the headlines: police investigating the london tube bombing have arrested a second man. he's 21 and was detained before midnight in west london last night. the home secretary, amber rudd, has accused borisjohnson of being a "backseat driver" following his newspaper piece setting out his views on brexit. the un secretary general says myanmar‘s leader, aung san suu kyi, has a "last chance" to end the military offensive that's forced 400,000 rohingya muslims to flee to neighbouring bangladesh. those are the headlines. more at midday. now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london. one i prepared a little earlier! welcome to dateline london.

this week, aung san suu kyi and donald trump, two leaders surprising and confounding their supporters. is it politics or principle? in iraq and syria, how is the fight really going against the group that calls itself islamic state? my guests this week, the founder of the first rough draft of history podcast, michael goldfarb, dr vincent magombe, director of the african journalist network, nesrine malik the sudanese writer, and bronwen maddox, director of the think tank the institute for government. welcome to you all. good to have you with us again. aung san suu kyi, prisoner of conscience for years, the gently persuasive campaigner who helped bring a peaceful end to myanmar‘s decades of military dictatorship. why is she so reluctant to speak out against a military operation seen by many as bordering on ethnic cleansing? tens of thousands of myanmar‘s rohingya minority population, who practise islam, have fled to neighbouring bangladesh. the nobel peace prize winner and de facto leader of myanmar will deliver her state of the nation

address this week. how will she address this particular issue? i would be surprised if she said a lot more to condemn this than she has already. she's really pulled back from doing that. even though the un human rights chief has explicitly called this ethnic cleansing. the military cracking down on the rohingya population, i think we're up to an estimate of 800,000 refugees now in bangladesh. she does not want to use the word rohingya. she really has gone with the majority population, saying that they foreign interlopers into the country. but some of them have lived there or decades. decades and decades. she is not, to my and many people's minds, doing what any government should do, which is protect the people it governs. she is hiding behind violence on both sides. why?

is she afraid of a popular backlash? is she afraid of the military, who are driving this? either of those reasons, it seems to me, is not enough excuse for what she is doing. so we have the spectacle where this person who has been a hero, winner of the 1991 nobel peace prize, might lose that reputation in a matter of weeks. but, that said, i would be surprised if she went a lot further in this coming statement because she has shown so little willingness to do so. it's intriguing, in the light of that, that us secretary of state rex tillerson was saying this week, we must support aung san suu kyi. in a sense, this fear in some capitals that if not her, then who? if not her, then the window that opened up into this country would close. what i worry about with rex tillerson is that he is still trying to create a state department in exxon's own image. his chief skill is not one of diplomacy, but one of being a ceo. that is where almost

all of his mental energy has gone. i'm not sure i always take at face value these statements. but i would ask bronwen, because you are on top of this, if somebody like aung san suu kyi goes to new york, where she will have lots of contact inside with people from the un, people she knew from the decades when she was under house arrest and living in miserable conditions in myanmar herself, is there any room, do you think, for her mind, not to be changed in a speech, but into being guided towards a more responsible position on this? there might be. although i believe she has pulled out of the un general assembly meeting. but you are right, that would have been an opportunity to make the points to her. as leader of a civilian government, even a very fragile one, it's your responsibility to do this.

second, we as other governments could help and put pressure on the military. the military in myanmar is very much like the military in many of these countries, it is the business, it runs lots of companies, there are ways to put pressure on it, as indeed was done to help persuade the military to give ground to the openings of democracy. there would be room for that conversation. but not now. it's an extremely sad affair. i have worked in human rights. i have fought for democracy in my country, freedom and so on. what seems to be happening here is this ladyjust fooled the world. it tells me more about how the world and the west sees what democracy is. we have wanted to paint her as a secular saint. yes, you are easily fooled. you look at person, "i am a democrat, i am fighting for human rights," without digging deeper to see if this person is a genuine

human rights person. you support her. that explains to me why the west makes a lot of mistakes. like in africa. in my country, supporting a dictator. when we are fighting for human rights, they are supporting president museveni who stayed there for 31 years, killed people and so on. i think the world, including the so—called nobel peace prize need to be careful next time. this lady, even if she came to united nations and changed her view and said, "look, i now am going to look after these people," and so on, she would be fooling everybody. we need to see the difference between who is a human rights fighter, a proper credible one, and who is not. i am not here to defend her on this particular thing, but she did

fight for human rights. she was. that does not make it a record of deceit. it is simply she was called to uphold... i can come up, like she did, and shout about, "i want human rights and freedom for my country." the only way you canjudge if i am right is when i come to power and i practise that democracy and freedom. she isn't doing that. what is illustrative is the difference between when somebody is in opposition compared to when somebody is in government. i think she is in a difficult position. again, not to defend her. she's in a difficult position because it is not an unpopular cause, the rohingya case, in the sense that people believe in the country that they started it, there was militant attacks... there were militant attacks, but in context of a history of long—standing persecution. and also the disproportionality of the response. so journalists and western leaders tend to think of these situations in terms of international pressure. but there's also a lot of domestic pressure on her, as well. there is no point her throwing herself onto the pyre and losing her support.

