this is bbc news i'm shaun ley. the headlines at midday... the government and the armed forces are accused of covering up prince andrew categorically denies illegal killings by british troops having sex with an american women who says she was forced to sleep with him when she was just 17. in afghanistan and iraq. i can absolutely, categorically tell you it never happened. now on the bbc news channel we are the duke of york said he does not regret his friendship going tojoin our with the convicted sex offender now on the bbc news channel we are going to join our colleagues at dateline london. jeffrey epstein. in the election the conservatives promise all migrants will be treated equally after brexit, regardless of where they come from, but the foreign secretary rules out setting a target for the number of people entering the uk. hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week: he says his style is modern presidential. but will impeachment hearings leave the american public agreeing with donald trump on that? "pushed to the brink of total breakdown." grim warnings from hong kong police.

and this week's tv pictures may look like apocalypse now, but climate scientists say these fires and floods are just the start. so how are politicians framing their message on averting apocalypse ahead? my guests today: chinese writer diane weiliang, american broadcaster jef mcallister, stefanie bolzen of german newspaper die welt, portugese writer eunice goes. thank you for coming in. for most politicians it would have been a day to hide. a former ambassador gave startling evidence against his administration and a former close adviser was convicted on counts of lying to congress, obstruction and witness tampering. but this is donald trump and instead of hiding, the us president took to twitter to undermine the former ambassador to ukraine even as she delivered her testimony in congress. so is trump still teflon with his supporters or will his enemies succeed in tarnishing "modern presidential" over the course of these impeachment hearings?

jef, start us off. i think it is useful to stand back a little bit because donald trump is so unusual. it is very easy to go right into the horse race. is he up, down? let's just stand back to think about who this guy is. 12,000 lies since he has been president. he has had his personal lawyer go to jail... it is well acknowledged. his campaign manager went to jail, his national security adviser. long—time associates. the guy who was the conduit to the russians on getting the e—mails from wikileaks. this is who he is. now let's go to the strange thing of impeachment.

is there any doubt possible left from his own transcript of the call from the interlocking witnesses? good american bureaucrats without an axe to grind backed up by what is going on ukraine, clearly he tried to pressure ukraine into giving data onjoe biden. with any other president anyone would say, of course it is impeachable. but that is not donald trump. you are right. he says it is all hearsay, because he won't let his own people testify. that is obstruction. it becomes a big blur of politics. the polls show now a margin in favour of impeachment. i think the democrats hope that the humanity of the people they are asking to testify before the cameras like marie yovanovitch and the others seem like decent people and clearly have been put in an impossible situation by donald trump and being defended by republicans with conspiracy

theories and attacks don't really add up, that this will, in the end, turn suburban women and others to the democratic camp for the election if they can actually turn the senate into wanting to vote two thirds to impeach him. in fact, i was in california which is a very strong liberal state. there people are already convinced that what he is doing is impeachable. however, if we look at the process, what is interesting is not california, it is the swing states. wisconsin, arizona, pennsylvania, florida. if you look at the voters, the polling are showing actually

that 53% are against impeaching donald trump. so what this process is doing is a legal issue, a political issue. the democrats are hoping the public hearing will generate evidence that people have been asking for, sway some of the voters in the election that is coming up. and at the moment it doesn't seem to be working. hopefully, they will bring more witnesses to testify. in a way it is very political and will come down to the swing states. so, eunice, you are a professor of politics. we have just heard them looking at the electoral policies. there are other audiences as well. inside the us federal administration there is the state department. we heard on friday

about the hijacking of us foreign policy in ukraine. how damaging is this to the morale of diplomats? i think it is very damaging. she made a comment that the whole process was hollowing out the whole civil service system in the united states and there are people asking themselves, am i putting myself in danger by refusing to do things that are illegal? diplomats are not supposed to meddle with the domestic politics of their own countries, and the request to interfere, to dig dirt onjoe biden, this was clearly a breach of what a diplomat should be asked to do. they can do other things for the diplomacy of the state, but to help a president, the electoral possibilities of a president, that is not within the realm of the job of a diplomat. they might feel now

that they are been weaponised by the other side by being called into these public testimonies. possibly, but they didn't have any chance given the obstruction of the trump administration in terms of providing witnesses to these hearings. in fact, the professionalforeign service has been empowered by the model that has been shown by marie yovanovitch and other public servants. they feel inspired. i talk to diplomats, and the crowdfunding pages, because they think here is somebody standing up for the values of diplomacy. i think the most worrying thing is that constitutionalists, diplomats and so on, are looking at what the trump administration is doing in terms of undermining the different institutions that are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of democracy in the united states. but this is too niche for most voters in the united states.

