hong kong police have arrested at least a0 protesters after a 2—day stand—off at the polytechnic university building. activists continue to occupy parts of the building after a night of clashes. overnight protesters set fire to two of the entrances when police moved into the campus. there's further controversy for prince andrew after the bbc‘s exclusive interview. he said he didn't regret his association with sex offenderjeffrey epstein. the duke of york has been widely criticised for failing to express sympathy for victims of epstein, who killed himself in august. large parts of central venice are under water again as another exceptionally high tide inundated the italian city. three of the worst ten floods since records began nearly a hundred years ago, have now happened in a week. the mayor of venice has blamed it in part on climate change, calling for more work to study its effects. now on bbc news: dateline london.

hello. 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's 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 an apocalypse ahead 7 my guests today: chinese writer diane wei liang, american broadcasterjef mcallister,

stefanie bolzen of german newspaper die welt and portuguese writer eunice goes. thank you all so much for coming in. now, for most politicians, it would've 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 we're talking about, 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 mr trump still teflon with his supporters, or will his enemies succeed in tarnishing that modern presidential over the course of these impeachment hearings? jef, start us off. what did you make so far? well, i think it's useful to stand back a little bit because trump is so unusual. it's very easy to go right into the horse race. is he up, is he down? is he going to do well

in impeachment or badly? but let's just stand back to think about who this guy is. 12,000 lies since he's been president. he's had his personal lawyer go to jail... who said it was 12,000? the washington post, and well acknowledged. his campaign manager went to jail, the deputy went to jail, his national security adviser, now his good friend, long—time associate, the guy who was conduit to the russians on getting the e—mails from wikileaks, roger stone, who has a tattoo of nixon on his back. i mean, this is who he is. and so, ok, now let's go to this strange thing of impeachment. is there any doubt possible left from his own transcript of the call from all the interlocking witnesses, good american bureaucrats without any particular axe to grind backed up by what's going on ukraine. clearly, he tried to pressure ukraine

into giving him dirt — that doesn't appear to exist — onjoe biden in return for getting the aid that congress appropriated. with any other president, everybody would say of course it's impeachable, but that's not donald trump, you're right. and one of the ways, he says it's all hearsay because he won't let his own people testify. that's obstruction. also, again, it becomes a big blur of politics. so, the polls show now a margin in favour of impeachment, but not growing, decreasing very much. i think the democrats hope that the humanity of the people they are asking to testify before the cameras, like ambassador yovanovitch and the others who seem like decent people and, clearly, have been put in an impossible situation by trump and are being defended by republicans with funny conspiracy theories and attacks that don't really add up, that this will, in the end, turn suburban women and others who are peel—offable from the trump coalition from 2016 into the democratic camp for the election if they can't actually turn the senate into wanting to vote two—thirds to impeach him.

diane, your thoughts. you've just come back from the us. yes, and, in fact, i was in california, which is a very strong liberal state, and so their people are already convinced that what he is doing is an impeachable offence. however, if we look at the process, and there isn't the numbers in the senate that will push this through. what's interesting is it's not california. it's the swing states. it's 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 — it's a legal issue, however, it's very much 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's coming up. and at the moment, it doesn't seem to be working. hopefully, they will bring more witnesses to testify. so, in a way, it's very political and will come down to the swing states. so, eunice, you're a professor of politics. we've just heard jef and dianne both looking at the electoral policies of this, but there are other audiences as well. i mean, inside the us federal administration, there's the state department. we heard the former ambassador to the ukraine on friday talking about being discredited, talking about the hijacking of us foreign policy in ukraine. how damaging is all of this to morale of diplomats do we think, to public officials? i think it is very, 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 — i think people asking — those diplomats are asking themselves, "am i putting myself in danger by refusing to do things that are illegal?" diplomats are not supposed to meddle in 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. and yet i suppose they might feel now that they're been weaponised by the other side by being hauled in to these public testimonies in congress. possibly, but they didn't have any chance given the obstruction of the trump administration in terms of providing witnesses to these hearings. and, in fact, the professional foreign service has been empowered