it is more about her fear of what the military will do to her. she's peddling the militaristic agenda of the military. this is where other governments could help. does she want to stand by the principles that she stood for? you know? also a very important fact is how she is posturing for her domestic support, as well. she used the phrase "fake news", which was very disappointing, but also the calling card of the populist address. i thought that was actually quite informative. is there a sense in which perhaps, vincent got to this in his suggestion that there is a certain amount of image projection? is there a sense that we never properly understood what kind of things she believed in? her father after all was a burmese nationalist. he helped to found the state when it broke away from british colonial rule. perhaps we misunderstood what she stood for? i think yes.

not tragically in the sense she was completely misunderstood. but there are situations where families are legacy political families, where they uphold a lot of the fundamentally problematic nation—building principles. benazir bhutto is a very good example. she was lionised abroad but had a very corrupt husband, issues of corruption in pakistan, but she was seen as oxford—educated female leader in pakistan, she was not seen as an extension of a political family that upheld problematic, nationalistic, and also corruption principles in the country. there is a similar kind of thing happening. and we need to learn lessons about who we support in the future. but the nobel peace prize has not always... even when it's gone to western leaders. kissinger, 0bama. 0bama got it before he'd done anything. maybe it's not that good a yardstick. maybe it should be given on a basis, if you do not deliver, we take it back. i am not a fan of the peace prize.

the west should not be the one to say, and that is the problem. the west supports you, and gives some sort of democracy to your country — no. she should be working for her people. i fought for democracy, i continue to do that, and human rights after. it isn't about the west. i don't believe in the west right now, because one day they are supporting a dictator, another day they are supporting a human rights person. pick and choose, it is wrong. let's move on to another subject which has possibly dropped out of the headlines but is still an important ongoing story and saga in a sense. it's been going on in terms of the fight—back towards the that calls itself islamic state for more than a year, and it has been losing more and more of what constituted that state as governments in iraq and syria reclaim territory. it is a slow, bloody process and one you have been watching closely for many months now. how do we know if it is working, and at what price is this war being waged? we don't know yet.

there have been two big defeats for isis in iraq and syria. raqqa is under siege. i think they are into small pockets in neighbourhoods in raqqa and mosul in irag also fell. but at the same time, yesterday there were two attacks in iraq over the past couple of days where 85 people were killed, shia pilgrims. in syria, isis militants are laying landmines and attacking civilians as they leave. and also another upcoming huge battle in another town in iraq. so there are two things going on with isis. one is they have lost their big flagship cities. that does not mean that two things are not happening. there is a vacuum being created now isis has gone. in iraq in particular, vacuums are dangerous. that is how isis came to be in the first place. secondly, most of these

hinterlands are not governable, so isis leaving town does not mean pockets of them do not exist. i go back to my original two points. the second thing which is going on is that there are now three parties — the us, arab league sort of soldiers — and they are inflicting heavy civilian casualties as well, as people flee cities like raqqa. there are civilian casualties inflicted by allies acting against isis, and also there are casualties being inflicted by isis. so when people say isis looks like it is on the wane, all i see is it is getting far messier and less concentrated. civilian casualties continue unabated. does not mean the fighters are giving up. and it raised the question of what the strategy is. i do not think there is a strategy.

there is a game played at two levels. the military level... i hate this word, it was invented during the iraq invasion of 2003 — degrading, we are degrading isis. isis has been degraded in mosul, unfortunately the old city of mosul was totally degraded along with it. that is what is going on in raqqa. raqqa will be degraded along with it. at the other end you have the constant chaos of what we used to call the great powers. russia is involved. america is involved. turkey, over the border, a nato ally, this week it was announced that they are buying russian high—tech computers and military equipment. where is the organisation at the top? there isn't any at the top. at the bottom there are people who are... the fighting continues as before, except isis is being pushed out,