the election will be roughly in one year's time, so no—one will remember this. so this is quite a fundamental story. a president asking diplomats to politicise themselves, to do the dirtyjob of preparing the electoral campaign. this is something that is not part of theirjob descriptions, and yet this is too technical, too niche for ordinary voters to essentially make an assessment, did the president act in a legal or constitutional manner or not? it is not too technical for foreign governments. what are foreign governments going to make of what they see here, and how are they going to act upon the information they hear? in general, it is important to have in mind that this has consequences far beyond the us. if you think about the fact that the us president is holding

back military aid to the ukraine, it is a most important military aid that they get of $1.5 billion, of which 400 are now frozen, as far as i understand. this is destabilising a region where 30,000 people have died already in a conflict, and that is something that european governments look at washington, donald trump, they have now seen so many erratic decisions in syria. that makes him feel very nervous about what it means, especially in europe, because it is a centre for russia to maybe do something in ukraine because there is a vacuum created by completely personal intersts. these impeachment hearings will continue, so we will have the opportunity to come back to them. we are going to move on now. it's been another terrible week in hong kong. 0ne protestor was shot by police,

one government sympathiser set on fire by protestors, one 70—year—old bystander died after being hit with a brick. a university campus turned into a battlefield. and the economy went into recession. i am not even finished. the chinese president warned hong kong's political arrangements were under threat. police warned law and order was on the brink of collapse. diane, your assessment? i think that is a pretty accurate assessment of what is happening in hong kong. for anybody observing hong kong for the past six months, being on the ground in hong kong or in beijing, probably the consensus is there isn't a solution in sight. what is significant is with the violence escalating in hong kong, we are seeing chinese mainland students who have been studying in hong kong packing up and going home.

i have seen footage of trains packed with people and they are leaving hong kong. the chinese residents, some expats working for multinationals, they are leaving or considering leaving. so hong kong is in this particular dangerous situation, and we probably are looking at violence escalating. what does that mean for hong kong? what is significant is that one country, two system is under threat. that means limited autonomy and freedoms that hong kong has from china. when hong kong was handed over to china, that was agreed with the british government.

back then, the leader said that hong kong would stay for 50 years under its own ecosystem, not being part of china. in fact, there recently had been discussions revisiting that idea. that china thinks that was unnecessary. that policy was because china back then lacked the confidence as an economic power. now china believes hong kong does not need one country, two system to prosper under the... you are basically saying they are saying this no longer works, we are going to... the integration of hong kong into china will be escalated after this event, but how fast, at what pace, that is the question. let's get some other answers.

eunice, we have heard over the course of the past week the protesters blaming the excesses of the police. the police blaming the protesters. do you see any middle ground and where would it come from? there is no middle ground in hong kong. we are not seeing any middle ground. 0n the other hand, we have beijing. and the statement two days ago. i think they signalled that mainland china is getting ready to take some action. the only parallels i can think of is the hungarian uprising in 1956 when moscow came in with their tanks and put an end to what kind of autonomy those countries had. so i think that what we have seen is a polarisation of positions. the hong kong government has been enabled to calm the situation and also to create a galvanising position of people supporting their own government.

0n the other hand, the students have radicalised their actions. they are going to lose sympathy with the radicalisation of... there is kind of a vacuum and that vacuum may very well be occupied by the chinese government. very worrying analysis. the growing demand from outside government is to say, why is it not possible to have an independent investigation into this is what the protesters have wanted for a long time. you get the impression that mainland china doesn't want it. the big question is, why don't they go down the road of reconciliation or trying to calm down the situation? the fear that this is actually going to escalate deliberately. hong kong is such an important hub for the global economy. what do you see others

from a business perspective doing now in the light of this kind of analysis and the recession? big law firms and global players are keeping their people out, having them work from home. deciding it is not an attractive place to do business any more. it is accumulative. if it becomes less prosperous because of the protest then it is no longer the golden egg from the goose and it has less importance to china, in a perverse way. i think it is embarrassing for china to have to accuse troops and it is bad in terms of long—term image of china and for unification with taiwan as well. but what kind of humiliation are they going to take? people saying they are not going to pay any attention to china or the using of force? if it comes down to...

