But as the ukraine war drags on, western countries, especially the us, are starting to think that it might be better to lessen their dependence on china as well, which has made everything for us, from beach balls to Nuclear Power stations. Almost unnoticed by the outside world, President Biden has been pushing ahead with wide ranging plans to replace chinese goods with American Made ones. The bbc� s economics editor, faisal islam, has been investigating the extent of this new America First policy. I was astounded by the scale and the speed of the transformation in terms of the deployment of public, government, Taxpayer Subsidy into Strategic Industries, particularly green industries. Theres so much money going in that its transforming the economic fabric of a whole belt of america. We used to talk about the rust belt. They are now talking about a battery belt. It sounds rather sort of roosevelt years, doesnt it . Yes, and theres some conscious echoes of that. Indeed, where i was in kentucky, one of the reasons theyve sited this in farmland in rural kentucky, thats the. Theres two reasons, actually. Its the old coal field that has closed down and theyre trying to employ old miners in these newjobs, very specifically, so its meant to kind of help these left behind areas, these areas that they now say suffered from a period of very open globalisation where china became the manufacturer for the world. But its also meant to make up lost ground in key Strategic Industries that will dominate this century, where they feel theyre behind china, where they are behind china. But that does sound very much like a Democratic Party policy. I mean, would the republicans want to follow through with that if they win in next year . You have these massive carrots, kind of economic bribes, essentially. That does sound like the sort of stuff the democrats would have wanted to do. But theyve also framed it as this, this is our defence against china. And so it then gets a wider base of political support, which although youre getting wrangling over the sheer size of the policy now between the democrats and the republicans, over this argument over how big the debt gets, i think that this policy in general has longevity. Is europe following the american lead . The americans have gone for this in such a big way, hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions of dollars, when you think about it, what could actually happen, that its upset the apple cart with the europeans. The europeans are going to kind of hit back in terms and in kind and have to calibrate the size of that plan. So you will now get the two big western blocs doing the same thing, which is paying for the reshoring of large swathes of high tech Manufacturing Industries, which is a different world to the world we thought existed three, four or five years ago, in a really profound way, with massive implications for economics, for diplomacy, and for domestic politics. And what about britain . Where do we fit into this . Things are regionalising at a time when the uk thought it was entering an ever more globalised world. So. Its creating some dilemmas. The world that Global Britain thought it was entering is not the world it has entered. But is there any sign that were thinking of pumping large amounts of money into these Manufacturing Industries . Probably not on the same scale. And, for example, we have a Transformation Fund for the car industry thats worth £1 billion. That is roughly what individual plants are getting in canada, in america and in europe from public support. So it gives you a sense of the scale. Im not an economist, as you are, but this all sounds to me quite kind of keynesian, you know, returning to the big state that funds what it chooses. Instead of saying, youre on your own here, you fight it out among yourselves. What they feel that theyre doing is to invest in the productive capacity of the economy. The chinese have had ten to 15 years of strategic investment in state owned companies. And in order to just create a level Playing Field in the world, you have to do something pretty similar. But yeah, it is a big change to where we, what we think about as conventional economics. It is not without its risks. Were seeing Global Borrowing costs for governments go up. But heres the really fascinating thing. Quietly, i hearfrom people close to the democrat, the white house, the us government, is that they look back over the past 20 years and they look at democrats administrations that played ball with the markets, with what they were supposed to do with balancing the books clinton administration, Obama Administration and the feeling in those circles, quite simply, is that we did that and then a republican president comes in and spends hundreds of billions if not trillions on wars in iraq and afghanistan, or on massive tax cuts for billionaires. Its not quite as crude as this, but let me just sort of, if you like, sub edit that down. We, the democrats, were going to spend that money now before the republican president , when he or she comes, can spend the money on their favourite projects. And were going to fund left behind areas. Were going to fund the green transition. Were going to Fund Resilience against china. And were not going to leave it to the whims of a republican president. That is pretty profound. How possible is it going to be to produce american, european, perhaps even British Goods that will counter chinas . The truth is that western governments are perfectly happy to carry on buying things from china, but are now getting queasy about how much the technological advance of china, again, the carefully planned technological advance of china, how far that has gone and how