over the next few nights, the nairobi audiences are in for a treat. people are freaking out, joel. they thought that this our main and developing story this was the best show ever. but that s only cause they weren t hour is the fifth night of protests here for last night. yeah, and they don t know when it s not good or not. in cities right across america. we can only pray. romeo &juliet, balcony scene. after the death of george floyd. he died after being held on the back of the neck to the ground by a police officer in minneapolis. that sparked protests in that city and they have now spread to dozens and dozens of cities right across the country. cu rfews have been cities right across the country. curfews have been in place in scores of cities and some people have it was amazing to watch, honestly. obeyed those cu rfews of cities and some people have obeyed those curfews and left the streets after protesting peacefully just spectacular. this afternoon. but others have from the last time i saw him dance to now, his skill remained on the streets and there level has improved. it s just fascinating to watch. are tonight clashes between i thought it was amazing. protesters and police forces across i enjoyed every second. america. and it was such a pleasure to look at. here, private tenants are more likely to be in financial difficulty the first night of the performance, than home owners because of opening night, my mum was there, the pandemic, according my sister was there. to a new study. and i didn t know that she was going the report by the think tank the resolution foundation says many to come onstage and give me flowers renters have seen afterwards the performance, their incomes fall. which was pretty cool, because i had never gotten the government insists it s taken action to support tenants, including banning evictions a chance like that. for three months, as our business correspondent katy austin explains. so it was lovely for herjust to be on stage with me and give me flowers paying the rent has become too much at the end of the performance in nairobi at the kenyan national for denny while her hair salon is shut. theatre and it was pretty cool. her landlord has agreed to postpone two months‘ rent, to be paid back in future. i enjoyed it. at the moment, we owe april and may, and thenjune is due back in london just a week later, the 1st ofjune. the harsh reality of exams, assessments, and auditions i feel sick, actually. is beginning to hit home. because at the moment, now, that s obviously one of our biggest outgoings, the rent. today i m doing a class with alexander whitley citizens advice estimates 2.6 at the wayne mcgregor studios, million tenants expect to fall because i m graduating behind on rent because of in three months time. coronavirus, and the resolution foundation think tank says one in five private renters have been basically the students furloughed or lost their job. are auditioning for certain it says they are struggling companies, ballet companies, with payments more than homeowners. going into the crisis, they had lower levels of savings, contemporary companies. for example and, critically, they also spent considerably more of their income on housing costs in the first place. government has brought in measures considering this is the first time he s done class with us, to try and help struggling tenants. i think a lot of it isjust in march, evictions were banned for three months, but a committee being familiar enough with the kind of mps has warned a crisis of exercises to be able is looming in the private rental to learn them and do them sector. quickly, you know. one, two, three, back. he s got the willingness and the aptitude to try and take risks and explore new things. when we re out there citizens advice says further just doing our thing, measures will be needed you re happy, you re when the eviction ban smiling, so i think no, i know that it s ends in late june. going to be amazing. whether he decides to do what we want the government to do ballet or contemporary, one things for sure, is make sure that there joel s dancing career will take off is protection for people who have once this lockdown is over. fallen into arrears due but, for now, as with most of us, to coronavirus, and then also joel and his friends in kenya to accept and make sure the landlords have to put spend their time online taking in place things like classes and looking forward affordable repayment plans. to the day they can take landlords say they are working out solutions with tenants wherever possible. to the stage again. the ministry responsible for housing said support for renters joel, would you like to be our first guest teacher next week? and landlords is being kept under review. katy austin, bbc news. um, sure, yes, please. actually, no, i ve changed my mind,because they ve had you recently for romeo and juliet. now on bbc news, before the coronavirus lockdown, professional dancerjoel kioko all the boys. returned to his home city, ten push ups. nairobi, meeting dance students face your camera down. emerging from a thriving classical ballet scene in kenya. you ready? ready? laughter. and one and two. oh, i miss this. i used to do this! four, five, six. seven, eight. one month since the coronavirus nine. lockdown started, 19 year old joel kioko completes daily ballet classes at his home in london, with instructions coming in from his teacher via zoom. come on! demi detourne. derriere. stretch out a little bit. ten! oh, no. switch davant fondu. you only get ten. you re only getting ten. second. all right. let go of the bar. that s fine. that s about nine. front reverse the port de bras. back in february, joel was taking his final classes hello there. at the english national ballet saturday brought more school and preparing for a major dry, sunny, and warm challenge the leading weather across the whole of the united kingdom. role in romeo and juliet now, it was a fine end to the day in london at the kenyan national theatre. and west london did quite well for temperatures. with classical ballet, heathrow got up to 26 degrees. you re always learning something. but for the most part on saturday, the highest temperatures were across that s how i see it the north and the west i don t know how other of the uk with kinloch here in the highlands people see it of scotland, the nation s and especially for me, hotspot with highs of 27. because i started late, we re going to see similar kind i have so much to learn. joel has come a long way since his upbringing in the kuwinda of temperatures for these slums, where his incredible talent was spotted. he s the first student western areas as we get from an emerging classical ballet on into sunday as well. now over the next few hours, scene in nairobi to train most of us are going to keep professionally in london. the clear skies but probably some low cloud and some sometimes, when i am fog begin to push onto the eastern shores of scotland in class, i am like and although temperatures i have never seen that in the towns and cities between around 8 13 degrees, in the countryside the coldest spots get down to about 3 before but i have to play degrees so it will be quite chilly for some of you to with it because later on, i ll go start sunday morning. sunday, well, that low cloud into the studios and i ll play and fog can take the first with a certain movement that i ve few hours of seen that i ve never seen before, the morning to clear away from east scotland. and i ll practice and i ll do until it will be perfect. but i think i m comfortable to go out there and start dancing. maybe a bit of misting this i just want everyone to just get a job and dance. as well in north east england. to reach this stage in the competitive ballet world has been hard work, and the dancers will take up places in international but otherwise, a sunny start to companies when the current the day and a sunny afternoon. isolation ends. now, the highest temperatures companies when the current in scotland probably again to the north west isolation period ends. of the country, the highlands doing ok with highs probably so our third years will be taking reaching around 25 26 degrees celsius here. auditions for companies outside, you might see another 23 or 2a for westernmost areas of northern ireland. so they would have finished, and some of the highest temperatures in england they would have got across western areas and wales too. they would get their diploma you could see highs locally hitting around 27. injuly, after a school performance. now for monday s forecast, they are already auditioning the high pressure is still for all sorts of different companies in charge of our weather, all over the world so, so we ve got more of that dry weather to come. you know, to find a job. more of the sunshine as well. temperatures still on the high side for the time of year, that s everybody. looking at highs of 2a in glasgow, 26 or so head of year and joel s tutor mr yow in cardiff, but from then on we re going to start to see has guided them throughout. the weather changing somewhat because an area of low pressure is going to start to develop ok, so last time we got to see to the north of the uk you doing nutcracker. and move in as we head this afternoon, the class towards tuesday and wednesday. so, that is going to be bringing some cloudy skies rehearsed pas de deux. with rain or showers pushing southwards and as well as that, the area is going to piano plays. be getting cooler. so temperatures will be coming back down close to normal for the time of year and normal isn t something we ve seen for quite a long time. so, scotland is going to be cooling down as you can see, there will be some rain and showers around as well as we go through tuesday and wednesday. perhaps some of the heaviest rain actually working through during tuesday night. it is quite scary for the students further southwards to go out there in the big world across england and wales, still hanging onto some warm sunshine on tuesday after being in a school for three but the change comes really on wednesday with thicker cloud. years with the same friends. again, rain or showers working in. that s your latest weather. but once you re out there, you have to look after yourself. so we actually, as a school, try to prepare them for that. joel is one of our students. he is very professional. after hours of technical classes, later in the day the students get to practise their own choreography. third year innis‘s piece is based on swan lake. five, six, seven, eight! you can choose any music and then you get four dancers or more, if you want. i have three. i don t have a name for it yet but i ve chosen indian music. it is based on contemporary and kathak. you need that. i need that passe. oh, wait, shouldn t we do this? we did a passe! yeah, yeah, we did it. this is the beginning. yeah. as well as the movements, joel is working out the soundtrack with his classmate ludmila. it s one of their last projects together before they leave college. it s a bit sad, because we ve known each other for a long time good morning. and knowing that from next year, welcome to breakfast with ben thompson and sally nugent. we re not going to have each other our headlines today: to come to talk to, so it s curfews across america as a fifth going to be very sad. night of protests spread to more than 30 cities. as this chapter of their lives, the bonds formed police cars are set on fire during their halcyon days at college will stay with the students long riot officers respond with tear gas. after they have left. we are very close. demonstrators converge on the white house in washington. the unrest follows the death of an african american man in the hands of the police. we i think we ve grown more into, like, very good friends. when i first metjoel, after ten weeks at home, more than two million people it was so interesting to hear in england who ve been stories of, you know, shielding during lockdown, where he d came from. are told they can go outdoors it is really quite amazing and inspiring how far he has come and how lovely he is as a person and a dancer. we share a passion. i think i ve gotten closer with most of my school classmates. everyone has started getting close but in the beginning, because it was new competition, no one really wanted to talk to anyone else, it s really lonely. sometimes you get homesick, i am not going to lie. sometimes, when i ve been walking around london and i see a picture of my mum on facebook while i m on facebook, and i am like, oh, yeah, i miss my mum . for three years, joel has been living with a london family, so he has four new surrogate sisters. but now, joel will soon be reunited with his family as he has been offered a unique opportunity to return to nairobi to play romeo, with the dancer who first discovered him playing juliet. it is going to be boiling all day long doing ballet. it s going to be emotional because we share so much and, especially with romeo and juliet, it s like it s all about love. i know something good is going to be created. soon, joel will once again meet the dancers who discovered him as a boy. touchdown. so we re going to one of the studios, which is in hardy. that s where we re going. we re going to rehearsal because we only have a week to put this on. romeo and juliet is being staged under the directorship of american ballet dancer cooper rust, who founded dance centre kenya. dance is taking over nairobi and even spreading beyond. the employment opportunities in the city that has 40% unemployment and now all of a sudden, there s dance teachers and it is an opportunity for people to make a living through dance and i am just as excited about training future dance teachers and having more of these little studios around nairobi and around kenya as i am about training dancers that are leaving kenya and going abroad, likejoel. annabel shaw, playing juliet, from the northern and manchester city ballet is on hand to greet him. romeo and juliet is my favourite ballet. i think the score, prokofiev s music, isjust to die for. i think it s gorgeous. when cooper told me kind of, yeah, only five weeks ago, oh, you re going to do romeo and juliet. you re going to be juliet. joel is coming but he is not arriving until a week before the show, i was kind of like oh, 0k! the cast have already been rehearsing for three weeks asjoel arrives, with the opening nightjust seven days away. for now, i want you to get your tights and your dance pointe on. i don t have to put my tights, no? uh, yeah, we have rehearsal until seven. go ahead, next section. everybody go with your partners. michelle, you work with pamela, but michelle can help you discuss a lot. joel is thrown straight in at the deep end as the company begin rehearsals for the ball scene, where romeo falls forjuliet. i learned a lot of the choreography beforehand because at least, if one of you knows it, you ve got at least something to fall back on. but what s really nice is that, because we do know each other so well, a lot of the figuring out has kind of already been done over the years, so a lot of the kind of partnership and predicting where the other is going to be and how we re going to fit together, we ve kind of already done all of that, so that definitely makes it easier, as well. do it again. back up and set her back down. i would recommend not trying this the first time with a skirt on. 0k. joel and annabel have just six more days to learn a one hour and 50 minute ballet. let go of your dancers around. things do not always go quite to plan, even for experienced dancers like joel. so let s hear this musically, this whole section. step, up, up. dance. music playing. by the end of the first day, joel has already learnt the first pas de deux. i do not even think about it. i see it s just a dance that s it. as long as i keep on repeating it, that s why we have rehearsals, it will be there. the movements, i have seen them, and i think that is why i remember them. i have seen them before, you know the names, you know the terminology and i guess that is why it is easier to remember. through artists for africa, a charity set up by cooper, more children from the slums are hoping for a career in dance. cooper fosters eight of them, including 12 year old michelle and 13 year old lavender, who regularly travel to rehearsals after visits to their families in kibera. i m from kibera slums, which is one of biggest slums in kenya, and i love it there because i was born there and i m from there. and that is why i started dancing. you, like, have to do everything correctly, like, arms and put your legs where they are supposed to be but then africa is like, you are just free, you can do anything. for now, i want to be a professional dancer when i grow up, because i love it so much. keep them it s very hard. withjoel as their role model, the young people cooper has fostered from the slums, and others like them, believe a career in dance and an escape from poverty is possible. joel s friend silas is the first certified male ballet teacher in kenya. it is a growth for me. i see it as a growth of talent and growth of art in our country, not only here at dck, but as a country. it shows that there is a bright future ahead. dance teachers going out into schools around nairobi through artists for africa are inspiring the next generation of children from the slums. 