there is another narrative here in terms of the financial hub. ali baba, the most successful chinese tech company, is... in china's eyes, hong kong can prosper as part of china, part of chinese financial hub. and that works. thank you on that story. now we are going to move on. fire, flood and plague. venice declared a state of emergency this week after the worst floods in half a century. eastern australia burned in bushfires. china saw plague deaths. greta thunberg boarded another sailing boat to return from the us to europe for next month's un climate conference in madrid. and in the british general election, flood response became one of the hot campaigning issues of the week. so let's look at how politicians are framing their message on climate change.

take a look at the uk campaign. we have seen a lot of flooding over the past fortnight, and flood response has become a hot topic with a lot of criticism of the government. how are politicians shaping this message? i think in the case of borisjohnson that wasn't a very happy week because he was seen as arriving to help with the flooding far too late. he was actually attacked. it was a really bad image for him this week. it was not a successful week. in terms of climate change, i don't see it is such a big topic in the british campaign, which is surprising, because the extinction rebellion, which is such a successful movement, has been very popular. climate change is a top priority when the public are asked what are their urgent priorities. if i compare it to my own country, where climate change is now the top priority if you ask people. the green party in germany is now topping all the polls, and it is quite likely or possible that after the next general election there will be a green party leading

the german government. in the uk, coming back to the comparison, the uk has a first—past—the—post electoral system, so the green party struggles to make any mileage at all, despite its votes. it will be very difficult in the british political system to have a purely green—driven policy being really part of their power in britain and i think that i don't see so far very convincing ideas, from labour or the conservatives. not that can compare to the challenge. so the ideas we have seen, big climate change fund, tree—pla nting projects, we have seen a pledge for carbon neutral by 2050. are you saying this is a less aspirational offer than you are getting in germany?

it is, i believe it is because it is very costly. the german government has adopted this week a new law or climate package and they had to very clearly say, this is going to cost each consumer more for their heating, flying, the further you fly, the more you have to pay. that is something in a election campaign that you don't want to say. i think labour has announced a green new deal and their plans have been attacked on the grounds of being very ambitious, extremely radical, they will involve massive public investment in renewable energies. it is tied up with universal basic income proposals and so on which is part of other green new deals that have been proposed elsewhere. in the united states and even the green party in the uk, they are tying up, doing proposals for a universal basic income. the problem we face with the british election is that manifestos have not yet been launched but what we have seen with labour is that they are

using the climate emergency, and i think it is interesting they are using the term climate emergency, with the very ambitious public spending plans that will break the mould of the the way the british economy has been run for the past 40 years. take that thought more global. the climate emergency, the use of that term or the refusal to use our time, because we have got bushfires in california, brazil, and yet you get an american president who questions climate science and a brazilian president who questions climate science. so this idea of a climate emergency is not universally accepted. no, it is not, but those democratically elected positions will feel the fire of public opinion asking them to do something about it because when people are losing homes, when their businesses are being heavily affected, and there...

the irony wasn't missed by the italian president when the local government in venice had declared or denied a fund to tackle the climate emergency and two minutes later their offices are flooded by the largest floods in venice. so i think the politicians were refusing and they are trying to react to this emergency in a peaceful manner. eventually, they will have to tackle it in a much more comprehensive way. jef, do you see them tackling it in a mitigation way or adapting to a crisis way? you have now got time to saying the window of opportunity is now. you have economists saying the same thing, you need to spend now to avoid the crisis later. is that a message that politicians can deliver to their voters? they have avoided doing it. the evidence about the growth of climate change and strange

weather events has been increasing. but in the united states at least it is not part of the political conversation in a serious way. "i have a local wildfire." "why aren't there more fire trucks here?" it is not, "0h, we needed to have built windbreaks and buried the electricity lines 30 years ago and it wouldn't have cost us billions." for politicians it is very difficult to raise taxes to avoid problems that are going to happen 20 years later because they don't get to get any of that benefit from it and they get all the pain. the difficulty is, let's say, in 20 years if miami has to close down, the water table is getting higher. if you go outside there is water on your shoes because water is coming through the sandstone. you can't build a sea wall around it.