and it is bleeding away into other places. as mentioned, they canjump on any pilgrimage site in the shia part of iraq if it wishes, but can it rule anything? can it make inroads anywhere? they are claiming this idiot bombing yesterday. the one which took place in london. thankfully nobody was killed. almost every incident is claimed. whether they have organised it, more likely they are simply an inspiration for it. part of their propaganda strength has been being able to do that. and the more there is pressure on them, raqqa and other places, the more they want to claim influence in atrocities across europe and other places. we have just been hearing what happens when they do pull back. there is this vacuum. will it be finally the formation of the shia crescent we have been hearing about for ages? the arc of iranian shia influence going from iran to lebanon. there gets to be more space

with that kind of thing now. but it isn't a recipe for peace just because isis has been driven out. that is the folly in some of the rhetoric we are getting from america in the moment. i think history isjust repeating itself. we are going back to the days when you overthrow the iraqi leader, saddam hussein, and what comes is mayhem. in libya you overthrow the gaddafi regime and there was mayhem. the world needs to learn a lesson. no doubt, isis, militarily, in a conventional sense, will be defeated in iraq and syria. they will be taken away. but where next? if i was to advise my people in africa right now, in those traditional days we would say, "get your spears and start guarding the borders of africa." next it will be africa. they are coming to africa.

these guys, you can defeat them one place, they will go somewhere else. as we saw happening in mali. in terms of syria, iraq, the world has not learnt a lesson. we are fighting this terrible thing right now. what comes next? have you heard anybody, united nations, america, britain, others, talking about what they are planning for syria after? isis, as you said correctly, or al-qaeda for that matter, came about because of what happened. you overthrow saddam hussein. de—baathification. everybody who used to be in the army of saddam hussein must not be in the army and must be persecuted in the civil service. those are the people who went into al-qaeda. who have been setting up 70%, 80% of isis right now in iraq.

are we addressing any of those issues? at the moment we are saying we are fighting them. we will worry about that tomorrow, yes. they are already in somalia, north africa, and so on. i agree with you in one respect. the american funding, for example, for the anti—isis campaign is 20, 30—times—fold what has been earmarked in iraq for the post—isis rebuilding and supporting political processes. but we must go one step before the iraqi us invasion. the problem with places like iraq and syria is that the kurds, shi'ites, sunnis, peshmerga, all these different, disparate groups, and in syria as well, with all of the different tribes and ethnicities and minorities, the alawites etc, have all been pushed under the surface by long—standing dictators.

that's how we got into the situation in the first place. not because america invaded iraq. we got into the situation because saddam hussein has inflicted an artificial uniformity on iraq for decades. bashar al—assad is doing the same now. it is a relevant question, what happens after the invasions, but what i think is a more original sin is the complacency when these dictators are in place in the first place. and not understanding centuries of instability that will ensue. that comes back to the point i was making earlier, because we have taken off colonialism, we cannot do that any more, we cannot impose and bring order with it. now you have to figure out what does russia or america, or the turks, in the region actually want? they cannot agree on when to have a cup of coffee. consequently you have this endless war going on. every time you think you have got this fire put out, it merely spreads over here. isis may disappear. it could be some ultra—sunni... this is a very important point.

we are doing it now. we are creating situations now. if you see the support of the us and the west for the saudi arabian monarchy, which completely suppresses shi'ite minorities. if the saudi monarchy were to fall for any reason, there is ripe circumstances for a group like isis to develop. the us could have done more to acknowledge that the sunni minority was being clobbered in iraq. the bottom line is about democracy. if you keep having... sorry to say, middle east is exactly like africa. in africa we have dictators and so on. in uganda we have them. it does not matter whether you destroy one group like isis today, or take off one leader, saddam hussein. if the foundations are to do with lack of democracy... you cannot...

the russians, you know, while i condemn the west in their approaches, the russians, as well. let's have this syrian man, he has to be there, but he is not a democrat in the first place. that's why his people are trying to agitate for some rights. unless we try to now ask these people to organise... we will not get that answer. it is a mess. donald trump did say he is a deal—maker. after an apparently convivial meeting at the white house a few days ago, the us president cut one with his opponents, the democrats. if that wasn't enough of a shock for his fellow republicans, it was on the subject of illegal immigration — an issue many in his party felt strongly about and one of the reasons they voted for him in the first place.

the agreement could be breathing space for 690,000 people who came to the country as children and now have families and jobs of their own. they were facing deportation because of a decision the president himself made. michael, you are back from the us. is the job changing donald trump? no. i think the new chief of staff, marine generaljohn kelly, is changing the way things happen in the white house. don't forget, general kelly is tough and managed to force out steve bannon, the dark lord, who sits on the left short of donald trump and whispers bad things in his ear, forced out of the white house. he replaced reince priebus who was previously the head of the republican national commitee and had been hired primarily because he was a bridge to the republicans. a very ineffective bridge he was. i don't think there is much change going on. you don't think this is strategic, this isn't a clever decision? no. with donald trump you cannot ascribe. i'm not being flip here. you cannot ascribe too much logic what happens.

