Back in december, the optimism of the Ukrainian Forces was fading. There were fears it would be a bad winter and the russians were targeting Generating Stations and heating plants. But ukrainian engineers worked like crazy to restore power. And anyway, the winter wasnt that bad. Now some Military Experts in the west are even daring to suggest that the russian army might simply collapse over the next few months. Who knows . President xi jinping of china has presented himself as a deal maker in the war, but his proposals have so far been pretty vague and, perhaps not surprisingly, much more favourable to his friend Vladimir Putin than to ukraine. Theres less noise about a chinese invasion of taiwan, but many taiwanese leaders think itll happen by 2029. In the us, since december, ex President Trump has been accused of various crimes and been sued successfully for one of them. Yet his popularity with the Republican Party has soared, while his main rival, ron desantis, has faded. Now trump is neck and neck with president biden, whos over 80. The whole president ial race for next year looks like a nasty political slog. France has been through some torrid times in the past few months, and the trouble isnt entirely over yet. But president macron has survived and has done what french president s often seem to do hes struck out on a different path from the rest of nato by talking to china and russia. A vicious civil war has broken out in sudan, with all the unhappy consequences hunger, an outflow of refugees, the killing of civilians. Britains new king has been crowned with only a little less pomp than in the past. Familiar political faces on the conservative right have faded and reappeared as chat show hosts. Borisjohnson isnt even to be seen there. Rishi sunak has one fewer problem to face the dissolution of the United Kingdom has been at the very least postponed. The Scottish National party has suffered a meltdown, with various leading members resigning and some being questioned by the police as part of an investigation into the partys finances and funding. Well, thats some of whats been happening while weve been away. In this programme now, well be looking at ukraines much touted counteroffensive after president zelensky� s tour of europe. One of the bigger reasons for people talking about a. An imminent ukrainian counteroffensive is that ukraine is still enjoying enough western support. Neck and neck in turkey, but will president erdogan just edge it . Turkey and the International Community are looking at five more years of president erdogan. And he is a tricky customer. He is a combative leader. And a new and far more comprehensive look at what goes into the dna of people all round the world. To find out the Instruction Manual of how a person is created is an incredible thing. Weve onlyjust begun to scratch the surface. As so often, well start with ukraine. Why is the volatile Wagner Group Boss Yevgeny PrigozhinScreaming Insults at the leaders of Russias Armed forces 7 do ordinary russians feel less safe after the mysterious attacks on their territory . And above all, whats happening with kyiv� s much talked about counteroffensive . I turned for answers to Vitaly Shevchenko from bbc monitoring. Whats important, i think, is how seamlessly the public debate and discussions within the expert community, how they mutated from expectations of a Russian Spring offensive into expectations of a ukrainian cou nteroffe nsive. And i think one of the bigger reasons is that ukraine is still enjoying enough western support. It is still getting. Quantities of western armaments that are sufficient to be used in this counteroffensive. The big question, though, is that, what do the russians have . Do they still have enough missiles and manpower . Does their Command Function effectively enough to counteract this ukrainian counteroffensive . With the question of the ukrainian counteroffensive, if we look back to last autumn, they signalled very heavily that they were going to attack in one place and, lo and behold, they attacked somewhere and very successfully somewhere else. Do you think thats what might be going to happen this time . Well, of course, deception is part of warfare. There seem to be three main directions which ukraine may want to take to push the russians back. One in the south, in kherson region, possibly moving towards crimea. Thats going to be really dangerous for russia. Then, in the south east, if the ukrainians manage to dislodge the russians from melitopol and then from berdyansk, that will potentially split the Russian Forces stationed along the northern coast of the azov sea, making communications and supplies really, really difficult for the russians. And thirdly, in the east, donetsk and luhansk regions, which have seen most of the fighting recently. Ukraine now has missiles. The storm shadows, for example, given by the uk recently with a much longer range. And these can be used to target russian Command Centres and troops far beyond the front lines. President zelensky said the other day during his tour of western europe, he raised the possibility that ukraine might win the war before the end of the year. His voters, people at home, i dont think they would accept anything less. Its been a while now since president zelensky went from talking about peace to talking about victory. Anything other than that would be seen as defeatist in ukraine. One aspect in which he is absolutely right when talking about ukraine having to secure some sort of victory, whatever it looks like, this year is, because time is on President Putins side for now. The longer this goes on, the more chance there is for western governments to be tired of all this. Especially in the us, of course. Especially the us. If trump comes back, hell do a deal and walk away