1,2 -i, 2. sometimes the kids come from slums, they have a lot in their heads so when they dance they free up their minds. the kids can choose what they want after a dance. maybe others want to be an engineer, maybe others want to take dance as a career. so it is up to us to show them the way. today the cast are learning the scene where tybalt kills romeo s friend mercutio and, in turn, romeo exacts his revenge and is banished from verona. five, six, seven, eight. one, two, three, four, down, up, down up. learning the fights is hard, not to mention the acting. you want him and them to be friends now after 20 years of hating each other. so don t grab it. na uh uh! it s even the fingers in the. don t. i m serious. details matter. it s not fingers in front as if you re grabbing it. it s fingers in back as if you re saying hey, excuse me . it s a very different gesture. as well as the fight scenes, joel must learn the harlot‘s dance with benvolio and mercutio. romeo &juliet - morning dance. when they re not in the main rehearsals, joel and annabel practice in a side studio. it has gotten on ok. tiring. but i m getting there. almost done with, like, with the first act almost finished. by the end of the third day, joel almost has the ballet done. this is absolutely insane. him learning all of romeo and juliet in three days. we ve got about six minutes left here. an hour and 56 minutes or something like that. he just has a few minutes left to learn. and it ll be done this evening. with the castjust needing to fine tune their routines, joel is absolutely exhausted. getting the show onto the stage at the kenyan national theatre seems a long way off. finally, there s a break in rehearsals for romeo and juliet, so annabel is taking joel to visit his mother. it s going to be nice. have dinner. hang out with my mum. because i haven t done that in a while. mum! many of the families here were forced to relocate after a massive fire, including angela. angela has seen her son transformed since the days he started dancing. he told me he was going to dance and then he was dancing, everyday dancing. at first i wasn t taking it seriously. i didn t know that dancing was done for, maybe, for a career. joel regularly returns to kibera, where he used to give ballet classes to the children at the angel kindergarten. me teaching the kids was always fun, stressful sometimes, because i didn t know how they would react to it. you see them smiling, you see them happy. they are talking, they are dancing. i was very eager to learn in the beginning when i started doing ballet. it was through an outreach programme like this thatjoel first met annabel. we were both really young. i was maybe 14 and joel was 13 or 12. but i sort of spotted joel. he was always coming in, he was always on time, and he had this beautiful elevation and his long legs when hejumped. annabel decided to invite cooper rust in to seejoel dance. and immediately i sanoel. so i started home schooling him so he could both learn to read and learn to dance. asjoel‘s skills increased, cooper secured an audition for him at the english national ballet school. she has pretty much changed a lot of lives. she s a mum to a lot of people. she s my best friend. whilejoel trained, he spent most of the time with his ballet friends at cooper s. these are home grown zucchinis? yes. cooper s really amazing that she does all of that. i don t think i ve met anyone else who can do such brilliance that she does. it really brings us together. emotionally we talk about everything. and we just really understand each other. so let s get everything cleaned up tonight and teeth brushed and ready for bed and we ll make some plans. cool? after dinner, cooper has some last minute notes forjoel. in the death pas de deux. more emotion. a lot more emotion. by putting your own worst nightmares into it. when you re acting it out you have to take it all the way. when you re in the moment it s ok and annabel won t mind. it ll help her. i think sometimes you re like what comes next, what comes next, what comes next it s natural. but you have to think what comes next, what comes next, what comes next. laughter. after a late night there s just time to grab some breakfast. it feels surreal, because, first of all, i would never have imagined performing romeo and juliet here. it s something that never crossed my mind even as a role that i would ever get to perform. so i m just thankful. i don t know. it s crazy. it is crazy. while the theatre technicians get across the lighting and stage cues, the company have a chance to get used to this space, including a renowned actor john sibi okumu playing lord montague. it is a wonderful story and i wanted to be on the same stage asjoel. because what he has achieved is phenomenal. to get where he is, and annabel, these are home grown superstars. at the kenyan national theatre, the public arrive for the opening gala. the show must go on. applause. places for act one! 00:22:04,332 > 2147483051:47:46,881 romeo &juliet, 2147483051:47:46,881 > 4294966103:13:29,430 dance of the knights.
this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. british airways treatment of staff during the coronavirus crisis is a national disgrace according to a group of prominent uk politicians they say ba has used the pandemic to cut thousands ofjobs. virus deaths surge in brazil it now has the second highest toll in the world. london s top police officer tells those planning to join anti racism protests today to stay off the streets amid a warning that far right groups could try to disrupt events. please express your voice in a different way, and don t come physically to the streets of london. in an interview with the bbc, the dalai lama, the leader of tibetan buddhism says he s been inspired by the compassions shown during the coronavirus crisis. no footguards, no carriage ride and no flypast how the queen s official birthday will be a socially distanced celebration at windsor castle this year. hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world and stay with us for the latest news and analysis from here and across the globe. in the uk, a cross party group of mps has described british airways treatment of its staff during the pandemic as a ‘national disgrace . a report by the commons transport committee accuses the airline of attempting to use the crisis to cut thousands ofjobs and weaken the employment conditions of thos that remain. ba says it needs to find ways to survive the crisis. in other news, brazil has now recorded the second highest number of deaths from covid i9 after the united states. it means brazil has overtaken the uk, with more than 41,800 deaths. meanwhile, in china, eleven districts in the capital beijing have been locked down over fears of renewed clusters of coronavirus. 45 people tested positive for the virus at a wholesale market in the south east of the city. here in the uk, research carried out by the bbc has found that hundreds of doctors from black and ethnic minority backgrounds are still waiting for a risk assessment for coronavirus despite official guidance that they should have one. and in england, from today adults who live alone or single parents who live with children aged under 18 can form a support bubble with one other household of any size. with more on ba, here s our international business correspondent, theo leggett. british airways is a company in crisis. it is struggling to cope with the huge financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic and embroiled in a bitter row with its unions. now, mps have weighed in. the airline is planning a major cost cutting drive which could lead to as many as 12,000 redundancies, out of a total of 42,000 employees. some remaining staff could also see big cuts to their pay. i don t live an expensive champagne lifestyle, i live within my means. and what could happen means that i m going to get a 50% or 60% pay cut, so i could lose my home. that s the long and short of it. after hearing from british airways employees and questioning the chief executive of its parent company, mps have described the airline s behaviour as a national disgrace. they claim the company s been taking advantage of the pandemic to push through job cuts and undermine the pay and conditions of staff who remain. ba rejects the claims. it says it needs to find ways to survive during the deepest crisis ever faced by the airline industry, and says mps should focus on the facts. and ba is certainly not alone. ryanair plans to cut 3000 jobs. easyjet says it could make a500 staff redundant. and virgin wants to close 3000 posts. airlines are very welcoming of the support that has been put in place so far by the chancellor, the furlough scheme has been widely picked up by the airline sector and it s very welcome indeed. but we are facing a future with an aviation sector that s going to be very much smaller than what we ve got currently. it s going to take several years to get back to pre crisis levels, and therefore difficult decisions will have to be taken. the mps report also criticises the new quarantine rules which came into effect on monday. they now force anyone arriving in the uk to go into isolation for two weeks, in order to prevent new cases of coronavirus being brought in from abroad. but the committee says the policy will cause further damage to the aviation industry and the wider economy. huw merriman, who chairs the transport select committee, spoke to the bbc a little earlier. of course it has to look at its bottom line, it would be unrealistic and our report makes it clear that redundancies are inevitable, but ba is the only airline that is looking at this pandemic as the time to downgrade the terms and conditions of staff, rather than just rely on redundancy. brazil has now recorded the second highest number of deaths from covid 19 after the united states, overtaking the uk. the brazilian health ministry says more than 900 people died from the virus in the past 2a hours, bringing the total to over 111,800. president jair bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the severity of the crisis. densely populated cities like sao paulo and rio dejaneiro have begun lifting restrictions, even though many brazilians fear the worst is yet to come. professor anthony pereira, who is director of the brazil institute at kings college london, says that the situation is very worrying for brazilians. it is sad, because the numbers are still going up in brazil, even as lockdown is being eased in a lot of places, so we don t know where it would end. it is possible that brazil could exceed the number of deaths in the united states byjuly 01’ deaths in the united states byjuly or august and it comes amid a political battle between the branches and levels of government. we know about the fights between the president and the governors. yesterday a supreme courtjustice said the army couldn t be a moderating power. the president tweeted a response, saying that the army would not obey senseless orders from the other powers. in digging in and perceiving that he is losing popularity, jair bolsonaro, he is trying to reemphasise his control over the armed forces. it is a very troubling moment for brazil s democracy as well as its public health. people planning to take part in protests in london today have been told that they must be off the streets by five o clock this afternoon. the metropolitan police said several protests are scheduled in the capital, including a black lives matter protest and another by right wing groups. senior officers have again urged people to stay away while coronavirus rules remain in place. sean dilley reports. london s metropolitan police is gearing up for more protests on the streets of the capital today, two and a half weeks after the death of george floyd in police custody in minneapolis. britain s most senior police officer is urging people to stay at home. i think people should stay away from these protests. it s clear that we re in the middle of a public health crisis, so it s not safe for them, it s not safe for the people around them. secondly, we do have information that people are intent on coming to cause violence and confrontation. of course, we will do everything we can to prevent violence and disorder. senior officers have authorised special powers to restrict the locations of protests. all gatherings must end at 5:00pm. the measures come a week after tens of thousands gathered around the uk. a minority turned violent. shouting. in london, 27 police officers were hurt. statues were targeted in bristol and in the capital. this weekend, the cenotaph and a statue of britain s wartime prime minister were hidden from view. what s happened with these demonstrations is that a tiny minority or actually, a growing minority, unfortunately have hijacked them. and they are using them as a pretext to attack the police, to cause violence, and to cause damage to public property. police say they understand the depth of feeling ahead of planned protests but they say people should, on public health grounds, find other ways to make their voice heard. sean dilley, bbc news. from today in england and northern ireland, people who live by themselves can expand their support network to include one other household of any size. these new support bubbles allow qualifying people to meet indoors or out, be less than two metres apart and stay overnight. in england, the rule also applies to single parents with children under 18. an outbreak of the coronavirus emanating from a large wholesale market in beijing has led to fears of a second wave of infections in the chinese capital. the market is now shut, along with some others in china s capital. an outbreak of the coronavirus emanating from a large wholesale market in beijing has led to fears of a second wave of infections in the chinese capital. the market is now shut, along with some others in china s capital. 