there is so little long—term thinking going on at all and it needs a comprehensive thinking from the private sector, the government and a lot of regulation, all of which are sort of off the table in american discourse these days. the chinese media are muttering about how that plague is possibly related to drought in inner mongolia and the expanding population of rats brought the plague. china, can it do the long—term thinking better than a kind of electoral politics of western liberal democracies? it is dealing with climate change as an emergency? china has been dealing with environmental change but in a different way. it is by dealing with pollution because china during the past a0 years of development have become very polluted. so they are tackling air pollution. they are tackling water supply

pollution and they are tackling some of the animals' sanitary conditions. by doing so, china has made a lot of progress which, in fact, has brought down the carbon emission in china. the air is cleaner and they have closed on a lot of polluting factories and they are funding lots of infrastructures for renewable energy. in a way, the chinese government is less concerned with money or the voters' sentiment. it is not quite dealing with that issue of eating less meat, flying less, driving fewer cars. diana, i am afraid i have to get you to hold that thought. and to close the programme,

i'm going to ask each of you for a crisp assessment of week two in the british election campaign. what's the most interesting, surprising or important thing that happened? the thing that surprised me is a borisjohnson has not been more impressive on the stump. he has hidden from people. he has floundered in the floods. you would think a guy he was such a good after—dinner speaker and such a good television performer could handle himself under this of pressure and i am surprised he hasn't done better. what surprised me and interest me is that the labour brought out a huge programme of nationalising lots of industries from bt to national grid to utilities and that is very radical. on top of that, there is a radical 1.2 trillion in borrowing and infrastructure. i think we felt the fun is over, because there is the anecdote

of the prime minister giving a speech using a very risky word. he took it out. he thought, with all the floods going on we should be more serious. i can't say the word on air! the end of austerity. definite. end of austerity, maybe the beginning of big state intervention. there we have to leave it. we have packed a lot in today. that is it for this week. that's it for dateline london for this week — we're back next week at the same time. goodbye. hello. for many of you, the fading autumn

colours will be under sunshine for the next few days. 0ut there at the moment, still fairly cloudy skies for the majority, cloudiest and greyest of all in parts of northern england, the north and west of wales, parts of the south west. rain and drizzle at times, the odd heavier burst too, to the south of that, the morning mist clears. a brighter end to the day towards scotland and northern ireland as the showers continue eastwards. chilly for all, but the wind like today, although the breeze will pick up tonight across eastern counties of england, rain out of the near continent gets closer and closer. staying cloudy for much of england and wales, but where the sky is clear, particularly for scotland, northern ireland and the far north of england, a widespread frost on the temperature chart in the blue colours, and there could be frost elsewhere. that is because we have an area of high pressure moving in, i've not said that for a while. not a substantial one but enough to mean a dry day for many. the main exception being towards some eastern counties of england. around these north sea coasts, there will be breezes blowing, and rain if you are close to the coast,

but it is the exception rather than the rule. most places at long last seeing blue skies, early morning frost clearing, the fog clearing as well, and the wind away from those eastern coasts should be mainly light. still a cold day, and if the fog lingers for any length of time, the central belt of scotland for instance, one or 2 degrees will be the afternoon high, and of course with a cold day like that, with clear skies more dominant into monday night, an even colder night, the coldest night of the week, and start to the day on tuesday morning. widespread frost, some fog around as well, particularly for england and wales, a better day to the eastern areas as the wind eases down, and more sunshine around, but in the west, northern ireland, the far south—west of england and wales, we will see cloud increase and maybe some rain here to see the day out. still a cold one, but we are going to see a shift in wind direction as we go through the second half of the week, low pressure this time pushing in off the atlantic through tuesday into wednesday,

trying to push those fronts away eastwards. high—pressure holding off a little bit, so some eastern areas will stay dry, in the west you are more susceptible to rain at times. nothing desperately heavy or prolonged at this stage, but one certainly to watch, especially with flood warning 00:29:15,565 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 still in force at the moment.