by the model that has been shown by yovanovitch and other public servants — they feel actually inspired. i mean, there's a lot of — i talked to diplomats and there are crowdfunding pages to help pay their legal fees that a lot of diplomats are sending money to, because they think here's somebody standing up for the values of diplomacy that eunice was talking about. and i think the most worrying thing of all of this is that of course constitutionalists, diplomats and so on are looking at what the trump administration of 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 a 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 their electoral campaigns, and this is something that's not part of theirjob descriptions,

and yet this is too technical, this is too niche for ordinary voters to essentially — then to make an assessment — did the president act in a legal manner, in a constitutional manner or not? well, it's not too technical, stefanie, i suppose, for foreign governments, and we've talked about the voters and we've talked about the public officials in the us. but what are foreign governments going to make of what they see here, and how are they going to act upon the information that they hear? well, i think in general, it's important to have in mind that this has all consequences far beyond the us. if you think about the fact that the us president, for very — well, various own interests, is holding back military aid to the ukraine. it's a big — it's a most important military aid that the ukraine gets of us$1.5 billion of which 400 are now frozen, as far as i understand. this is destabilising a region where 13,000 people have died

already in a conflict. and that is something that european governments look at washington — look at donald trump, they have now seen so many erratic decisions in syria. now, this is completely domestically—driven decisions, and that makes them feel very nervous about what it means, especially in europe, because it's an incentive for russia to maybe do something in ukraine because there's a vacuum created by completely national — personal interests of the us president. well, these impeachment hearings will of course continue, so we will have the opportunity to come back to them, but we've got a packed program, so we're going to move on now. and it's been another terrible week in hong kong. 0ne protester was shot by police, one government sympathiser was set on fire by protesters, one 70—year—old bystander died after being hit with a brick, a university campus was turned into a battlefield and the economy went into recession. i'm not even finished. the chinese president warned that hong kong's political arrangements were under threat and the police warned that law and order

was on the brink of collapse. diane, your assessment? well, i think that's pretty accurate of what's happening in hong kong. for anybody observing hong kong for the past six months and being on the ground in hong kong or in beijing, and probably the consensus is there isn't a solution in sight. what's 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've seen footage of trains going into shenzhen packed with people and they're leaving hong kong. they're 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 the sort of violence escalating. what does that mean for hong kong?

what's significant is what xijinping had said, that one country, two systems is under threat. now, one country, two systems, just for anyone who can't remember what that slogan actually means — it actually means the kind of limited autonomy and freedoms that hong kong has distinct from the rest of china. correct. yes, and when hong kong was handed over to china, that was agreed with the british government. and back then, the paramount leader, deng xiaoping, that hong kong will stay for 50 years and its own sort of ecosystem not being part of china. in fact, recently, there had been discussions of revisiting that idea, that china thinks that was unnecessary. that policy was because china back then lacked confidence

as an economic power. now, china believes hong kong does not need one country, two systems. hong kong can prosper under the chinese system. so you're basically saying that xijinping is saying, "this no longer works, we're going to go to one country, 0ne system and apply that in hong kong as well"? even people in hong kong now believe that the integration of hong kong into china will be escalated after this event. but how fast, at what pace? that's the question. let's get some other answers on that. eunice, you look at comparative politics around the world. i mean, we've heard over the course of the past week the protesters blaming the excesses of the police, the police blaming the excesses of the protesters. do you see any middle ground, and where would it come from?

there is no middle — in hong kong, we're not seeing any middle ground. 0n the other hand, we have beijing and xi jinping's statement two days ago. i think they signal that mainland china is getting ready to take some action. and the only parallels that i can think of is prague spring, hungarian uprising in 1956 where, ultimately, 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 — because there is no middle ground in the protest — what we've seen is the polarisation of positions. the hong kong government has been unable to — with the tiny concessions that were made — has been unable 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. so, they also — they're going to lose sympathy with the radicalisation of their — so there's no — there's a kind of a vacuum, and that vacuum may very well be occupied

by the chinese government. very worrying analysis. stefanie, where do you view this as going? well, the growing demands, of course, from outside governments say, "why is it not possible to have an independent investigation into" — this is what the protesters have wanted for a long time. and, of course, you get the impression that mainland china doesn't want it. so the big question is, why do they not go down the road of reconciliation or trying to calm down the situation? that comes back to, well, the fear that, actually, this is going to escalate deliberately. and, jef, just turning to the recession point. global business — i mean, hong kong is such a hugely 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, which is now a fact? the hang seng index down 5% this week, big law forms and global —— big law firms and global players are keeping their people