0ur china correspondent, steve mcdonell, has more from beijing. we are getting used to not having any cases in beijing, more than 50 days without a new case and all of a sudden at a large wholesale markets, dozens sudden at a large wholesale markets, d oze ns of sudden at a large wholesale markets, dozens of positive cases, most are asymptomatic. now they are testing 10,000 staff at the market and this isa 10,000 staff at the market and this is a massive wholesale market, that supplies 80% of beijing s meat and vegetables. so a lot of concern there. the people running that market are saying they have been going around trying to test where it could have come from, or how it s spread, but they re saying they have tested traces of the coronavirus on a chopping board used for imported salmon. i don t know if that necessarily means it has come off the salmon, or the person chopping the salmon, or the person chopping the fish. but large ramifications. we have seen hundreds of military police pouring into that market. the market has been shut down and neighbourhoods around the market shut down, schools, shops around the market also closed. hundreds of black and minority ethnic doctors in the uk have told the bbc they are still waiting for a coronavirus risk assessment. guidance issued by nhs england at the end of april recommended that staff who are at greater risk should be assessed. 94% of doctors who have died with coronavirus have come from non white backgrounds. joining me now from north london is the bma s council chair, dr chaand nagpaul. thank you forjoining us. how concerned are you by these figures and do they accord with what your hear something yes, the figures are disturbing, 94% of all doctors who have died from covid 19 have come from a bame background. this figure cannot be explained on stat isical variation. so it is clear that the nhs hasa variation. so it is clear that the nhs has a duty of care to protect its workforce and risk assessments are key. they re the same as we do for the population, that certain members of population should be shielded, certain are vulnerable. what we know is that bame health ca re what we know is that bame health care workers who have a high risks, those who may be older, who may have diabetes or a heart condition, should they be in contact with the virus and become infected, that could seriously damage the health and cause death. it is right they should be risk assessed. without that, you basically have a situation where health care workers are putting themselves in harm s way and these statistics, it is a call for action. so we had guidance from nhs england to all nhs providers for the staff to be risk assessed and yet about 40% of doctors have told us they re not even aware of the ability to be risk assessed and of those that have been risk assessed, more bame doctors are telling us they re not satisfied. this is a time where we must protect our workforce and those who are most at risk. and i want to make sure that no one feels that doctors are not going to be on the front line. this means that doctors can be redeployed to do work that is safe for them and patients and there is plenty of work, with the lack log, to do work thatis work, with the lack log, to do work that is not covid facing. we should redeploy staff in a way that is right for them and patients. are some staff taking matters into their own hands and risk assessing themselves if they have underlying conditions and they know that because of their ethnicity they re at greater risk, can they say i m stepping back, whether you re going to risk assessment me or not, i ve done my own? one of the worrying statistics is that bame doctors are less likely to challenge authority and complain, because they feel there may be repurr cushions. repercussions. so i have written to all doctors advising them they re entitled to a risk assessment and they should be challenging if they feel they re at risk and they have not been assessed. there are some tools available that give employers and we have advised our members of these stools tools so they can see if they fall into a high risk category and if they do, remember doctors and health care workers are seeing patients at close proximity. if they re at risk of serious ill health it can t be right they re put into that position. we are encouraging doctors to feel out if they feel they re being put in harm s way when they should be protected. thank you forjoining us. worth saying that nhs england have said they know that covid 19 has put a spotlight on health inequalities and saying that they re prioritising risk assessment for ethnic minority staff. the dalai lama has said he s been inspired by the compassion so many have shown during the coronavirus crisis. the tibetan buddhist spiritual leader told the bbc the pandemic had helped people recognise they were part of one global community. 0ur correspondent justin rowlatt reports. when i met the dalai lama in 2017, the world was very different. then the world was very different. then the leader of tibetan buddhism could even tap me on the head. that is for educated people. how are you, your holliness. in the age of coronavirus we meet by video. he admits being locked down in a palace is pretty curby. i personally stay here peacefully. he recognise it is pandemic has been a terrible burden for many, but he says there has been much to inspire and celebrate. many people don t care about their own sort of safety, but helping. wonderful. in a way it has revealed something positive about humanity and about us all. negative things, sometimes helpful one way frustration, anger and one way when you re on a member of your own community suffer, then there are a sense of concern, more compassionate feeling. his hope is that the coronavirus crisis will help foster international co operation. coronavirus crisis will help foster international co-operation. in the past, there has been too much emphasis my continent, my nation, my religion. now that thinking is out dated. we should think humanity, seven billion human beings. one of the key concerns for the buddhist leader i was the environment. is the environment. the current dalai lama was born in a remote village and exiled in 1959. the god king travels. that is when the tibetan people rose up against the chinese occupation. the dalai lama says he has seen dramatic changes in the environment within his own lifetime. 1960 i came here. that winter, a lot of snow. then each year less and less and less. so we must think very seriously global warming. now to a more delicate subject, his own death. he has said he may not be reincarnated and could be the last dalai lama. dalai lama institution now a few centuries now and with this. great dalai lama! are you saying you are the last dalai lama? the concerned people should discuss about the future of the dalai lama. they should decide. i have no idea. my they should decide. i have no idea. my main concern is my own life spent something useful. it hasn t finished! four years. the dalai lama has been an extraordinarily effective ambassador people since the chinese invasion 70 years ago. he may say he is not interested in what happens when he is gone, but his passing will raise major political and religious issues. a government scheme providing grants for businesses supports fewer firms in areas with higher property prices, according to a new report by researchers from the institute for fiscal studies. just a one pound difference in a property s rateable value can lead to the amount of support differing by up to nearly £25,000. there has also been a significant variation in how quickly councils have been able to pay out grants to companies. let s get more on this from david phillips, one of the authors of the report. thank you forjoining us. so what are these grants and business rebates and how know how do they work. the government put in place two schemes to support businesses with not just labour two schemes to support businesses with notjust labour costs, two schemes to support businesses with not just labour costs, but other costs. so most businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, many which are closed town, most businesses are getting a waiver of their business rates this year and those occupying small properties, or the vast majority of them, are entitled to grants of up to £25,000 to help pay their rent or with other costs. some other businesses in the office sector are also entitled to grants if they re in particularly small properties. it is support over £22 billion of support, mostly to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, but that doesn t mean there are not issues with the design that could be addressed if the schemes were extended. explain what the problems are, why you think there injustice is and how they can be quickly fixed? the figures issue is that the way the schemes are designed means there are quite big cliff edges in there are quite big cliff edges in the support businesses get. you mentioned that a one pound difference in the value of a property can lead to a doubling or a halving in the amount of support they get, because they become eligible for bigger grants or lose eligibility for grants. that could bea eligibility for grants. that could be a £25,000 difference. that unfair and it could cause distortion to competition and some businesses want to survive and continue and others just because of that one pound difference in the value of property. also. tell us what how this can be fixed. there are two ways, one is that the schemes could be changed so that the schemes could be changed so that rather than having the big cliff edges in support, support gets tapered away and that is how it often works with these schemes, the other issue that could be changed is that rather than have national thresholds who define who is eligible for grants, so if you re in london, over 20% of properties are above the threshold, regional thresholds could be set to reflect the differences in property values, to make sure the schemes are more fairly providing support to different parts of country where values are different. we will have to eleven it, because we have a busy morning. thank you for explaining that clearly. the queen s official birthday will be marked with a ceremony instead of the annual trooping the colour parade, as the coronavirus lockdown continues. it is only the second time in her 68 year reign that the parade in london has not gone ahead. instead, windsor castle will host a ceremony with a small number of welsh guardsmen and military musicians. social distancing rules will be in place for those who are marching. joining us now from windsor castle is our royal correspondent, sarah campbell. tell us more. well, the build up to the ceremony is beginning. i can hearin the ceremony is beginning. i can hear in the distance behind the castle walls, i can hear the massed band. and behind the gate, the guardsmen are lining up to make that march up the hill to the quadrangle. the doors are closed, because there will be no public viewpoint, no van ta ij will be no public viewpoint, no van taij point vantage point. social distancing is the order of the day and trooping the colour cancelled for only the second time in the queen s reign. there are soldiers trooping up the mall towards buckingham palace for that photo opportunity. none of that can happen this year, due to the coronavirus and instead location wise it has moved from london to here to windsor castle where the queen and the duke of edinburgh have been during lockdown. there will be a short military ceremony. roughly 20 minutes. it has been especially designed. normally the guards men are shoulder to shoulder and of course that can t happen and they have developed a ceremony that means they will be exactly 2.2 metres apart at all times. the queen will ta ke apart at all times. the queen will take the royal salute and go back into the castle and the welsh guards will go back on duty. no public vantage points in windsor. the ceremony will be shown on bbc1. thank you. as we ve been hearing from today in england and northern ireland, people living alone, or single parents with children under the age of 18, can choose to pair up with another household in a so called ‘support bubble . for many, the chance to visit, and even stay the night with loved ones, is a welcome change to the strict lockdown measures introduced almost three months ago. (read 0n) introduced almost three months ago. samantha sloane is a single mum with a two year old daughter she s reuniting with her parents today. i can talk to her now, with her dad duncan. what does it mean to you, it is your birth day, i m glad you have the t shirt. birth day, i m glad you have the t-shirt. it is. congratulations. thank you. how does it feel to be in a bubble at last and not entirely on your own with your two year old. a bubble at last and not entirely on your own with your two-year-old. for me it is an amazing thing, it has come at st right time, it is my birthday and it is a welcome pirt day present. my two year old broke herfoot day present. my two year old broke her foot a couple of weeks ago and that was challenging on my own, i m due to move house on monday and could do with some child care support and i found could do with some child care support and ifound out my could do with some child care support and i found out my dad s due open heart surgery. it is amazing to be able to see him again and hopefully have a takeaway and have a sunday dinner tomorrow, so all very exciting for us. duncan, sorry to hear about your heart surgery and good luck with that. thank you. on the question of the bubble, what does it mean to you to actually see your daughter and your grand child again after these three months? that is great. we have seen each other over videos and things, but to actually physically come in the house is brilliant. what have been, i don t know if either of you is prepared to go there with full candour, but what have been the ha rd est candour, but what have been the hardest moments? probably hit six weeks and i hit a really low point and got quite epressed and emotional depressed and emotional and found out the news about my father and being alone and not hug him and having my daughter with a broken foot and no support. so it has been emotional but there has been some good times with my me and my daughter. i m glad it is mixed and there have been some up things, sorry about the six week difficult moment, duncan, what have been the ha rd est moment, duncan, what have been the hardest things for you? it is helping out more, having the chance, you see your daughter or and your grand daughter in difficulties and there are problems arise and you can t help them. you know it is frustrating and it has been frustrating, but now you knowjust to come around and be able tojust sit here and help. it is lovely to talk to you both. all the best with moving on monday. duncan all the best with the child care on monday and all of you have a wonderful birthday today and feel free to have a big hug for all of us. thank you. thank you. now time for a quick look at the weather with helen. hello. there will be further heavy and thundery showers this weekend, but with spells of sunshine in between it will feel warmer. the showers will be quite slow moving into the afternoon, perhaps parts of wales, the midlands and north west england sing active storms, lots of lightning, large hail, squally winds. rain across northern england and northern ireland is edging its way northwards into scotland, but drier to the north and east, but the sea haar and fret will keep things quite a grey and cool. showers are obviously congregating a lot near centre of low pressure in the southend west, but will tend to ease a little through the night. another warm night, the low cloud will return, slow to clear tomorrow, otherwise further spells of sunshine and some heavy and thundery showers. hello. this is bbc news with carrie gracie. the headlines: british airways treatment of staff during the coronavirus crisis is a national disgrace according to a group of prominent uk politicians they say ba has used the pandemic to cut thousands of jobs.