far that changes the stakes and the league table of global power. And they want to slow that down. And i guess they didnt think its a fair fight and they want to make sure that the west doesnt give up its technological advances. And can they succeed . This is a set of policies that the success or failure of which wont be judged within a year or two. Youre talking about a ten, 15, 20 year plan that is starting. Thats a long way of saying, i dont know i dont know. But you wouldnt have chosen to start from here. So its very tricky stuff. Its very serious stuff. And, as i say, significant consequences and changes with relevance notjust for the economy, for diplomacy, for the economy, and for politics of all the western countries. And the lives of every one of us. In the murk and confusion of the first world war, an american isolationist politician coined the expression much quoted ever since the First Casualty when war comes is truth. Its particularly true in ukraine, where anonymous Drone Attacks are being carried out regularly and propaganda is passed off as fact on an everyday basis. In an effort to combat this and all the other confusing aspects of fake news, the bbc has set up a department it calls bbc verify. One of its senior figures is olga robinson, whose father is russian and whose mothers ukrainian. So shes the natural person for me to go to to find out about the various claims coming out of the war. Theres just been so much, so many examples of misleading and false reporting coming from both sides. But having said that, the nature of the kind of disinformation and misinformation coming out of russia has been different from the kind of claims that weve been seeing from the ukrainian side. So when it comes to ukraine, we often, what we see is trolling or kind of the classic war propaganda of creating myths, like the famous ghost of kyiv, sort of like a myth of a fighterjet pilot who has been doing heroic deeds to protect kyiv. That later turned out to be more of a collective image of Ukrainian Pilots who were protecting the airspace at the beginning of the war. What about the famous apparent drone attack on the kremlin, which just happened to be filmed and looked so kind of weird . Do you think that was genuine . What we have managed to establish so far is that there were two flying objects that experts think, whose Trajectory Experts think is very consistent with them being drones. And they did explode. Initially, when we were looking at the footage, we thought we were talking about one flying object. But then my colleague, really eagle eyed, managed to spot the difference on the clocktower, the spasskaya bashnya, where it was clear that there was a difference, like, is minute difference, in between the clips. So we were able to then piece together these different pieces ofjigsaw to build kind of a better picture of what actually happened. Olga, can i ask you a personal question . Youre russian, youve got family in russia. How easy is it for you to be entirely balanced . I am notjust russian. Im half ukrainian, half russian. My mum is ukrainian, my dad is russian. I think there are a lot of people like that in russia right now. And i wouldnt, i wont lie its really difficult. Takes a lot of mental effort to not get influenced in your work by what you think is right or wrong. But to me, it has never been more importantjust having this impartiality, taking a step back, because in this fog of war, where you basically cant trust anyone or anything you see, its so important, in my personal opinion, to bring people the truth, whatever that truth is. And i personally do it for the sake of my relatives that are being bombed, for the sake of my parents and my dad, that might be, might be mobilized and just, you know, end up in the russian army at any time. I can see how much it means to you and matters to you. Now, tell me about this new bbc unit that you belong to, bbc verify. How big is it and whats its purpose . So, its a team, a new team, as you rightly pointed out, of around 16 investigative journalists across bbc news that have experience in fact checking, reporting on disinformation, providing analysis, context for stories, and also open Source Intelligence investigations. And we have been doing it, obviously, verification as well. And we have been doing it, this kind of work for years, some of us. But now were just being brought together physically to Work Together and help our audiences understand and get to the bottom of some of the most complex and most difficult stories, like the war in ukraine. In the 76 years that pakistan has existed as a state, there have been seven coups or attempted coups, and the military have been in powerfor 30 years in all. Imran khan, the cricketer turned prime minister, seemed remarkably successful in keeping the army happy. Can you avoid a coup . I asked him a few years ago. He grinned and said he hoped so. Well, in the end he was ousted by a grouping of Political Parties and is now facing trial and perhaps imprisonment. Whats the reason for the new political mess that pakistan finds itself in . I asked farhat javed of bbc urdu. It all started in april last year when imran khan was ousted from power after he lost a Confidence Vote in the parliament of pakistan. And there have been protests, there have been rallies. In one such rally, he was shot in the leg. He blames the Military Establishment for whatever is happening in the country right now, the Ruling Alliance. They blame imran khan and they say that khan is responsible for whatever is happening because in the last one year there have been several cases registered against imran khan. These were the charges of corruption, terrorism, sedition. Imran