long wait to struggling in limbo for the woman who owns this breeding business. No, I lost a lot of money.

I can't even afford milk powder for my baby. I can only feed her was porridge and meat.

Her home is up a path behind a row of now empty concrete huts in Guangdong Province, the snake capital of China. This is one of the poorest parts of the country. The wild animal trade has helped people here make a good living, but the coronavirus outbreak has put all of that on hold.

We have nothing left. Even if we could pay back, all of that would have no money to run any business.

The smell of the reptiles standing here between these buildings is inescapable. But this has been a snake farm without any snakes for months. While there's fears and unanswered questions about the current outbreak, this business is going nowhere.

She showed us what the pits used to look like. Footage on her phone showed a man with a rod hitting and then lifting cobras into a white standing net. Hundreds of them were bred here for people to eat or as an ingredient in Chinese medicine. Now, the reason I've come this far, but I haven't told you her name, is because she is living on government handouts with debts to repay and arguing for compensation, fearing intimidation. She didn't want us to identify her.

We still don't know exactly what caused the new Caronna outbreak. China's leaders won't even confirm that it originated here.

Eight months on, a lot remains uncertain. Take China's myriad street and so-called wet markets. Selling wild animals is now banned. Some places have outlawed the sale and transport of almost all live animals. But it's not uniform in one random back street market in Guangdong province. We watched live chickens being shoved into bags, then weighed alongside puppies and a stool with turtle shell and what we were told were wolf pelts.

It's just that we've come a long way from Shanghai and China's government is under intense pressure to end this trade.

It's threatened severe punishment for anyone caught breaking the rules.

But new laws haven't yet been passed to make these bans permanent, because it sounds to me like you think lots of these animals are safe and they should have more rules and they are safe to eat.

In fact, there's pressure from some veterinary experts to ease up people like Liu Cajun. He's a senior wild animal official in the local government here. He has championed the trade and he says it shouldn't be abandoned.

I mean, most of them are safe after management and inspection. It's manageable. It's controllable. All the cages are empty.

Now, are they ever coming back or do you think that business is done?

Mr Liu has spent decades studying bamboo rats. They are a plump, wild animal that China has bred for business. And despite his confidence in their safety, they've been banned. Thousands of rat breeders are now looking for another livelihood.

We're going to have some are desperate. China's Communist Party, though, doesn't want you to hear about it.

And you want to know what you set up. A meeting in a village with one breeder. Local party officials got their first. His father was marched away in front of us when we were left with just a phone conversation.

Their fight for compensation goes on as China's push to get its people out of poverty comes up against huge pressure to end the wild animal trade.

Robyn Grant reporting from southern China. In Britain, the opposition Labour Party has urged the Education Minister, Gavin Williamson, to go to parliament on Monday to explain how he plans to help universities deal with coronavirus outbreaks over the coming months. 700 students at Manchester Metropolitan University in northern England are self isolating. Similar restrictions are in place at institutions in the Scottish cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The British government is under pressure to guarantee that young people will not be confined to their halls of residence over Christmas because of the pandemic.

Our education correspondent Dan Johnson reports from Manchester.

On the third day of isolation here, some students say they're running short of food. First year nursing students, Aaron and Ben told me from their third floor window they're now rationing what they eat in their flat of 12.

It's just really rough at the moment. And we are just really disheartened by the whole entire situation. People wanted to drop out not getting the right experience. No, we're not talking about that of going out part in we're just we're not getting the right education. People are really, really struggling, especially with, like, anxiety and obviously depression. It's just it's really hard for those to, like, calm themselves down, relax, because they've been taught that they locked up some basic needs, like claustrophobic.

And you feel as if you can't get out of your because you're not allowing for the student in need.

There's one emergency service that always delivers. Max's parents, Andrea and Patrick, came from Preston to drop off supplies.

And they might come a time where you need to take your mom potentially, potentially, if it is an option. And he wanted to when he felt uncomfortable here, then. Yeah.