this is bbc news. the headlines: the national guard has been called in to help restore order in the american city of minneapolis which has now seeen its third night of violence and unrest. crowds have been protesting against the killing of an african american man at the hands of the police. the state governor said he took the decision following widespread rioting on wednesday. the united states, britain, canada and australia have issued a joint statement warning that china s national security law in hong kong would curtail individual liberties there. they said it raised the prospect of people being convicted of political crimes and would make existing tensions worse. president trump has signed an executive order targeting social media companies, after being angered by twitter tagging two of his posts as potentially misleading. the measures limit the legal immunity the companies have against being held liable for what people post on their platforms. for two and a half months, streets across the uk have been filled with the sound of applause every thursday night as the nation comes out to thank the carers and key workers of the pandemic. tonight was the 10th week in a row but now the woman who came up with the idea says she thinks it should be the last. here s our special correspondent allan little. every week it has been a moment of intense and noisy solidarity. an anxious, grateful public seeking a way to say thank you to health workers at first and then to all those on whom we have relied. often those previouslyjudged low skilled and consequently low paid. we know now how valuable they are. but the woman who created it all has said tonight should be the last. everybody who wants to continue should continue, but i think its is good to do it while we still have such a positive impact with this moment to stop now and then also we are now in a different part of the crisis. what have they made of it, the health care workers risking their own health to protect ours? it s been very emotional and pleased that everyone has come together. it sjust been really nice to see everybody get together and we ve been able to thank each other. nine weeks ago, we put on our winter coats and clapped in the dark all over the uk. theyjoined in from an antarctic research station. and north sea oil platforms. the prime minister, visibly ill, from downing street. what has it meant this outpouring of shared sentiment? it places at the heart of public esteem a health service whose resources in recent years have not kept pace with the demands made upon it. this weekly expression of affection is notjust for a service the public clearly treasures but, for the values on which it is founded of fair access for all, regardless of the ability to pay. healthcare workers wonder whether this public mood will translate itself into actual policy. what is important is that for years to come, ministers should still hear that ringing in their ears and do what s right by those services and by nursing staff. most nhs staff don t think of themselves as heroic. we are not angels, one nurse told me, we are professional people with a job to do. but the weekly clap for carers illustrates the enormous burden of public faith they carry and the esteem in which they re held. # dancing in the streets. will it end tonight? i hope we will still come out on a thursday and i think folk will still want something to focus on. don t underestimate the public need to say thank you. alan little, bbc news. and let mejust and let me just show you the darkness in minneapolis as violence is still just occurring darkness in minneapolis as violence is stilljust occurring on the streets there. this following the death of george floyd at the hands of police in minneapolis. you can just see a fire is burning there, piercing the blackness. we are keeping right across what is happening there in the us for you here on bbc news. now on bbc news, the world is buying more sneakers or trainers than ever before, with more styles becoming collectables and more brands releasing limited editions. reporting for newsbeat, lynnie zonzolo travels to new york to see how the industry has tripled in size in a decade and what the impact is on the environment. a lot of people don t get this opportunity. but you guys came a long ways. we did indeed. you guys crossed the pond. ok, i m ready. i m going to let you go inside the million dollar shoe case. you are too kind! holy! this is nuts, nuts, nuts. this is like the closest i ll ever get to holding $20,000 $30,000 in my hand. i feel you! wow! it smells of fresh leather, it feels like christmas, you know, there is something aboutjordan ones when they re fresh out of the box. yeah. i will sniff them like no other, like, it s the best smell in the world. yeah. i can relate to that. oh, my lord, i never thought i would see these! yeah, look at that. classic. absolutely classic. welcome, welcome, welcome. this beautiful bad boy is the nike back to the future, if you want to buy it s $100,000, 0k? and if you are a size 12, it s $112,000. my first love of sneakers i guess first came about when i was ten. it was my birthday, i got some friends over, i got some money, and pretty much went tojd sports that next day. i really liked popping colours and aesthetically giving me that old school buzz. my uncle, he had a crazy range of sneakers. and i was like, man, one day all of need those. one day ijust need all of these old school classics. ok, so, we re pretty much in the hallway, right. and like i said, extra shoes, extra pairs of shoes, more shoes. about $30,000-$40,000 worth of kicks. i need some help. i do, i do. if i was on a train and i saw some by the window and they had gold nike blazers, i knew they were cool! you know? it s ingrained in you. these things are made to bring uncalculable joy. if you haven t got a pair of these, you are not walking in the right way. being in new york is mind blowing. just being in new york is mind blowing. i m excited, it s christmas for me right now. it s christmas. i ve come to the birthplace of sneaker culture to find out how it became such a phenomenon. the sneaker industry has tripled in the last ten years. it s now almost half of global footwear sales. i own 80 pairs myself, and i m not gonna lie i still want more. but why? 2019 and 2020, we re living in the greatest era of sneaker culture, period. there s a huge sneaker community out there and it s global. in 1991 dj bobbito garcia wrote confessions of a sneaker addict, considered the first major piece of sneakerjournalism. so let me break it down like this: there s two pockets of why shoes are cool. on one side, they re really functional. they re comforatble to wear, they look cool, they re an extension of your individuality. you can become creative with them, you can paint them, customise them, you can own them, right? so that is one pocket. the other pocket is that sneakers in and of themselves have been placed in the same way that people approach art. you ve got auction houses during sneaker exhibitions and selling shoes that are highly, highly collectible in the same way that one sells art. we grew up with rules of originality. so the phrase was no biting. what does that mean? so that means, don t talk like me, don t dress like me, don t say what i say, don t dance the way i dance. everything was that expression of originality. if we go out, i show up with my suede pullman s on and you have the same, you ve got to change. you either change the laces, paint the stripes do something to the midsole, that s what we live by. this sort of like, disposition of wanting to be unique, is something that was very prevalent in new york and multiple communities and multiple cultures. we are the people who put nike on the map because everyone was wearing converse and pro keds. we were the ones who put a chance on this new brand. and by the 80s there was nike, reebok, puma, pro keds, and it is, pony, you know, converse. by the late 80s and 90s there was a shift and people started really being fed marketing and advertising and buying into that. and a lot of that determine what they want to wear. one of the first shoes to go big was the nike air force one, which came out in 1982. the shoe that really change the game came three years later when nike teamed up with basketball legend michael jordan. the airjordan 0ne netted $75 million in a month. brands realise the power of teaming up with a celebrity, especially if you combine that with creating a unique design in a limited edition quantity. people started to see sneakers as real collectables. there were even riots over big releases, and worse. rap‘s influence grew. reebok and jay z signed deals, as did wu tang. and now kanye west s yeezys. for some people, owning a rare pair has become the ultimate status symbol. i guess sneaker culture, like you see right now, they are repeat sneakers. ifeel personally i m getting duped. you know, having bought these same sneakers three, four, five times already, not just for yourself or little brother or your son, how many times can you keep buying the same thing, you know what i mean? first time in new york? an absolute dream come true. it s amazing, i love it so much. new yorkers love their sneakers. the numbers are just astronomical, adidas publish their figures and produced 109 million pairs of sneakers last year. i think it was a 60% increase since 2013. wow! i didn t know that. they re cranking out lots of shoes. “119811, the sneaker industry was already about $2 billion. by 2000, but had shot up to almost $14 billion, and in the last ten years it has just exploded. sneakers have taken over the world. the other thing that has really taken off is collecting. i mean, serious collecting. and they know how to keep you buying, they put out limited editions to keep up demand. a limited drop will cost more right out of the gate. but things get really crazy on the resale market. resellers will bulk buy limited sneakers and sell them for a higher price. they can cost thousands more than a regular version of the same issue. reselling has gotten so big the market is worth about $6 billion, and it is predicted to hit as much a $17 billion in the next three years. there is a lot of money to be made. as the industry evolved over the years, they weren t thinking as much it seems about what is going to happen down the line. yeah. eventually, all have to go somewhere. where is it going to go? mostly it is going to go to landfills. we can t really do a lot with it, we can t recycle a lot of sneakers. it is one of those things companies are working on now. adidas being the big example. according to nike, the average carbon footprint of their product is over 700 kilograms, about the same as a ten mile drive. so what does that mean for the planet? well, it would take one tree nearly two years to remove the carbon dioxide from one pair of shoes. with over1 billion sneakers sold every year, that tree would need two billion years offset their emissions. to have two or three sneakers, my parents thought i was crazy. i didn t have the money to buy a lot of pairs of sneakers, so the care that we took to our shoes was again, unprecedented. when i started painting my sneakers, it wasn t just for aesthetics, it was to elongate the potential use of the shoe. i basically had an extra three months of shoes just by painting them. i was born in 1994, so learning the sneaker culture of the 70s, 80s and 90s, gave me goose bumps because there was a lot of effort and love into it. having a toothbrush and cleaning your shoes, like, it s crazy. it shows there was a genuine love for that and i don t sense that anymore. i want to say the hype is always good, because it obviously brings more attention and things like that, but the love for the sneaker world is kind of lost, for sure. i don t care where the sneakers are. if i have heard that they are out there i am going to find out. if i ve got to go on the internet or something like that it s no fun for me. i d rather fly there. how did things change so much? i think there s a blurred line between what gets attributed to sneakers and what gets called high culture. for the sake of camping out to get something, that s a deeer rooted issue for people who want to do that. 0k. i ve had over 4,000 sneakers in this lifetime. i ve never camped double one. stop it. not one. hey, thomas. hi, how are you doing? i m very well, how are you? i m very well. welcome. the sneaker glorified. look how protected they are. i know. we ve got to protect them. i would happily starve in it. sneakers for me. then when you were wearing them you wouldn t look so good. laughter. that s true. you ve got a point there. you ve got a point. what do you think about limited editions? i think they re pretty ridiculous. it seems to me that it s a way of hyping it up and kind of creating, it s sort of a way of stimulating design, is making you buy because you worry. you re getting up in the morning because you are worried that you re not going to be able to get it. call it fom0, fear of missing out. trainer fom0. i have that sometimes. it s nagging away in your stomach thinking if they don t get these now i won t have them. that is artificially created by them saying we re only to produce, i don t know, like whatever number they are going to produce. whereas they could quite easily, you know, produce as many as people wa nt and keep producing it. i m guessing that you ve got