but it's unlikely to settle. temperatures start to perk up as we go through the week. it's not going to be entirely dry, there will be some rain. by the end of the week, temperatures will be on the rise. this is bbc news, our latest headlines: two of britain's biggest supermarkets, sainsbury‘s and asda, confirm they're in advanced merger talks in a deal that could be worth £10 billion. alfie evans, the toddler at the centre of a legal battle over his treatment, has died. his father said on social media, my gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings. cabinet colleagues rally round home secretary amber rudd as calls from labour to resign continue. she says she didn't see a memo copied to her office which detailed home office targets for deporting illegal immigrants. a former policeman accused of being the so—called golden state

killer makes his first appearance in a california court. josephjames deangelo is charged with 13 murders and 51 rapes. now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london. hello and a very warm welcome to dateline london. i'm jane hill. this week we discuss a momentous day for north and south korea, president trump's meetings with several european leaders and the 73 countries meeting in brussels still searching for a solution to the syria crisis.

my guests — the conservative commentator alex deane, the french writer agnes poirier from the magazine marianne, maria margaronis from the nation, and the american writer michael goldfarb, host of the frdh podcast. welcome to you all. thank you for being with us. the image of the week is surely the lingering handshake on friday between north korea's leader kim jong—un and president of south korea moon—jae, across the most heavily fortified border in the world. there was talk of peace, of working together to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons — albeit without many specifics. maria, how optimistic should we be after this historic meeting? it was an amazing moment, to see the two men holding hands and skipping over the concrete barrier like two boys in kindergarten

only months after kim is shooting missiles towards japan and trump is calling him little rocket man. i think optimism has its own momentum and i think it is important. i think there is so much we don't know, we know we have been somewhere like this before but not quite the same. i do not think kim has spoken before about complete denuclearisation, so it could be a moment and i think moon—jae—in has set trump up very well. he has set him up to need to succeed because if this meeting that we hope is coming up between trump and kim, which is the meeting between the wild card and the enigma, so we have no idea what will happen, i think there is an expectation that something will come out of that

and i think it is important. i think we should be optimistic. alex, you were nodding. that is right. i have no doubt that the critics who were saying a year ago that this is the sort of thing trump would make a hash of, will be manning the barricades to award him a nobel prize. i thought the president was rightly generous in his acknowledgement to the chinese getting it to the table like this. behind the smiles, kim has systematically starved their population, abused them, repressed them. they are running out of food and friends. that is part of what has propelled them to the negotiating table, but in these circumstances those brutal realities may be part of what is pushing us towards a good resolution. we have been here before, but we have seen images like this before and heard promises like this. previous negotiations, i mean, there was jimmy carter, madeleine albright, each time north korea said, we will make an effort, and they were biding their time.

also previous negotiations were quite open—ended, no specific goals each time. i think this time they will want to have timing and moon, it is the south korean leader at the centre of world diplomacy and his strategy on such issues, good ones, to say that each time north korea moves, they should be rewarded with some benefit, and i think there is a convergence of interests, not only on trump's side, because that would be his macho erratic tactics may prove strangely efficient. we should recognise it if it is an achievement. kim has achieved his nuclear plan, his nuclear power, he

is now considered as an equal at the negotiating table with trump, something that his ancestors have not managed to achieve. and now the priority for him is the economy because, as you say, his people are starving. there may be a moment that will deliver. i am hopeful. it is such a mad world we are living in, it is nice to see them. is trump correct to claim a little of the credit? the chronology would say yes. he came into office swaggering and getting the washington establishment right and left convinced there was a possibility of a nuclear throwdown. anyone who was an ocean away and keeping calm, they would say beijing is only 500 miles from pyongyang so maybe we will not have a nuclear throwdown, chill out. but the chronology starts with him.

i think the critical moment was the olympics, and maria being of greek heritage will know that the olympics, they were set up to stop war and have games. and what happened? president moon invited north korea to send a delegation, they marched into the arena together, there was lots of argument about that in washington, they should not do that. whose side is south korea on? kim jong—un sends his sister. it turns out she is the perfect media type for our media age where diplomacy is conducted.