And while case numbers may so far be limited, voices of concern are growing louder. Here's the shadow justice secretary, David Lammy.

Students have been done over on their A-levels. They've been done over on Freshers Week. The government's now threatening to lock them up at university and very worrying for them when they graduate. We may be looking at long term youth unemployment.

Students may be questioning the curbs on their freedom and the impact on their learning. But the culture secretary, Oliver Doughton, said this was the right way to manage the situation.

We are doing that in order to reduce the spread of the disease and enable them to go back at all. And I think it's important for students not to have to give up a year of their life by not going to university and they are going to university and paying the fees accordingly.

Here at Manchester Metropolitan University says a care package is being developed to look after these students, but more are being asked to isolate across the country. Further disruption to learning and social lives is likely. There's a question about Christmas, but the government says if we all stick to the rules, it should be safe for students to go home.

That report by Dan Johnson in northern England. The Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua has announced that public masses will resume next Sunday, six months after they were stopped to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

The church said physical distancing measures will be observed during services.

Leonardo Roscio reports.

Nicaragua's Catholic Church said that all precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of the community. Priests and members of the congregation will have to wear face masks and undergo temperature checks, and hand sanitizers will be widely available. The Nicaraguan church has so far defied the government's stance on the pandemic. President Daniel Ortega has encouraged people to carry on working and to continue life as normal. Government officials criticized Catholic leaders when they halted services in March. Officially, about 150 people have died with the virus in Nicaragua.

But an independent medical association says the actual figure is at least 20 times higher.

Now, how important is humor in your life and particularly in your job? Studies reveal that it's one of the most powerful tools we have for accomplishing serious work. Humor apparently makes us appear more competent and confident, strengthens relationships, unlocks creativity and boosts our resilience. In one survey, 98 percent of top executives say they prefer employees with a sense of humor, and 84 percent believe those employees do better work. But his humor really valued in the workplace. Jennifer Acker and Nomi Bedrest teach the popular course humor serious business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Paul Henry first asked Naomi Bagginess if leading CEOs were up for a laugh.

We have so many examples of very funny CEOs, but more importantly in our book, what we highlight is these unexpected CEOs, those folks who might not have a reputation for being funny, but they actually use humor thoughtfully, strategically and effectively. And this is incredibly powerful because the research shows that managers and supervisors with a sense of humor are rated by their subordinates as more respected by 23 percent, more effective by 18 percent and as more motivating by 27 percent.

Now, look, this all hinges on the definition of a sense of humor, doesn't it? And to most people, that shouldn't mean they laugh a lot. Absolutely.

So most people think that humor is synonymous with comedy or being a standup. Right. But what our research shows, we've done study after study to show that humor is much more multidimensional than you think. So there are four types of humor. One is the stand out. There are natural entertainers who are not afraid to ruffle feathers to get a laugh. But there's also the sweethearts. Sweethearts are earnest and honest, and their humor often flies under the radar.

There's magnets. They keep things positive, warm and uplifting, and they avoid controversial or upsetting humor. But they radiate charisma and they bring people together. And then there's snipers and they're edgy and sarcastic and nuanced and so that multi dimensionality makes people understand that humor is much broader than we thought. Yeah, it might.

But a boss doesn't want an edgy, snippy person, even if they're funny. It's the last thing they want in the room.

Oh, you're bringing up a great point, which is for each of these styles, you're absolutely right that there are different pitfalls that we need to watch out for in a professional environment and for snipers and stand ups, for example, we have to be conscious that the teasing and sort of the roasting that those folks think is is intimacy generating and often is for folks of their type can be really distancing for others. And the important thing here is that our sense of humor needs to shift as we raise and status.

So there's a really tight relationship between what's going to fly when you're a junior person versus what's going to fly when you're CEO.

Nomi, back to us and Jennifer ACCA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

And that's all from us for now. But there will be an updated version of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC dot com UK. I'm James Copnall. The studio manager is Joe Wallace. The producer is Liam McCaffrey and the editor is Karen Martin. Until next time. Goodbye.