more than one pair of trainers. yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. so you ve got more than one pair. you re probably buying multiple pairs, new pairs before the old pair is worn out. wow. so the question you have to ask yourself is, and i m guilty of this is anybody, i ve got a mountain of these things, so you ask yourself to a really need to keep buying them? i feel like low key i m kind of moving towards the i don t need them. of course you don t need them. i don t need them. i know that for a fact. i don t want to look at somebody‘s shoes and know that i had the opportunity to get it but they didn t. that s how they re getting you. is there is only a business? of course it s only business. of course it s a business. it s about selling shoes. but this passion and outcome of this posting creating, this posting creating, dispassionate design, and this passion in creating, dispassionate design, and is based on buying. it s like anything. it s like the fashion industry. it s about creativity, it s about design, it s about innovation, it s about new technology, it s about sports, it s about performance, but, ultimately, it s about selling shoes. i ve spent about £30,000 £40,000 on speakers. was that money well spent? i don t know. it was my choice. maybe if i hadn t spent it on loads of sneakers maybe if i hadn t spent it on loads of sneakers i could have got a car, bought a flat, but this isn t just about me. over a billion pairs of sneakers produced every year and you can t produce that much of anything without having an impact on the planet, especially something which has as much plastic in it as sneakers do. so i am in germany today heading to the adidas headquarters. i am so excited. so i want to find out more. i just wanted to show you a couple of things. from the past and what we re doing these days. this year we have got the introduction of this new fabric. it uses part of the ocean plastic. and we ll use twice as much ocean plastic this year as we as used last year. this was the first prototype we actually developed. almost 100% of shoes in the sports industry are glued. the uppers are glued to the bottom. and gle is basically poison for recycling. it s a contaminant. so the real innovation here is that the upper andy barr of are made out of what material, every single piece on here is the same type of plastic, tpu, the shoes are 100% recyclable. the loop is a 100% recyclable shoe. but it s only one shoe. why aren t adidas making all their shoes like this? you can only do it if you can manage to do without losing your business if everybodyjust stopped buying product that doesn t work, because the definition of sustainability is that it works for the environment, it works on people, and it works the economy. just had a great chat with james. it really, really made me look into myself, you know, as far as a consumer and how i can help the environment. and going back to london is going to make me think more about my choices. nike, reebok, and puma are all bringing out sustainable shoes too. but the truth is they re just a tiny slice of the multibillion dollar sneaker market. i decided to go see if maybe recycling our shoes could help. morning. good morning. how are you? nice to see you. welcome. we used the idea of trying to shred the shoes into bits and pieces, which i m going to ask you to do with your sneakers ina minute. laughter. no way! basically what we do is we put the whole shoe into some sort of a shredder, in this case granulator, and it will come into small particles and we will put it through a number of processes which i will show you in a minute to be able to separate it into individual materials and then we can use those materials to make more shoes or other things. so these were sneakers once upon a time? these were sneakers. it makes me so sad. think about it this time. this is so much better than sending them into a landfill, then there is no use out of this material. this way we can separated and make something out of it. ok, that s fair. so sorry! unfortunately, sneaker recycling is impossible for most people yet. the technology just isn t advanced enough. in the short term, until our process is significantly improved in terms of how we make rings and how we recycle it, the concept of consuming less and using a product for longest, in terms of environmental benefit, has got the biggest potential. ok, so i should basically buy less until technology has improved ? um, i ve given you all the information. the decision about buying less. i would like to get your take. for example, how many shoes do you have? i have two pairs of trainers, one is for indoor activities, one is for outdoor activities. it is weird to hear that. two shoes and, yeah, two shoes. maybe the secret is returning to the roots of the scene, owning few issues and treasuring them more. so i am literallyjust outside of lead, a meeting young man and he is very much into his customisation and restoration and he has a really good point when it comes to talking about the environment. so i m looking forward to it. hi. nice to meet you, lynnie. thank you so much. i literally got into trainers just from watching football and the process of obviously going to be put all is wearing nice shoes. it all just started off from france. theyjust started cleaning shoes and re dying them and it has moved to this fully customisation work and this is where it is that at the moment. there are not many people really sending old shoes to me. but when they do i tend to want to revamp them fully, so a add new tongue tabs to them, add text to them. i got into it because when it was younger remember my dad buying brand new shoes and binning them constantly, he would wear them for a few months, they would get ruined output all, and he was just in them. these are getting re dyed so they will get a custom colour created for the corner and bottom it will get repainted local of that. my reason for it is mainlyjust because i want to keep my trainers in good stead. if i am buying a good shoe i want to keep it strong. some people don t have the brain to keep their shoe to a decent state. if i can restore nine pairs of shoes in my house, that is not shoes that go to the landfill. it is worse with the toxins in the shoes that leach into the soil, the rubber doesn t degrade. if everyone can just think for a minute before thinking let us bin these shoes, i m not saying come to my business, but i am saying if you can bring your shoes to me and i can restore them that is one less pair for landfill. he is just one of so many customers and refurbishes who have started up in recent years. it s interesting because they seem closer to the way things were back on the day with making your sneakers last. they love the idea of it, you know, just having a view pairs that matter and customising them to keep them in shape, rather than buying new ones constantly. do i need all the sneakers i have? probably not. hello. we know this spring has been warm. it s been very dry in some spots. and now news aboutjust how sunny it s been, with the met office saying provisionalfigures indicate that it s been the uk s sunniest spring on record. and with high pressure close by for friday into the weekend, most will stay sunny and dry, warm, very warm, even hot in some spots. in fact, friday, the flow of air around this high pressure as it moves north across the uk will favour parts of scotland to see the uk s high temperature of the day, close to 28 celsius. now, we start the day with temperatures for some in single figures, though they will rise quickly in the sunshine. any low cloud across parts of eastern coastal england will disappear, along with any misty low cloud around the murray firth in scotland. 0rkney brightening up, shetland staying mainly cloudy. but for most of the uk, it s sunshine all the way. it is now a prevailing east southeastly breeze. and that means that east facing coasts will see temperatures towards the teens rather than the low to mid 20s across the bulk of the uk, and, again, nudging the upper 20s in the hottest parts of scotland. temperature not the only thing high. uv levels as well. strong may sunshine. do take care if you re outside for any period of time. and pollen, moderate to high for many of us, as grass pollen levels are on the increase. now, friday looks like a fine evening, plenty of sunshine to end the day. again, temperatures will head down overnight, so if you do try to cool the house down overnight, we re expecting some spots, again, tojust dip down into single figures. and a largely sunny start to saturday morning. and again, just to show you the big picture, it s high pressure maybe just pushing out towards scandinavia, but it is still blocking weather fronts that would give us some rain otherwise from getting to us from the atlantic. so, on saturday, there may be a bit of patchy cloud developing here and there, the sun may turn hazy in some spots, but for most, it s a sunny story, a brighter one in shetland as well. still the breeze keeping some eastern coastal parts cooler than elsewhere. again, we re talking widely in the low to mid 20s. and then on sunday, again, some patchy cloud developing here and there, but for most places, it will be sunny, it will be dry, it will be very warm. just a hint of something cooler at the end of next week.
this is bbc news. welcome if you re watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i m lewis vaughn jones. our top stories: rioting in the us city of minneapolis. these are live pictures of the unrest triggered by the police killing of an african american man. the daughter of martin luther king says it s the result of deep seated problems. they terrorise, they murder our children, and we have done nothing. when you do not deal with these conditions of adequacy and white supremacy in the nation, these are the kind of things that happen. people riot. that is their language, that is their frustration. targeting twitter: president trump signs an executive order aimed at social media companies. western countries condemn china s planned new hong kong security law, saying it threatens basic freedoms. and france announces a re opening of bars and restaurants.
this is bbc news, the headlines: the british prime minister has defended his top advisor, dominic cummings, amid a row over the aide s travel during lockdown. boris johnson says mr cummings followed the instincts of every parent and acted with integrity, in seeking childcare with family members, after his wife had developed symptoms of the virus. thousands of people have been taking part in mass protests againsts china s plans to impose a new security law on the territory. more than 100 people have been arrested. beijing says the legislation will improve people s lives, but campaigners warn fundamental freedoms are being eroded. brazil s coronavirus death toll continues to rise steadily, with more than 600 fatalities reported on sunday. however, president jair bolsonaro is still refusing to implement social distancing rules. meanwhile, the us has imposed travel restrictions on foreign nationals who have been to brazil in the last 1a days. now on bbc news, the week in parliament. hello there, and welcome to the week in parliament. on this programme labour says there s been no tracking and tracing of coronavirus in the uk for months. for ten weeks, there s been no tracing, unlike germany and south korea. and tracing is critical. but the prime minister promises the uk will have a world class track and trace system. and, yes, it will be in place it will be in place byjune 1st. the immigration bill bringing in a points based system passes its first parliamentary hurdle. scotland s first minister sets out her plans to ease the lockdown. and how about this as an idea to lift the spirits when the crisis is finally over? we could possibly have a bank holiday in october, because the industry has sort of lost the benefit of the two main bank holidays. but first, the government faced criticism from senior figures in the care sector of its handling of coronavirus. giving evidence to the health and social care committee, the head of the organisation representing care homes said elderly people should have been prioritised from the beginning of the crisis. the chair of the committee asked about a government ambition to move to routine testing of front line care and nhs staff. have you had any indication or sense that this is going to start anytime soon? well, i mean, we ve had the announcements, but so often the announcements, there s a time delay before delivery. so, ithink, you know, the intention is there but also i want to say that it would be very helpful to have both testing and track and trace in place, because i think that could be a game changer as well in this. so, i think the short answer, chair, is we had the announcement but what we haven t had is the delivery, and we re not really clear when that s going to arrive. professor martin green. and those comments on routine coronavirus testing in care homes were seized on by the labour leader sir keir starmer at prime minister s questions the next day. official figures suggest more than 11,500 people have died from the infection in care homes across the uk since the start of the pandemic, so sir keir starmer wanted a straight answer when would routine testing start? the chief executive of care england, who knows what he s talking about, gave evidence yesterday that it hasn t. if the prime minister is disputing the evidence of the select committee, that s his own business. order, order! secretary of state for health, please. i don t mind you advising the prime minister, but you don t need to advise the opposition during this. sorry, do you want to leave the chamber? we re at maximum numbers. if you want to give way to somebody else, i m more than happy. keir starmer. mr speaker, to assure the prime minister, i m not expressing my own view, i m putting to him the evidence of experts to the committees yesterday. we have a growing confidence that we will have a test, track and trace operation that will be world beating and, yes, it will be in place it will be in place byjune1st. the snp‘s westminster leaderjoined calls to exempt more key workers from abroad from having to pay a surcharge to use the health service. people migrating to these nations and choosing to work in our nhs and our care sector must have this government s cruel nhs surcharge removed, and removed immediately. will the prime minister make that pledge today, or will he clap on thursday, hoping that no one really notices that he s giving with one hand and raking it in with the other? well, boris johnson didn t answer that directly, but he had earlier been asked a similar question by sir keir starmer and told him that changing the system would leave a hole in the nhs budget. like him, i ve been a personal beneficiary of people who ve come from or carers who ve come from abroad and frankly saved my life, so i know exactly the importance of what he s talking about. on the other hand, we must look at the reality that this is a great national service, it s a national institution, it needs funding, and those contributions actually help us to raise about £900 million. and it s