here is this very attractive, and i am not sending to a sexist sense, she is very photogenic and they say, maybe they are not the hermit kingdom after all. also, to remind people, we tend to still look at north korea as the hermit kingdom and the inscrutable thing. kim jong—un was educated in switzerland. he has a western education inside that facade he presents as being kind of unpredictable, and i think that when it comes time, if it happens, and there are some weeks before the summit with trump, donald trump went to a private school and was privately educated, kim jong—un was educated in a similarfashion, they may be able to talk to each other more than we think. there is interesting thing to come out of these talks. in the aftermath of the execution of saddam hussein, people around dictators like this advise them to get nuclear weapons, it is the way to preserve the regime and stay safe, to ensure that they are not pushed to the brink.

it is one of the great challenges of the 20th century, to get past that. maybe through president trump, this is it. the two meet in the next few weeks, so we will return to that. that is something we will definitely be discussing in the coming weeks. meanwhile, two european leaders visited washington dc this week. france's president emmanuel macron spent three days with donald trump, germany's chancellor angela merkel barely three hours. they both hoped to head—off us tariffs on eu exports of steel and aluminium, and to persuade the us president to stick with the iran nuclear deal. only one of them managed a visible rapport, with endless smiles and back—slapping. the us president called his french counterpart "perfect". except for the dandruff! he made quite an impression. an impression on everyone. we we re

we were wondering what was happening. it is very strange. they were curious images. including for us in france. when he invited trump to bastille day parade, apparently it struck a chord and trump wanted his own parade in washington, but it shows dictatorship if you show off there is a strange friendship here, there is genuine humble manner between the two men. we have seen macron in front of the congress speaking his mind, trump may like the guy and likes this, because both their worldviews are starkly opposite. macron was quite forthright in his speech. there was plenty of gladhanding, but he spoke about the dangers of america turning inwards.

macron has a purpose and if he can keep trump from his worst instincts, it is a fight worth fighting. he sees with macron eye to eye, especially on the iran deal. he was going to washington to try and convince trump to take apart. i do not think i have convinced the american president, but now i think i have managed to make him see the implications if america was pulling out of it. he would see that as progress. we will talk about more of iran in a moment. michael? we talk about the north korea pictures. thursday we would have been talking about the dandruff picture. things change, move very quickly. the meeting is as much about economic issues as anything.

i do not think anyone is under any illusion as to whose voice donald trump listened to on iran. they are domestic political things happening, whispering in his ear and i think an emotional inclination to distrust the irani regime. what europe are worried about are the tariffs and sanctions against russia and this morning, for example, one of the things that is critical to germany is the price of aluminium. russia provides a tremendous amount of the aluminium that goes into building airbus planes, and this morning the oligarch, who is under sanction by the us, and which made importing and purchasing the stuff more difficult, has stepped aside. he is leaving the company.

these sorts of things, when you read them after macron and merkel have been visiting with trump, you think maybe there is something going on there that is bearing fruit from the conversations which on the headline issue do not bear fruit at all. your reading of it, alex? being close to the american president is never a bad thing and itibci'oi'i president is never a bad thing and macron stole a march on others in the international scene. he was trying to make a virtue of being hostile to the president, i will be your best friend. it seems to have worked. the bigger question in europe is where does macron go with his political agenda? he has a political party that has built an environment that has a separation of powers, built to support him, that is what en marche is. but we do not know what block in the european parliament they would stand in,

where is macron? is he on the reforming right, centre left? in this sense, he is like trump, a political outsider, not conventional, circumvents much of the mainstream expectation to seize power in a charismatic way. next year will be an informative thing on where en marche goes. the question is whether they can change french politics? a maybe this is why the men got on because they have more in common. i felt that this speech in congress which was amazing and gave republicans and democrats the chance to cheer, for there is no plan b and his demand about theyjoined the climate on environment. he has placed himself as a european statesman, perhaps taking overfrom angela merkel, who is waning. that is what struck me about these two meetings back—to—back, macron is, i am now the visionary for europe, whatever the vision