out, having them work from home, maybe deciding it's not such an attractive place to do business anymore. do we — i mean, it's one of those funny, accumulative things. if it becomes less prosperous because of the protests, in a way, then it's no longer the golden egg from the goose and it has less importance to china, in a perverse way. i think it's embarrassing for china to have to use troops and it's bad in terms of a long—term image of china, and for unification with taiwan as well. but what kind of humiliation are they going to take? humiliation of people saying that they're not going to pay any attention to china? or the humiliation that comes from having to use force? and i think in the end, if it comes down to a choice between those two, it's gonna be — we are gonna run our own territory as — we're gonna get it back in 2047 anyway! there is another narrative here in terms of the financial hub. alibaba, which is the most successful chinese tech company, is planning a $1.3 billion ipo

in hong kong in the coming days. so in china's eyes, hong kong can prosper as part of china, part of the chinese financial hub, and that works. thank you all on that story. now, we're going to move on, and 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. stefanie, i want you to start on this one. take a look at the uk campaign. of course, we've 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? well, i think in the case of boris johnson, that wasn't a very happy week because he was seen as arriving to see, or to help with the floods far too late.

he was actually attacked. it was a really bad image for him this week, so it was not a very successful week. in terms of climate change, environmental policies, 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, actually comes from here, has been very fierce here, very popular. and, in fact, climate change is a top priority when the public are asked what are their urgent priorities. yes. if i compare it to my own country, where climate change is now the top priority, if you ask people, two—thirds say this is the biggest danger for our existence. the green party in germany is now topping all the polls and it's quite likely, or possible, that after the next general election, there will be a green party leading the german government. and yet, i suppose, 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.

yeah, and so, it will be very difficult in the british political system to have a purely green—driven policy being really part of the power in britain. and i think that i don't see so far very convincing ideas, neither from labour, nor the conservatives, that can compare to the challenges of that. some of course, the ideas we have seen — we've big climate change funds, we've seen tree—planting projects, we've seen a pledge for carbon neutral by 2050. but are you saying that this is a less aspirational offer than you are getting, for example, in germany? it is. and i think the reason is because it's very costly. if you — the german governmentjust this week has adopted a new law, or a climate package, and they had to very clearly say, "this is going to cost each consumer more for their heating, more forflying — the further you fly, the more you have to pay." and that's something in an election

campaign you don't want to say. ithink... eunice. i think labour, on this, has — they has announced a green new deal and their plans have been attacked on the grounds of being very ambitious, they're going to be extremely radical, they will involve massive public investment in renewable energies, and so on. it's tied up with universal basic income proposals and so on, which is part of other green new deals that have been proposed elsewhere — alexandria 0casio—cortez in the united states and even the green party here in united kingdom, they are tying up their green proposals to a universal basic income. i think the problem that 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's interesting that they are using the term "climate emergency" — with their very, very ambitious public spending plans that will break the mould of the british — the way that the british economy has been run for the past 40 years,

and that is scaring a lot of investors, and so on. so, take that thought more global. the climate emergency — use of that term or the refusal to use that term. of course, we've got, you know, we've got bushfires — or we had fires california and brazil, and yet, you know, you get an american president who questions climate science and a brazilian president who questions climate science. so, this idea of a climate emergency not universally accepted. no, it is not, but those democratically elected politicians 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 was — the irony wasn't missed by the italian president when the local government in venice had declared — 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 who were refusing are now trying to react to this emergency in a piecemeal manner. eventually, they will have to tackle it in a much more comprehensive way. jef, do you see them tackling it to a mitigation way or an adapting to a crisis way? because, of course, we are now getting scientists who saying, "you've got — the moment — the window of opportunity is now." you've got a lot of economists who are saying the same thing — "you need to spend now to avoid the crisis later." but is this — is that a message that politicians around the world can deliver to their voters? they clearly avoided doing it. i mean, the evidence about the growth of climate change and strange weather events has been increasing. but at least in the united states, that's just not part of the political conversation in a serious way. i mean, it does — it becomes, "i have a local wildfire. why aren't there more fire trucks here?" it is not, "0h, we actually needed to have built all sorts of different windbreaks and buried all the electricity lines 30 years