from ukraine. Yes, the elections in the us next year are a huge factor in this war and whats happening in ukraine right now. Can i ask you about this extraordinary figure, yevgeny prigozhin, the head of the wagner group . The things hes been saying are quite extraordinary, arent they . The fact that russia has had to rely on a Mercenary Group Led by an extremely volatile personality, it would seem, doesnt suggest that the russian army is running smoothly. I think its a bit of an extreme measure that had to be taken after the russian official army, as it were, has faced so many setbacks in ukraine. Russia isnt really a safe place any more, is it . I mean, there are all these rather murky attacks that go on. Its never quite clear whether its Ukrainian Special forces that are doing it. Certainly in their interests, isnt it . This is one of the most important developments. When launching his attack on ukraine, President Putin said that one of his key objectives was to make russia safer, more secure. And he said he was acting pre emptively, as it were. Now, more than a year into this war, its obvious to russians as well that russia has become less secure. President erdogan of turkey is a difficult party for the west, and hes led his country much closer to dictatorship than many turks would like. But it looks as though hell win the runoff president ial election in a week or so, even though the polls had seemed to favour his main rival, kemal kilicdaroglu. In the end, though, president erdogan got over 49 of the vote. Orla guerin, the bbc� s Senior International correspondent, is based in turkey. There is a sense among analysts that ive spoken to, including one pollster who i spoke to a lot beforehand and again now, people cant understand what happened, but at the same time they are not crying foul. The opposition has accepted that there is a need for a second round. But i think one important distinction, john, is between the execution of the election on the day, which by and large went as it should, and the backdrop and the conditions for political life here, which are highly restricted and highly circumscribed. And you have to see this in the context of a society where president erdogan is on tv, wall to wall with positive coverage night, noon and morning. You have political opponents injail. You have suppression of the media. You have Self Censorship by people. A Fair Election is not really something you can describe here. Its not really whats going on. And, of course, the fact remains that president erdogan almost made it, didnt he . Just a few tenths of a percentage point. So narrow. And i imagine that must be quite galling for him that he didnt get over the 50 , but he was incredibly close. Now the distance between him and the opposition leader, kilicdaroglu, is 2. 5 million votes. It is very hard to see how that gap could be closed between now and the second round. The other important factor is that the president and his allies and his ruling party have retained control of parliament. So they go into the second round with the advantage of being the party in power. People are going to have to say to themselves, even Die Hard Opposition supporters will have to face the fact that they could be electing a president if they manage to from the opposition who will be dealing with an akp controlled parliament, which basically is a recipe for stalemate. And it was a very high turnout, wasnt it . What, 88 , Something Like that . Ithink, yeah, 88. 8. I mean, its extraordinary, john, and in the countries ive been in, ive never seen anything like this. I have never seen participation like this. And, actually, even by turkish standards, it was particularly high. The turnout here is often over 80 but, in the Polling Station we were in, in ankara we were there from just after the doors opened people were astonished at how crowded it was. And turks do take the ballot very, very seriously. Orla, what kind of presidency will follow this . I think we can expect more of the same, and stricter, if i can put it like that. I mean, what weve seen in the last few years is a very obvious growing authoritarianism, the erosion of freedoms, particularly press freedom. You know, people go to jail here for insulting the president. Many, many, many people have gone to jailfor insulting the president. And the Executive Presidency that was established here after a referendum really puts all the power in president erdogan� s hands. And that had been one of the key Campaign Promises of the opposition, that they would overturn that system, they would restore parliamentary democracy, they would have a Prime Minister again. Now, it seems all but guaranteed that none of that will happen and president erdogan will continue to have all the levers of power in his hands, will undoubtedly feel emboldened, will feel he has a new mandate. Western countries are going to have pretty much of a frenemy, if not an actual enemy, right in their midst. I think its fair to say, john, that this wasnt the outcome that people were hoping for. Turkey and the International Community are looking at five more years of president erdogan. And he is a tricky customer. He is a combative leader. He has in the last few years got into rows with the greeks, with the french. Hes annoyed The Americans by being simultaneously a nato member the only muslim nato member but also buying a Weapons System from russia. So he is somebody who is not afraid to ruffle feathers. In fact, he seems to enjoy it. And he has occupied this unique position, in a way, of maintaining relations with both russia and ukraine, and that has put him in a position to be a broker. And he did help to broker the grain deal for exports from ukraine. But obviously his ongoing relationship with russia is seen as problematic by many in the