the man is exactly as he seems, as he seemed when he started running, as he seemed all his life going back to when when he burst onto the new york real estate scene in the early 1980s. he is a mount everest of social pathology with a feral, and this is important, i am not being flip, he has a feral instinct for self—preservation. he isn't getting what he wants out of the republican leadership. they have given him no help at all. they haven't been able to repeal and replace 0bamacare, for example. they haven't come up with a decent tax plan. what will he do? he needs a victory. he reaches out to chuck schumer, the leader of the democrats in the senate, and nancy pelosi their leader in the house of representatives. they are old hands. they are seasoned political game players. he cuts this deal. but what is it? have you seen a signature? it has to get through congress.

it may never come to pass. the democrats are the minority party in congress. this feral instinct you talk about, it is a powerful thing for a president to have and it would help his political life. but will it achieve what he wants? is there just a danger that it weakens the republican leadership, irritates the republicans, and the democrats can't deliver anyway cos they're the minority party? he is almost forging a new politics called trumpism and pulling people from both parties. it has confounded his own party, if we can still call it that. but he has shown, as michael said, this instinct for survival. it doesn't lead to anything resembling a coherent plan. it doesn't lead to a plan like the one he campaigned on. but it mayjust get him some victories. the ground he is conceding, we're not even sure if he wants to build the wall. there was no greater symbol of his campaign, nothing that was more vigorously shouted than build the wall. now it is repair the fence. we don't know what's

coming out of it. ruthless isn't the right word, absolutely instinctive in reaching for support, and for his sense of what makes a deal. we are beginning to see that isn't the same as clinching the deal. will this deal lead to a changing of other people's attitudes towards him? i am very sceptical. i don't believe in america any more in terms of americans being able to make wise decisions about democracy. if they could put a man like trump in power, who are they? but it is the epitome of democracy that somebody like him could win. in africa we have all of these idi amins, demagogues, you know. for me, trump is an idi amin, he is a gaddafi over america. not because he kills.

but this egomania. he wants to be in the media all the time. he is thinking about what he can say the next day to capture the attention of the media. i cannot believe the americans have kept him in power up until today. that will change. idi amin and gaddafi were not really interested in the media. he is running america like he runs his show. he's finding it hard to do in a system based on separation of powers where other people can call or block your shots. i don't think he cares, as long as he gets to stay as president and do his thing. i agree with michael that there is this almost childlike need by the american press to ascribe some sort of logic and coherence to trump. every other day we hear is this

the time, is he becoming presidential, do we begin to see the method behind the madness? and itjust isn't the case. even his deal with the democrats on daca. some said it was less the art of the deal, more the art of the meal. the democrats came to him with the deal and he said, "sure," there was no negotiation about it. you cannot underestimate. if you listen to reports and leaks from the white house, how on a daily basis trump is being swayed by whoever is in his ear. maybe on that morning somebody said to him... this is the point aboutjohn kelly, fewer people are getting in his ear, at least directly. bannon was fired but i am sure he has one of trump's three private cellphone numbers to call. the thing is, we look at trump and trump and trump. don't lose sight of the fact that the republican party is no longer a party.

it is a faction. interesting point. we don't quite know yet how those factions may reshape themselves before there's another presidential election. thank you forjoining us this week. goodbye. chilly start to sunday morning and a lot of that, has given us low cloud for parts of scotland, but south

west all—england enjoying some glorious sunshine. set to stay fine. the sunshine is going to be breaking threw that cloud, sunshine for the east anglia and south east coast. upper teens. the showers continue receiving and overlaid, bit more breeze, further west, lighter winds. cool night. ten, 11 at towns and cities, but close to freezing in rural areas. the best of the sunshine, but showers developing on monday, the odd heavy one as well. this is bbc news. the headlines at 12. police investigating the london tube bombing have arrested a second man — he's 21 and was detained

in west london last night. 0fficers officers are still searching a property in sunbury—on—thames in surrey after the arrest of an 18—year—old man in kent. the home secretary has accused boris johnson of being a backseat driver, following his newspaper piece setting out his views on brexit. i don't want him managing the brexit process. what we have got is theresa may managing that process. she is driving the car. i will make sure that as far as i am concerned and the rest of the cabinet, we help her do that. the un secretary—general says myanmar‘s leader, aung san suu kyi, has a "last chance" to end the military offensive that's forced