ago and it needed to cost us billions and billions and billions." for politicians, honestly, 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. and the difficulty is, let's say, you know, in10 or20 years if miami has to close down — which, you know, the water table is getting higher, if you go out now, you step outside now on a sunny day, there's water on your shoes because the water table is coming up through the sandstone, and you can't build a sea wall around it. what florida politician can to say "ok, it's time to evacuate miami"? that's just not in the cards. and so, as long as the politics in america is now focused entirely on all these kind of short—term, who's up, who's down, impeachment ra—ra—ra, there's so little long—term thinking going on at all and it needs comprehensive thinking from the private sector, the government all together, and a lot of regulation — all of which are sort of off

the table in the american discourse these days. diane, let's turn to china and the long—term thinking because i mentioned plague in the introduction there a moment ago. of course, you know, the chinese media are muttering about how that plague is possibly related to a drought in inner mongolia and that's expanding the population of rats and brought the plague. so, my question to you is, i suppose, 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? well, china has been dealing with environmental change, but in a different way. it's by dealing with pollution, because china, during the past 40 years of development, had become very polluted. and so, they are tackling air pollution, they are tackling water supply pollution, and they're tackling some of the animals' sanitary conditions. and by doing so, china has made a lot of progress — which, in fact, has, you know,

brought down the carbon emission in china. the air is cleaner and they have closed down lots of polluting factories and it's funding lots of infrastructures on renewable energy, etc. so in a way, the chinese government is less concerned with money or the voters' sentiment. and it's not quite dealing with that issue of eating less meat, or less dairy or flying less or driving fewer cars. but, diane, i'm afraid i have to get you to hold that thought because we've got to leave this issue and the in the last few seconds of the programme, we're going to ask you all for a crisp assessment of week two in the british election campaign. who wants to start? jef? the thing that surprised me is that borisjohnson has not been more impressive on the stump. he's hidden from people. he has had —

floundered in the floods. you'd think a guy who has been such a good after—dinner speaker and such a good television performer for so long could handle himself under this kind of pressure, and i'm surprised he hasn't done better. diane, what interests or surprises you? what surprised me and interests me is that the labour had brought out a huge programme of nationalising lots of industries, from bt to national grid to utilities, and that's very radical. and on top of that, and there is a radical 1.2 trillion in borrowing and infrastructure building. thank you. and stefanie — one line, please? i think this week felt like the fun is over because there was this anecdote of the prime minister giving his speech using a very risky word, he took it out because he thought, "with all the floods going on, i should be a bit more serious." and you — the word? i can't say it on air! and eunice? just a line? end of austerity. definite end of austerity,

maybe the beginning of big state intervention. and there we have to leave it. we've packed a lot in today. i'm sorry we haven't covered everything in the detail that you would like, but we only have half an hour for dateline london. that's it for this week. back next week, same place, same time. goodbye. hello there. we still have a legacy of cloudy skies across parts of the south and east. patches of drizzle, as you mist and fog patches as well. further north, skies clearing. temperatures down to about —6 degrees in edinburgh. showers

continuing across northern scotland, the risk of some icy services. —— surfaces. for most of us, a dry looking day with spells of sunshine. there will be a few showers affecting northeast scotland and a few running down the north sea coast of england. for many of us, after a cold and frosty start, it stays dry and sunny after that bitterly cold start in edinburgh. damages here only getting to two degrees during the course of the afternoon. 0n monday night, if anything the frost will be much more widespread.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: after a 2—day stand—off with the police, protesters at hong kong polytechnic emerge from the building. at least 40 are arrested by police. prince andrew stands by his exclusive interview to the bbc to defend his friendship with sex offender jeffrey epstein. it's been seen as deeply damaging. large parts of central venice in italy are once again under water, as another exceptionally high tide inundates the city. and the man whose lens helped define the 19605 — the photographer terry 0'neill has died.