very easy er, very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources, so with great respect to the point that he makes, i do think that that is the right way forward. but on thursday afternoon, just 28 hours after those exchanges, it emerged that the prime minister had changed his mind. number ten said borisjohnson had asked the home office and the department for health and social care to remove health service and care workers from the nhs surcharge as soon as possible. now to brexit, swept off the front pages in recent weeks by the coronavirus crisis. peers wanted to know if customs posts would be established at ports and airports in northern ireland from january and how, if that were the case, it was compatible with repeated assurances from ministers that goods moving from northern ireland would have free and unfettered access to uk markets. my prime minister said there will be no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind. you will have unfettered access. my lords, i simply ask the noble lord, the minister, what is the truth? the prime minister said that if there was any forms of any kind, if someone asked you to fill in the forms, tell them to ring up the prime minister and i will direct them to throw that form in the bin. he was referring to customs and tariffs. on that point, can i ask him if somebody does what the prime minister says and tears up the form and puts it in the bin, what number should they call to speak to the prime minister? well, peers didn t have long to wait for an answer to those questions. on wednesday, the government confirmed that there will be new checks on some goods entering northern ireland from the rest of the uk as part of the brexit deal. the cabinet office minister michael gove told mps northern ireland s ports would be developed to carry out checks on animals and food products. the province will continue to follow some eu rules after the brexit transition period ends on december 31st, but mr gove said there would be no new customs infrastructure. we acknowledge, however as we ve always done that on agrifood and live animal movements, it makes sense to protect supply chains and the disease free status of the island of ireland, as has been the case since the 19th century. that will mean some expansion of existing infrastructure to provide for some additional new processes for the agriculture and food sector. but these processes will build on what already happens at ports like larne and belfast. will my right honourable friend confirm that as from the 1st of january 2021, that northern ireland, i.e., a part of the united kingdom, will be required to abide by eu regulations on certain goods until at least 2024, and potentially indefinitely? it is the case that there will be eu regulations, aspects that will apply in northern ireland to 202k. but of course, she draws attention to a very important point, which is that if the workings of the protocol are viewed by the people and the parties of northern ireland as onerous, too much, intrusive and unacceptable, then they have the opportunity to vote them down in 202a. michael gove. meanwhile, measures to create a trade policy independent from the eu came a step closer when the trade bill passed its second reading in the commons. the legislation replaces trade agreements the uk had as an eu member state. as we recover from the economic shock of the coronavirus crisis, providing certainty and predictability in our trading arrangements will be vital to securing the interest of businesses and consumers. we will unleash the potential and level up every region and nation of our united kingdom. now is the time for this house to speak out against protectionism. it is time for us to embrace the opportunities that free trade and an export led recovery will bring. but labour said the bill was a missed opportunity. instead of a bold strategic vision for the future of our trade policy, we have a stopgap piece of legislation that even ministers are trying to talk down. instead of putting issues like climate change and human rights at the heart of our trade policy, they have been ignored or consciously dropped. instead of opening our trade policy to the expertise of others, the government is denying them even a seat at the table. and instead of restoring parliament s sovereignty over trade policy, this bill leaves mps even more powerless than before. emily thornberry. and another key piece of government legislation also cleared its first commons hurdle. the immigration bill ends the free movement of eu nationals at the end of this year. the aim is to introduce a system whereby would be migrants to the uk will need a certain number of points such as for skills, education and salary before they‘ re allowed to come to work. the home secretary said the bill would give people what they called for when they voted for brexit. the bill before us today will play a vital role in our recovery plans for the future. it will end free movement and pave the way for our new points based immigration system a firmer, fairer and simpler system that will attract the people we need to drive our country forward through the recovery stage of coronavirus, laying the foundation for a high wage, high skill, productive economy. labour focused on the proposals to bring in a salary threshold and how that might affect health and care workers. in the midst of this crisis, the government is putting forward an immigration system containing a salary threshold of £25,600 that sends a signal and tells people that anyone earning less than that is unskilled and unwelcome in our country. we know that one in six of those brave care workers on the front line of the battle against coronavirus are non uk nationals. i commend the home secretary for her commitment to extend visas for doctors and nurses, but what of care workers? are they to be the cinderella service, forgotten once again? and what of ancillary staff in our hospitals, so crucial in a war against a virus where repeated deep cleaning is an absolute imperative? we cannot open hospitals if we cannot clean the loos. i m afraid to say that this is a dreadful bill, one which will destroy opportunity for future generations and will split even more families apart. it s a bill that will result in many thousands of eu nationals losing their rights in this country overnight and will extend the reach of the hostile environment even further. it also fails to protect the rights of petition citizens to live, work and study in other eu member states. nor does it fully guarantee the rights of uk citizens already living across the eu. and while i m disappointed and frustrated that the government refuses to respect the rights of eu citizens who contribute to this country, ifind it beyond comprehension that they do not recognise the need to protect the rights of our citizens, either. a conservative recognised immigration had been a factor in the brexit vote. today, we can put the dilly dally, dither and delay to an end. i understand there are some concerned about what they see as a bizarre concept the end of free movement. to me, it s rather simple. a uk immigration system created and developed by the uk select elected government, a system devised by our national interest, determined by the needs of our economy. a system that treats immigrants from every corner of the globe on the same basis. matt vickers. now, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in the uk jumped to just over 2 million in april the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown. the figures came from the office for national statistics on tuesday. by coincidence, the chancellor rishi sunak was in front of the lords economic affairs committee and its chair got straight to the point. what do you anticipate the level of unemployment will be in the fourth quarter of this year? i don t have a precise estimate. there are a range that are out there from the bank of england and the obr. most of them point to around a double digit percentage unemployment rate. obviously, the numbers you would have seen today show just under a million new claims in the last month over 800,000 taking total number of claims to two million. i think the obr estimate had that tapping out at about three million. obviously, the impact will be severe. there will be more hardship to come. this lockdown is having a very significant impact on our economy. we are likely to face a severe recession, the likes of which we haven t seen, and of course, that will have an impact on employment. do you accept that the length and depth of that recession you refer to will be very much related to the length of the lockdown? i think there s also two things to distinguish. one is the immediacy of the economic impact, the depth of the recession. the question that occupies my mind and, indeed, long term is probably more relevant is, you know, what degree of long term scarring is there on the economy as a result of this recession? what is the depth, what is the loss in productive capacity? because ultimately, once we recover from this crisis by nature, i believe it will be temporary, of course, we will suppress the virus, we will progressively now lift the restrictions the question is, what do we return to? and, you know, the question there that the jury is out. first minister nicola sturgeon has set out how lockdown restrictions will be eased in scotland. she said schools would start preparing next month to reopen from august 11. some outdoor activities would be allowed from thursday, including opening gardening centres and waste and recycling sites. it would also be possible to meet people from other households, but only outdoors and in small numbers. the first minister said that businesses would reopen as part of a four phase easing of the lockdown, which would only continue if the spread of the virus was being controlled. we view them as a proportionate and suitably cautious set of first steps and i hope that they will bring some improvement to people s well being and quality of life, start to get our economy moving again and start to steer us safely towards a new normality. she said the timing of moving between different phases would depend on everyone. we must continue, all of us, to recognise that every single decision we take as individuals has an impact on others and our collective well being. does the first minister accept that for parliament and the public to have confidence and for scotland to feel safe as we come out of lockdown, it s essential that the infrastructure for testing and tracing or test and protect is in place? i want to align our lifting of lockdown measures with our ability to implement a substantial significant test and protect operation, and we will be able to do that from the end of next week in every health board area in the country. we need three guarantees. first, the government should publish the evidence behind the decisions it has taken and it will take in the future. second, we need to see maximum testing capacity and a test, trace and isolate system that is fully working and universally rolled out. and thirdly, the government s strategy must be flexible and able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. can the first minister give us these guarantees? first minister. yes, i think i can in broad terms. but obviously, the detail of that will be scrutinised on and developed in the weeks to come. a green msp raised newspaper pictures of sunbathers on an edinburgh beach flouting the current lockdown rules. does the first minister agree, particularly given the scenes in portobello, in my own city of edinburgh yesterday, that the lockdown is getting harder to sustain? when i saw the pictures of portobello beach yesterday, i almost felt like crying to some extent because i know why people felt the need to do that and i completely sympathise. but every time we have people getting together in ways that provide opportunities for this virus, we risk the progress we have made together, so i appeal to people to stick with these restrictions for a bit longer so that we can much more quickly work through these phases and get back to the normality all of us so badly crave. meanwhile in wales, there were questions for the first minister about his government s road map out of lockdown. mark drakeford described it as a traffic light system , but it had come with no dates attached. is this road map the best hope the welsh government can actually offer the people of wales and when can we expect to see some timescales alongside your exit strategy? on timescales, let me say, as i ve said before and i ve been asked, there is a genuine debate to be had as to whether timescales are a helpful way of setting out the future. in the end, we thought that it was more of a distraction than a concentration on the matters that really deserve our attention. why should people in wales be subject to the most extraordinary, intrusive and prescriptive restrictions on their freedom if they are not necessary? many who had not before understood the scope of devolved powers don t now like the answer. it s because of devolution. mark dra keford accepted extraordinary powers were being used. i agree with what he has said about devolution being brought home to people in this crisis in a way that it hasn t been over the last 20 years, and i doubt that it is true that in wales, people aren t aware of devolution. it is certainly true of people outside wales and in london appear to have woken up from a 20 year sleep. local authorities in northern ireland are to get access tojust over £20 million in emergency covid 19 funding from the executive. councils are still carrying out essential work but have lost income from sectors like leisure and tourism. the new funding will help cover costs between now and the end ofjune. northern ireland s communities minister said the executive had agreed to an immediate intervention to avoid a cash crisis. the losses sustained to date are such a magnitude that councils will soon be unable to meet their financial liabilities. the executive again yesterday agreed to make funding available of £20.3 million to my department, for local councils to alleviate these financial pressures. this intervention will provide relief to our local councils, to protect the delivery of front line services during this crisis and ensure the councils are ready to play their role in our post pandemic recovery plans. will primary schools in england be reopening for some pupils from 1 june? schools are looking at ways to enforce social distancing and make sure it s safe for youngsters and teachers. but at least 11 councils in england have expressed concerns about the plan, and the teaching union, the nasuwt, said it remained unconvinced reopening schools was appropriate or practicable . peers were told that certain year groups would be expected to go back, providing the government s five tests on easing lockdown restrictions were met. well, labourfocused on the spread or r value of the virus. the minister will have seen today that various local authorities across england are advising schools not to open schools in their areas. with public health england having said r values vary across different regions, it s difficult to understand