is, because he is very unspecific politically. he is a centrist. we have to get used to it! he was a protege... he is a newcomer, and alex's point, he is maybe not fully formed and we do not know what he stands for. but amazing to become president of your company and still be a nascent political figure. that is why we are perplexed. it is in a good way, but he is unlike anyone we have had before and he is a cultured man, but remember his speech to congress from hemingway to james baldwin and jefferson and roosevelt. we liked that. since mitterand, we have not had

an intellectual in a while. by the same token, neither macron or merkel‘s shtick gets terribly far on that issue of tariffs, one of the things that does concern them. except merkel, i think that was the purpose of her three—hour visit. i think we will know a bit more in the next few hours and days what actually happened. germany is concerned, much more than france is. i think she missed a trick. i think there was an opportunity to get closer to trump and think about the future in a way that macron did and she didn't. she has got three terms already behind her. and it is a question of personality as well. they don't click. she is straightforward straight down the line. she cannot do this kind of performance thing. it is not her. one would hope there is place for all styles in politics. we touched on the iran deal, one of the things that merkel and macron were addressing

or attempting to address with donald trump in washington. also this week exhaustive talks with some 70 delegations have been on going in brussels to try to find a way to end the war in syria. the talks broke up on thursday without any apparent progress. on the ground, as the conflict continues, the iranian revolutionary guard has been setting up bases and arms dumps throughout the country, and close to the border with israel. it all ties in with iran. at this point, we would be forgiven for knowing that these talks were happening. how worried about you about the current state of affairs? on one level, it is all the same. the new wrinkle is that israel in the last couple of weeks has attacked some iranians bases.

there is a lot of speculation about, this may lead to some kind of direct conflict between israel and iran, and the secretary of defence is in israel today. i am slightly sceptical about shooting war between iran and israel coming out of this, although i think the possibility of direct conflict inside syria skirmishing style exists. it is hard to get reporting done. they going in under strict restrictions, it is very hard. iran controls the shi—ite militias of hezbollah, it has its own revolutionary guard that is a force. but the real arbiter in syria is russia. they control whether assad stays in power and interestingly, talking of the nuclear deal, we talk of how will the european governments,

who are co—signatories feel about it? russia is also a co—signatory of that deal. russia is the main player when it comes to dealing with iran, i think, and i also know that israel's press is openly reporting it. there is daily contact between israel government and russian government about operational issues and i think that is really how you have to look at what israel's role is in this. also where the next phases are, which sadly don't bring any soccer also where the next phases are, which sadly don't bring any succour at all to the syrian population, whether they have been been displaced and are under attack or they are living in damascus and cleaving to the region and to keep them safe and hoping

the regime stays in power so there will not be a bloodbath if it collapses. i think this is the overall state of play. so when i read these nations have met in brussels, to do what? to discuss reconstruction? a war that i fear has still fuel and hatred get a work—out. of all the conflicts i have seen and covered, is nothing quite like this with the same dynamics. when there were the missile strikes on syria after the chemical attack in eastern ghouta, a syrian man said the west doesn't care that we die, only how we die. and that quote has just stayed with me. half of syria's prewar population of 22 million people are now dead,

displaced refugees, the country is absolutely destroyed. the question of how this war, if this war will end, and who will pay for the reconstruction of this completely devastated country. unless russia and iran are prepared to come to some sort of negotiating table, unless president assad is also willing to respect something other than the gun as a means of settling anything, it is just more suffering and disaster ahead. we always tend to look at the latest geopolitical threat emerging from syria, but what has happened there everyday is so difficult to talk about because it is so hopeless. only half the population is left. i do not think anyone emerges from this with much added, we were for and against assad, we are really against him now, but then we looked at the people opposing him and we did not like a lot of them either,

especially on the isis aside. we looked at the allies, we do not like them. especially what putin is doing. putin has always viewed the world through a geopolitical view where violence is power. he does not care what we think, he cares about his domestic audience and the power he controls. he is doing rather well in that. we need to think whether we can live with a putin—led resolution, in which the assad regime regains power, or we can't, in which we should intervene properly. we do not have the will. the reason we hesitate so much is not the moral questions. in iraq, we went to a country and started the conflict. you can discuss what happened post—911 and so forth, but we started a conflict with sadam. this civil war has been raging for