west. President bashar al assad, the mild mannered former eye doctor whos become syrias Strongman The Butcher of damascus, his enemies call him, is going from strength to strength. Having effectively won the civil war with russian help, hes now being invited back into the international fold. Well, in the middle east, at any rate. One reason for wanting to get better links with syria is the worrying trade in the drug captagon, a highly addictive form of amphetamine which is made illegally in syria and smuggled out throuthordan and lebanon. I asked the bbc correspondent lina sinjab, whos syrian herself and is based in nearby beirut, who was behind president assads rehabilitation. Certainly, saudi arabia was behind this invitation to the arab league in riyadh. Um, before that, weve seen the foreign minister, the Saudi Foreign minister paying a visit to damascus, which was unprecedented, given that saudi arabia was also one of the countries leading the campaign against assad during the years long of, you know, uprising that he used brutal tactics, crushing it down. But, also, there is another important element for saudi with syria, is the captagon, which is the drug that is produced and manufactured inside syria and sent across the world. Its producing billions of dollars of income for the syrian regime, but also causing lots of problems for regional countries, especially saudi arabia. So is this therefore a way of easing various problems that syria is causing . Bring assad back into the fold and then these problems can be addressed . Well, perhaps they put it the other way around. They put it as a condition for assad to come back is to sort out these problems. But who are we talking to . Were talking to a man who made promises over a decade or more and never made any of his promises come true. A president who even made promises to his partners you know, to the russians that he would lift a siege on hungry people, that he imposed siege on them and never delivered, so why today, after all these years that he still sustained his power, hes still in his power in damascus well, why should he give up on a big business that is the only source, almost the only source of bringing him big billions of dollars into the country . For what . To go back to the arab league . Im not. I doubt that hes going to make any changes or any concessions to please the arab world. Ive met president assad. A more charming and, kind of, gentle man, a more charming and kind of gentle man, you couldnt imagine a nicer person. What is it, then, that hes carrying out all these appalling crimes . Theres a big Question Mark about his personality, of what you see and then what you encounter when you meet him and then what you see in his actions, and that has been the case for many diplomats and officials whove met him, where he gives promises, and then at the same moment, his forces are doing the opposite on the ground. So it is very, um. You know, critical situation, but thats why, also, i would say that hes not the man whos going to deliver on any aspirations that the arab leaders are looking for. And what about the effect on the people of syria themselves . Although technically maybe the war has ended we dont hear reports about mig flying or barrel bombs or is but, you know, the people are struggling. Syrians in damascus youve been to damascus, youve visited damascus several times and imagine that in the city centre, people are looking for food in garbage bins because they dont have it. At the same time, people are Riding Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cars and living a lavish life. These are the warlords. Syrians in diaspora are struggling. They see no end for their exile. They want to go back home. They want to. Like me in lebanon i just want to be home. But, for me, the idea of home is lost and i dont know when or whether i will ever be able to go back and live peacefully in my country and contribute to the rebuilding of my own country in a free and democratic way. And thats really what many, many syrians Around The World feel that the world has forgotten about their plight. Its 20 years since the human genome was mapped something that offers the hope of cures for a big range of diseases. But the original genome was largely based on the dna of a single individual, an american of african and european descent. Now, scientists have mapped whats being called a pan genome, made up of data from 47 people from right across the world. I spoke to pallab ghosh, the bbc science correspondent. The Human Genome Project, which was completed 20 years ago, was essentially the sequence of mostly one person. And, of course, we dont have exactly the same dna. Of course, the Human Genome Project has been incredibly successful in understanding in general terms, the diseases that are caused by inherited disorders. What we have now is something thats much wider, called the pan genome. But the first genome was taken from, what, an american who was who had african and european ancestry . 70 was taken from an African American that had european and african ancestry, so relatively broad, but its one persons dna and, of course, there are people from other backgrounds. Now, counterintuitively, even though theres a lot of african dna in the standard genome, its actually the dna thats most lacking, because theres far more diversity in africa than in any other part of the world, so there are huge differences and what we need more of is different types of dna from africa, as well as from asia and the americas and so forth. So youve got more variation and something that more accurately represents the different populations of the world. So, the obvious use for that is help with cancer treatments, certain inherited diseases have i got that right . Well, its all genetic research. What wi