the logic of the government s decision that schools should reopen nationwide on the 1st ofjune. can the noble baroness the minister reveal to the noble lords what the scientific evidence says about re opening schools in communities which have an r value which is closer to one in the average? the r rate is not actually broken down regionally. it is not published in that form. it s a uk wide estimate range that s published each week. the individual modelling groups include epidemiological information on the intensive care unit rates of admissions, death rates and the rates of hospital admissions. so it is an average value that can vary across communities, but it is not published on a regional basis. what are you going to do when lockdown is finally over? top of many people s list, no doubt, is a holiday. the covid 19 shutdown has had a massive impact on the tourism industry. despite the sunny spring weather, beaches have been deserted. popular beauty spots have been, for the most part, empty. hotels up and down the uk are shut, along with campsites, b&bs and holiday homes, all of which has left businesses locked up and facing a shaky financial future. the digital, culture, media and sport committee heard from a wide range of tourism organisations about the effects on them. in your written submission to the committee, you said that you thought the cost impact of covid 19 on your sector could range from £8 billion to £22 billion. that s quite a range. does the fact that we re now talking about a 14 day quarantine and we have a stubbornly high r rate in certain parts of the country, does that mean that you re likely to be toward the top end of that expectation in terms of the cost of covid 19 on your sector? yes, indeed. every time we do the modelling, the figures get worse. i think the worrying thing we see is the lack of confidence in the british public about travelling, so that 74% of people who have a holiday booked forjuly and september think that holiday won t take place. she had a suggestion that could help the industry. we could possibly have a bank holiday in october because the industry has sort of lost the benefit of the two may bank holidays. i think that s an idea that is being considered, have an october bank holiday around half term. because what we re going to need to do is notjust generate income injuly and august but, really, extend the season. coastal tourism has also been hard hit. the key for us, really, is that we believe the coast will take a three year recovery period before it s back to pre covid 19 levels, and what we would like to see is a collaborative approach across all stakeholders to build back better. now is our opportunity to really tackle seasonality on the coast. many businesses, over 20%, are looking at how they extend their opening this year so that they can claw back some of their lost revenue. the national trust told the committee it had closed all its buildings, gardens and car parks and had stopped all non essential projects. we will need to review oui’ human resource. we have a lot ofjobs that people simply won t be doing for the next nine months, so we re in the process of reviewing that at the moment. we re not anticipating another three months‘ closure but if we have a second wave and we had to close completely, that would be deeply, deeply concerning. and what we re watching very carefully, as you would expect, is the decline in membership. we were losing, certainly in the first month, the rate of members four times the normal rate and, of course, we cannot replenish our members because our properties are not open. so it s the membership base we re watching very closely because once that declines, it s incredibly hard to build it up again. there s been a lot of messaging that s gone on from councillors and members of parliament to stay away. understandably so, it was the lockdown rules, etc. but as we move out of that, is there any chance that that sort of messaging has had a more long term effect, could make people nervous or feel as if they are not that welcome? we have had vigilantes. we have holiday parks accommodating nhs key workers when we could. we ve had vigilantes checking up and reporting them to the council and the police. who are at these people on your holiday park? that negative anti feeling is going to be an issue. at the same time, there was something very, very similar after foot in mouth. people did not want tourists in the countryside because we had to protect farmers, but it settled down within a fortnight. if we don t get a second wave, things settle down, people will get used to having their tourists back. and if they don t have them back, they won t have the village shop or the garage the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker because the tourists are sustaining all the local businesses when you have a tiny local community that s unable to do so. it is all part of it. we re integrated in our rural and coastal communities. so we re hoping that it will be seen, but there is a real challenge there at the moment. and that s it from me for now. parliament is taking a break for a week, so we ll be back when mps and peers return on 2june. but until then, from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye. hello there. we saw a top temperature of 23 celsius in the london area on sunday afternoon. bank holiday monday today looks warmer still further south, we could make close to mid 20s celsius across parts of the south east. but generally, much of the country will be dry and sunny thanks to the influence of this area of high pressure. but through the day, these weather fronts will start to play a part in the weather across the north west of the uk to bring outbreaks of rain and stronger winds. a fairly fresh start to the day today. we had temperatures in single figures in places, a little bit of early mist and fog across western areas, which will tend to burn away quickly through the morning. many places will be dry and sunny, england and wales, eastern scotland, but then western scotland, lots of northern ireland will stay windy and cloudy and wetter later in the day. that will impact the temperatures around the mid teens in the north west, closer to the low 20s and the mid 20s in the south east. now, that band of cloud and rain across the north west moves its way south eastwards during monday night, tending to fizzle out, though, as it reaches parts of england and wales, just a few showers along it. but with more cloud cover generally, i think it should be a little less chilly with temperatures in double figures for most. now, as we move into tuesday, we ve got high pressure with us once again. this area of cloud associated with that weather front will straddle central areas and push its way south eastwards through the day, so i think england and wales could see more cloud around generally. a bit more sunshine, though, for scotland and northern ireland, but slightly fresher air mass here with temperatures into the low to mid teens. but again, despite the cloud across england and wales, the air is quite warm here, so still 20 to 25 or 26 degrees will be the high. high pressure still with us on into wednesday, we ve got this feature which will bring thicker cloud, perhaps some patchy rain to northern ireland and in towards central and western scotland. but to the north of it, dry, little bit cooler with some sunshine to the south of it, plenty of sunshine for england and wales and, again, another warm day, 25 or 26 will be the high, closer to the mid teens in the north. but that fresher air in the north gets pushed away northwards as high pressure changes its position, moves to the east of the uk and starts to draw up this warm, southerly wind from the near continent. that will drive the warmth northwards into scotland and northern ireland as we reach the end of the week, and it ll be very warm for england and wales with plenty of sunshine. this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i m aaron safir. uk prime minister boris johnson stands by his chief advisor, rejecting calls for him to resign over allegedly breaking coronavirus lockdown rules. i believe that in every respect, he has acted responsibly, and legally, and with integrity. in hong kong, more than 100 people are arrested in protests against beijing s new proposed security laws. brazil s president continues to dismiss warnings over social distancing, despite the number of cases rising sharply. meanwhile, turkey says it is turning the tide in its coronavirus outbreak as the rate of infection drops
of confirmed coronavirus infections. the country has now recorded more than 263,000 cases, placing it behind only the united states and russia. more than 1,000 people have died. millions of people are evacuated from the coastal areas of india and bangladesh, as a huge storm bears down on the bay of bengal. cyclone umpun is expected to make landfall later on wednesday. the world health organisation has defended its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, following criticism from the united states. it comes as the who s member states agreed to an independent evaluation of its response. global carbon emissions fell by more than a sixth at the height of the coronavirus lockdown, according to a new study. the reduction was partly due to a fall in the number of cars on the road. now on bbc news, it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. the european union has struggled to find a collective response to the coronavirus pandemic. those countries hit first and worst by the virus, italy and spain, have complained of a lack of solidarity. well, is that about to change? because france and germany are now backing a 500 billion euros economic recovery fund that would be made up of grants, not loans. my guest is french finance minister bruno le maire. is the pandemic taking the eu in a new direction? minister bruno le maire, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, good morning. let me start getting your response to the dramatic video conference joint appearance by your president, mr macron, and angela merkel of germany yesterday. mrs merkel said that the eu is facing the greatest crisis in its history, and we must find appropriate answers. do you believe those answers have been found? i think they have been found. and i fully share the assessment of chancellor angela merkel. we are clearly facing the gravest crisis in the history of the european union. an economic crisis, a social crisis, but also a political one. we need a new and strong response, and i really think that chancellor merkel and president macron have been able, both together, to provide the necessary response to the crisis. this is a major step, and i would say an historical step that has been decided yesterday by president macron and chancellor merkel. for the first time in our history, we are ready to provide 500 billion of expenditures, public expenditures, to fight the economic consequences of the virus and to face the economic crisis. this is a historical step for france and germany, and i hope for all european countries. but let us be clear, minister you say mr macron and mrs merkel have decided, but frankly nothing at all has been decided. this is simply a proposal, and it is a proposal that is so historic to use your word that it seems very likely significant numbers of other member states of the eu will not accept this idea of debt sharing which, in essence, is what this is. i know what that it will be difficult to convince the other partners some of the partners, for instance, austria, denmark, sweden, the netherlands to go this way. but when you look at the steps that have been already decided, i think that we are on the right way. we have been able, with the 27 member states on 9 april, to adopt a global package for the economic recovery within the eu with a new loan from the eab, with the so called mechanism sure, with their use of the esm, and with this recovery fund. now france and germany have been able to find an agreement on the funding of this recovery fund with the common debt. but minister. i just want to explain to the other member states. there is no agreement let us be clear. ..and political interest to go this way. there is no agreement, though. after the. it will be difficult to find an agreement, i know that. it will be. but all the member states should be aware of the necessity to adopt new responses to fight such an important economic, social, and political crisis in europe. but the point is surely simple there are significant numbers of countries, mostly in the north of europe, and you ve pointed to austria, denmark, sweden, and many people inside germany, as well who think one of the fundamental principles of the european union has to be that each member state remains fully responsible for its own debt. and your proposal completely eliminates that principal. my response is that nobody is responsible for the way it has been hit by the coronavirus. nobody is responsible for the health crisis and for the coronavirus. and i think that the eu and the eu in the 21st century should not be based only on selfish behaviours, but also on solidarity. and what is at the core of the agreement between france and germany is the fact that the eu of the 21st century should be based on solidarity. when one of the member states is hit by a crisis, by the coronavirus crisis, and if the state needs the help of the other member states, he should take for granted that it will have the support of the other member states. so when the austrian chancellor, sebastian kurtz, says, as he did after the macron merkel meeting yesterday by video when he says, look, we are only ready to approve a rescue fund that gives loans, ie money that must be paid back, rather than grants, you say he s being selfish, do you? i just say that it is also in the interest of austria, but also the netherlands, also denmark, also sweden to have a stronger eu after the crisis. this is a profoundly important moment for the eu, isn t it? because if we take seriously what you are saying and indeed what mrs merkel appears to have signed up to in this plan, we re looking at a massively deeper integrated eu economic system in which fiscal, as well as monetary policy is being collectivized? i think that we are clearly at a decisive moment of the history of the european union. because we are facing the greatest crisis, which is an economic, but also i want to insist on that a social and political one. and now it is time to choose. it is time to choose what kind of a eu we want for the 21st century. there are two choices. either you go the way of having some member states working together without any solidarity, without common funding of innovation, new technologies, disruptive technologies, artificial intelligence, 5g and so on in that case, that is the end of the eu. we never play any role on the international stage because we will be overcome by china in the united states. or we can make another choice, which is, to me and the french president, the right choice for the 21st century for the eu which is to gather our fundings, even through common debts just for the sake of financing the economic recovery, but also financing the new technologies for the sake of having more independence, more serenity, and being able to have our own 5g, our own artificial intelligence, our own renewable energies, our own technologies, not relying on the support of other world powers, butjust relying on our own forces. that is the right choice for the eu for the 21st century, and that is what is exactly behind the agreement between france and germany yesterday. well, you may be absolutely convinced of this, but i wonder if all the french people are, let alone the people of germany, the netherlands, austria, sweden, denmark, and a host of other countries. let me read to you an interesting thought from the financial times‘s chief foreign affairs commentator, gideon rachman, the other day. he wrote, the mutualisation of debt within the eu was always been the reddest of red lines for the german people, the dutch, the austrians, the fins and others. if it is pushed through now in this atmosphere of crisis, it could set a time bomb under the eu. because there will be a backlash, won t there? i don t share that point of view. i think that a large majority of european citizens wants to go the way of more independence and more serenity. they don t want to be dependent any more on china or on the united states. 