khan calls them all politically motivated cases to keep him away from the election. We saw that on the 9th Of May Imran Khan was arrested in another case, which was also about corruption. He was arrested, and following his arrest, we saw violent protests across the country. What was really shocking for everyone was how these protesters attacked Military Installations and military assets. After these attacks and these violent protests, we saw a reaction from not only the government, but also from the military. And now the Interior Minister of pakistan has confirmed, that out of all the cases registered, there are dozens of cases which are going to be tried in the Military Courts, which is very alarming for the human rights organisations, because Military Courts work very differently. So these people would be tried under Pakistan Army act and official secrets act. That is strange, though, isnt it . Because, i mean, he used to seem to have the army in his top pocket. They seemed to be backing him and making it possible for him to govern in the way that he wanted to. What happened . How did they fall out . Oh, absolutely. Imran khan was, you know, he was seen as a change candidate. And his narrative was that he would bring in a new and clean class of politicians. And this narrative went down really well with the voters who were already disillusioned with the old political order in the country. But, at the same time, imran khan was widely viewed as favoured by pakistans Military Establishment. Fast forward, we saw there were differences between imran khan and military and it started when imran khan started interfering in the process of promotions and transfers, etc. Although imran khan, being the prime minister, it was his prerogative to, you know, to agree to transfer somebody or not. But it was seen as something very, very political. Ive seen several times people whove been the subject of Assassination Attempts and, you know, something goes out of a politician or a leader when that happens. They step back a little bit instinctively, i think, in case, presumably, always fearing that it might happen again. Do you think that would happen with imran khan . Is he showing signs of being a different kind of politician . Well, imran khan and his party, there have been. And not only imran khan, but the government also has been saying that there are there still are threats to his life. And this was one reason that he had been refusing to go to the court for the cases which were filed against him. Many observers in pakistan who keep a keen eye on the political development, they also see imran khan as sort of a person with some rigid attitude when it comes to negotiation or doing talks with the other groups or with the Political Parties. So there have been many such opportunities in the last one and a half years when both the Ruling Alliance and imran khan could have sat together and sorted out the situation, especially at a time when the country is already going through economic crisis. But we saw that both sides were, you know, they were reluctant to sit together as well, especially imran khan. He has been saying that this government is not a legitimate government and he would not talk with them. But he would rather talk with those who are backing this government. And he was pointing towards the Military Establishment. Now, the Military Establishment has been saying that they are neutral in this whole situation and they do not side with any political party. In the uttermost depths of the Pacific Ocean in an area between mexico and hawaii called the clarion clipperton zone, scientists have discovered a vast number of entirely unknown new species of weird and wonderful fish, crustaceans and sponges. But theres a snag. 17 deep Mining Companies from britain, the us and china want to mine the valuable minerals on the sea bed there. Presumably, the announcement of the discovery of so many exciting new species isnt altogether a coincidence. I sought the insights of helen briggs, the bbc� s environment correspondent. This particular area of the pacific, 5,000 different species, the vast majority of which weve never seen before. Theyre unknown to science. And things like gummy squirrels, theyre called. So theyre these Sea Cucumbers drifting over the sea floor. Theyre bright orange. They� re bright red. The ping pong sponge, which looksjust like a ping pong ball. Weve got corals. Weve got Little Creatures that look like white lobsters, that look like water fleas. So the whole place teeming with life, but uncharted life. So all of this biodiversity that were only just scratching the surface of whats down there in the deep seas, the most unexplored areas of the planet. And deeply precious, of course. Well, oceans are very fragile ecosystems, and theyre the really big area now of conservation in terms of how we protect 30 of the oceans that countries came together to agree to protect, 30 of the oceans for nature. Weve just had a Deep Sea Treaty signed, so theres a lot of attention on biodiversity in the oceans. But scientists are saying these are really unexplored areas, and to get down there and search for this life is very, very difficult. And weve got looming ahead of us the prospect of Deep Sea Mining. So Companies Want to go and send machinery down to the ocean floor and literally harvest metal from the sea bed. So scientists are signing letters saying we should pause this. A number of countries are also calling for a moratorium. So this is going to be a big story coming up. How we protect our oceans, what activities we allow down there. Because, of course, Mining On Land can cause pollution. It can cause deforestation, human rights issues. So a big battle ahe