years and we have to decide whether to intervene or not. it is a different question now. and then there is the libya episode. i do not think the west will intervene in the way it should should have, and now it is becoming a sort of lebanon and that is why iran wants to use syria as a way to pressure israel indirectly to stop israel does not want to let it become a new lebanon for them. we are talking figures of 80,000 iranian forces scattered around, and israel is concerned, so are we, and iran facing all those hostile powers in the region is playing its cards trying to control damascus as much as beirut. that is one valid point, but to what extent also are people waiting for may 12th, which is the iran/trump deadline.

all five of us discussed the fact that this week there were talks, they were in brussels, going on for some time but they broke up on thursday and we had to go, oh, yes! did anyone see anything? was there any communique? and that sense coming out of brussels, we are not issuing a communique, we have nothing to say because this may 12th is looming. let's assume that trump says, i am not going to certify the deal. for whatever reason that he offers. there is still a whole range of other issues if you get into some kind of shooting war between this group that group. iran is involved militarily in a lot of spaces just next door to america. there are 2,000 american soldiers in syria, north—eastern syria. iran is a critical player in iraq. don't forget, the kurdish crisis of the autumn,

it was the commander of the revolutionary guards who actually went into kurdistan and got everyone. this is the new dispensation. the central government writ did not carry into kurdistan. iraq is about to have very important elections. i think if we look at may 12th as something that is going to trigger something because we anticipate donald trump making a decision, i think that is also wrong. i think we also have to remember very clearly what the map of the middle east looks like. israel has a border with syria, but it does not have a border with iran and you cannot fight was when you are surrounded wars when you are surrounded by vast tracts of desert. well, you can! no, you can skirmish and bomb in the limited fashion, but that is not fighting a war, but it's not invasion

or tearing countries apart as has happened in syria. does not necessarily stop the anxiety. the americans do not share a border with iraq and it did not stop them. unless iran wants to send a couple of divisions across iraq into syria. it is not a small troop... nevertheless, taken together, tens of thousands of troops is not a small manoeuvre. these conversations we are having are related. people do not want the iranium regime to become the next north korea empowered with nuclear capability to reinforce itself. it was your president hanging out with trump has affected his diplomacy who tweeted, iran will not be a nuclear power, not in two years, not in five years, never. these are tough lines being taken, but they are informed that we do not want to get in the situation like with north korea with high stakes and an unpredictable regime.

and that is a point on which to end it, only for this week. thank you for being with dateline. we can be sure we will be discussing all of this in weeks to come. see you next time. thank you for watching. bye— bye. some sunshine around this afternoon and also showers and cloud and outbreaks of rain in east anglia and the midlands. it will be slow to clear and eventually the rain fades overnight and else where the showers ease and skies become clearer in chilly in northern ireland and scotla nd chilly in northern ireland and scotland and the far north of

england and temperatures could be below freezing in rural spots. between five and seven under the cloud further south and it is stubborn to go tomorrow in the stoned short —— southern and eastern parts. many places have a dry day with a slightly cooler feel tomorrow and highs between nine and ii and outbreaks of heavy rain arriving into south—east england and east anglia later in the afternoon. the system then continues to push its way north on sunday evening and overnight into monday morning. eddie am persistent rain and strengthening winds and there are likely to be girls in places, particularly east coast. very unsettled on monday morning and travel disruption as possible. this is bbc news. the headlines at five supermarket giants sainsbury‘s and asda confirm they're in "advanced discussions" about a merger alfie evans, the little boy who was at the centre of a legal battle about his hospital treatment, has died. hundreds of people release balloons next

to alder hey hospital in memory of the 23—month—old boy. cabinet backing for amber rudd, who says she didn't see a memo detailing home office deportation targets. in the wake of thejohn worboys case, the government proposes changes to the parole system in england and wales. also in the next hour, as part of the bbc‘s crossing divides season we join a sheep farmer in the yorkshire dales who's receiving help during lambing season from a group of asylum seekers