0r on brussels. they want to be independent, and if we want to be independent, if we want to have our own technologies once again, which is the key point for the 21st century, then we need to gather our efforts. now i want to be very clear that the idea is not to provide money without any conditions. the idea is just to support some of the member states for the sake of having a quicker and stronger economic recovery after the crisis. that is the idea behind that. but you are not really addressing my point, that what we may see it as a backlash in the north european countries where the populations think, we don t want to pay for the debts of the italians, the spanish, and others. and hang on you may see a much deeper division growing. because it is in the interest of these northern countries to have a single market working very well, and making profits and making benefits. that is also the point. let s think about the situation in france in particular, because you are the french finance minister, one of the most senior voices in the government. would you agree with me that the way france has handled its own coronavirus crisis has left a deep sense of unease amongst many in your population? the government has not come out of this looking very good, has it? i agree that there has been critics, doubts, because we have been hit very severely by the coronavirus. did you see the new york times investigation of a couple of days ago that compared emmanuel macron‘s rhetoric about declaring war on coronavirus, promising that all of france s front line health workers would be given the means and protection they needed and the reality was, concludes the new york times, that france was nearly defenseless ? and that even today, if there is a second wave, a new spike in the spread of the virus in france, your emergency services still do not have access to the kind of emergency ppe protective equipment that they would need? you are still dangerously reliant on getting supplies from countries like china? i think that is not the case any more. i hope there won t be a second wave of the virus in france, and i think that we are taking with the prime minister all necessary measures to avoid such a second wave in france. and if we are taking some decisions that are really hard to take and difficult to take, it is for the sake of avoiding a second wave of the virus in france. i will not say that the emergency services do not have the necessary equipment. we have been hit severely by the crisis. we had to take some reactions with a sense of urgency, and we have taken the positions that i think our emergency services now have the necessary equipment to face such a situation. but once again, i hope we will not be in a situation to face a second wave of the crisis. you re the finance minister, you know the french economy is facing a deep recession, like most of the national economies across europe and, of course, that is your prime concern in your dayjob. but you re also watching as france reopens businesses, shops you can even get a haircut in france today, which you couldn t do in london the metro in paris is crowded again. are you entirely happy that france has got the balance right between normalisation, reopening the economy, and maintaining the strictest of discipline in the fight against the virus? that is a balance which is obviously very difficult to find. but we are trying to find this right balance between the protection of the population and the necessity to go back to work. because there is a necessity to go back to work if we want to avoid an economic collapse. so our first reaction was a very strong support to the french economy with partial unemployment scheme, for instance, with loans to the private companies, with temporary cash flow needs that have been provided by the state. then we are entering a second phase which sees support to some specific economic sectors tourism, the automotive industry, and the aeronautic industry. and before the ist ofjuly, we will have decided three sets of plans to support those economic sectors. and then will come the time of huge economic recovery plan that should be announced by the french president in some weeks, i think by the end of august or the beginning of september, to really define the perspective for the french economy. and i think we should get through this crisis, to rebuild the strongest french economy which will be a competitive economy and a sustainable economy. you re looking, it seems, according to all of your national and imf and other estimates, a recession which could see a contraction of gdp between 6 8% this year. you and your government have put aside hundreds of billions of euros in a national economic recovery plan. many french people are wondering, where on earth is this money coming from? will it be tax rises across the board, or are you going to have to slash public spending in the next few years? first of all, that is a choice that has been made by all the major member states of the eu because we did not have any other choice but to support our economy also and i really think it was the right choice. then it will be funded by debt let us be very clear about that and there will be the necessity at some stage to reimburse the french debt. but it will be later. and i really want the french debt to be reimbursed by growth. and that is the meaning of this economic recovery plan, that is the meaning of these hundreds of billions of euros to support our economy, to have a quick and strong economic recovery for the sake of having more prosperity, and being in a situation to reimburse our debts. not through new tech stations, but through growth. right, so just very simply, what is france s debt to gdp ratio going to be in, let s say, a year s time? 0ur assessment now is that, in 2020, it should be 100 115% of the gdp. it could be more because there are some new spendings that might be necessary to support some economic sectors. but once again, the key question is not debt the key question is the economic recovery and growth. so what you have is an economy that is looking extremely fragile in the medium and, frankly, even the long term, and you have a president who came to power promising a whole slate of reforms. and we ve seen his attempts to change the welfare system and the pension system, and we ve seen his popularity plummet, and we ve seen the rise of the gilet jaunes movement of protesters. isn t the truth that the macron plan for changing, radically reforming france, is now off the table? there s no way he can continue with that plan given the situation you ve just described to me. 0n the contrary. because we have been successful in the decisions we have taken during the three first years of the mandate of emmanuel macron. well, not according to the french people. there are many policies that we ve put in place that gave some very strong reserves at the beginning of 2020 we were one of the strongest economies within the uso. which means that after the crisis, our economy will not be fragile because the basis of the french economy is solid. so we will stick to the way of reforms, of improvements of the french economy and the french competitiveness, for the sake of having more growth and more prosperity. we had had some very good reserves, we have been hit by the crisis but, after the crisis, there will be a french rebound. and what kind of france and what kind of europe? will there be a rise in protectionism? we see donald trump with his language which suggests that he believes china is responsible for this virus, also talking about long term implications for us china relationships. you in france have talked about bringing some supply chains home, a much more nationalist approach to economic policymaking in the future is this what france wants to see, a new era of economic nationalism? i don t think that economic protectionism would be the right response to the crisis. that won t be the end of globalisation. what we need is a new globalisation based on more fairness and the fight against climate change. that s the key point. but i don t believe in this economic protectionism. i really strongly believe that there is a need for a new globalisation, being able to have a more level playing field and a better fight against climate change. that s what we are proposing to the other member states of the eu. and is this crisis going to change france s relationship with china, as it appears to be changing the us‘s relationship with china? i think it will change all the relationships among the superpowers. and the key question is whether the eu is one of these superpowers in the 21st century or not. everything that we are supporting with president macron is for the sake of having europe being one of the three superpowers among china and the united states. and if we want to be one of these superpowers, we need more solidarity, more investment, more innovation, and providing the right funding for the states that are in difficulty because we want all the member states to go out of this crisis stronger than ever. and a final thought you ve talked a lot about europe going forward. of course, europe is minus the uk, we re in the current transition phase and, by the end of the year, the idea is that transition phase ends and a new economic relationship is negotiated. and the negotiations right now are stuck at an impasse, michel barnier on the eu side says he s not optimistic about reaching a deal because the uk continues to want to have the best of both worlds. the uk negotiator says, we need a change of eu approach, and the brits appear to believe that if they just let this slide for long enough, the eu will make major concessions. to quote michael gove, a british minister, i think the covid crisis, in some respects, will concentrate the minds of eu negotiators. do you think the british, if they believe that your economic problems will lead to concessions, have got it right or wrong? i m afraid they are wrong. you know, i miss the uk. i miss the uk because i think that we would be stronger with the uk within the eu. but that s not the case any more, and the british people has made its choice about its future. but now, do not make any mistake about that there won t be any further concessions from the eu. and on the contrary, i will think that this economic crisis will lead to the reinforcements of the eu, will lead to more solidarity among member states. and we are not ready to make concessions that mightjeopardise the eu construction, and that might fragile eyes what we once built together. so i hope that everybody will be resilient and we can find an agreement as soon as possible between the eu and the uk. it is up to michel barnier to pave the way for this compromise, but do not believe that being opposed to any kind of compromise would lead to more concessions from the eu member states, because i think it will not be the case. bruno le maire, we have to end it there. i thank you very much indeed forjoining me from paris. thank you. hello there. tuesday was very sunny and very warm for some of us but not for all. in fact, it was the warmest day of the year so far. 26 degrees recorded in stjames‘ park in london. but i suspect wednesday will be warmer still and a little more widespread across the country. however, it s going to be a chance of a few thunderstorms on thursday, then as we head into the weekend, fresherfor all of us. but for the time being, high pressure, the dominant feature, and it s keeping these weather fronts out in the atlantic for the moment. that s allowing ahead of it to southerly feed, a very warm air coming up from the very near continent. so despite a little bit of early morning mist and fog around, it will be a mild start, as you can see, widespread double digits. now, any murkiness close to the coast will lift quite readily away, and there will be lots of sunshine coming through the day. just a little bit of fairweather cloud into the north, and maybe some showery outbreaks of rain into the northern isles. here, a little disappointing, but the warmth will be quite widespread, low 20s into central scotland, as high as 27 celsius perhaps in the southeast that s 81 fahrenheit. it s worth bearing in mind that, if you are going to be spending a little more time outside, well you have got the sunshine, we re looking at high uv levels throughout the day. now, as we move out of wednesday into thursday, that weather front will start to push and from the atlantic, and it ll bring some outbreaks of late showery ring to scotland. so starting off pretty grey and wet to the west, that will drift its way steadily east, allowing for an improvement. and at the same time, it stays pretty hot and humid in the southeast corner, and that could trigger off a few sharp thundery downpours. dodged the showers, keep the sunshine again, we could see highs of 27 celsius. but the real change arrives on friday. you can see quite clearly, more of a significant area of low pressure, tightly squeezed isobars around that centre of the low. so that means the strongest of the winds look likely through northern ireland and western scotland. gales not out of the question. and there will be some sharp showers and longer spells of rain as we go through the day. a little more cloud generally on friday, and as a result, not quite as warm. top temperatures of around 11 20 celsius that s 68 fahrenheit. so a fresher start to the weekend, but look at this for england and wales, as we go into next week, the heat is set to build yet again.
this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. my name is mike embley. brazil s daily death toll passes 1,000. it s now the third worst hit country in the world. pollution and the pandemic. the world sees a dramatic improvement in air quality. millions are moved from coastal areas as a huge cyclone bears down on the bay of bengal. and the mum and dad who never gave up. kidnapped at two years old, mao yin is finally reunited with his parents 32 years later.