hello, this is bbc news with ben brown. the headlines... the queen will praise people's self—discipline, and quiet good—humoured resolve in response to the crisis, when she makes a rare television address later today. she will personally thank front—line health care staff and other key workers for their efforts during the crisis. president trump has warned americans to prepare for a big increase in the number of coronavirus deaths. new york state recorded its biggest one—dayjump in deaths so far — with 630 dying from the virus. england's health secretary — matt hancock — has warned the goverment might have to further restrict rules allowing outdoor

exercise if people flout lockdown rules designed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. the two countries which have suffered the highest numbers of deaths have both reported progress in tackling the outbreak. spain reported its lowest number of new infections in more than ten days and italy has continued its recent downward trend. there headlines. now on bbc news, dateline london with shaun ley. hello, and welcome to the programme which brings together some of the uk's leading specialist journalists with the foreign correspondents based here who file their stories with the dateline "london".

joining us from home: stefanie bolzen is uk and ireland correspondent for germany's die welt. michael goldfarb presents the frdh podcast — that's the first rough draft of history. and, boy, what history is he reporting on now. welcome to you both. and with me again — at a safe distance — the bbc‘s chief international correspondent, lyse doucet. good to have you again. grounded she may be by covid—19, but her curiosity about the world remains undiminished. we'll begin here in the uk. it's week two of the "great stay at home," and the statistics suggest it's working — dramatic falls injourneys on public transport, little activity at airports, quieter roads. this, though, is the calm before the storm. because of the time lag between becoming infected and showing signs, those who are dying now were infected before the lockdown. epidemiologists think we're two to three weeks behind italy and spain, which has seen more than 10,000 die. in the uk, so far, coronavirus has caused under 4,000 deaths —

it's only after the event we'll know whether we did enough. stefanie, what have you been telling your readers about how the uk is handling this epidemic? it's been kind of a roller—coaster. i think as much emotionally for a person living in the uk and having a family here. but also from the continent, especially from germany, our readers have been very interested in looking at how the british government manages the crisis. generally, the impression was that borisjohnson has been very slow, he was very slow to actually tell people they had to stay at home, you almost got the impression that he didn't want to tell people to do anything, he is not a person who likes to tell people to follow orders.

but that has now risen to criticism, that actually, the british government has not taken advantage of being behind the curve and introducing very strong measures in terms of social distancing to actually stop the spread of the virus more quickly than countries such as italy and spain were able to do. michael, you are obviously podcasting and trying to get a message out to the uk, focusing around the world notjust the us, what do you need or how things have been handled so far? the first thing i did was i avoided it because that isjust so much out there that is no more thanjust numbers are being bandied around numbers being bandied around and it is difficult to figure out where they come from, so i actually read william blake, springtime poetry. in other areas, i have been writing, and i'm very interested to know about how much...

because the us and the uk have approached this crisis up to a point in the same way, initially saying, well, we are not going to lock down, we will not shut down our economies, possibly because most of the victims initially were in their 805. well, some people close to borisjohnson and the president said, well, this happens. i wonder how much coordination there actually was in messaging, even making policy up on the fly between the white house and downing street. i think that is a fruitful area for journalists to go out and explore. i suppose at least borisjohnson is listening to his doctor's advice, it does not seem donald trump is not too keen to follow the advice about wearing a face mask. how do you feel about that?

about waiting a face mask? i am aware that the president is a law unto himself, although he calls borisjohnson britain trump. borisjohnson is not like that, let's be clear. he has tested positively, he is self—isolating, and number of people around the cabinet table have also tested positive. donald trump and a face mask, the latest news is this, there was a machine invented to turn them out quickly, this was done during the 0bama administration. when president trump came in, he cancelled the programme, so instead of being able to crank out hundreds of thousands of masks in america without too much problems, we are now in the situation

where there areare not enough mask for front line staff, for people living in major urban areas which is where the outbreak is more severe. as a journalist, we provide much is the first rough draft of history, but also a snapshot where we broadcast one part of the sentence and not the other. i listened the full donald trump quote, in which he says, i'm sitting behind this desk, i'm meeting kings, presidents, dictators, he actually used that word. i thought, who is visiting donald trump at this time? in these darkest of times, we do have to have a little bit of humour. and we are all learning that. this is something that most of us who cover real wars far away, people do you find humour, i have to commend stefanie and michael for their restraint in not entering the battle of the book shelves, none to distract our viewers this morning. 0n the face mask, i heard the chancellor of austria introducing earlier this week this

requirement from wednesday of this week that people should have them, saying that, i know it seems strange for us to do in austria, we associat it with people from the far east and tourists from china. he said, culturally, it might be difficult but we have to do this. the whole question of covering your face and the politeness of being able to see another person, it's a big issue, isn't it? we have had discussions, for example, of people wearing the hijab in the uk, people needing to see people's faces to see if they like them or trust them. 0r or how they are responding to me. there have been wry comments in france that after all these battles for people not to wear the hijab, we are now telling them to wear face masks. some of the doctors have pointed out, because those who have lived in countries where there have been other pandemics, they are used to wearing these face masks.

sars and mars. it is not just you have to wear it, you have to wear it correctly. if it is not put on correctly, it defeats the purpose, so the whole point is that you should feel comfortable wearing it, therefore you actually protect yourselves. but for the most part, i think, not only are we looking... and i did it this morning when i came to work. i wore one today because that's now the recommendation, almost no—one else on the street was wearing one. i thought they were looking at me like i was a bit too extreme, i was reminded of foreign correspondents with their flak jackets when no—one else is wearing them but we have to do. the thing with face masks, everyone is looking over their border like when neighbours look over there washing line at the fence next door. people are asking, how come germany has all these tests? how can this country has all these

facemasks? canadians are saying, why is donald trump preventing face masks being made for us? the president of the european commission was saying, it is all for me. everyone is notjust conscious everyone is not just conscious of what they have. everyone is conscious of what they don't have, vis—a—vis their neighbours both in terms of their street but also in terms of countries. let's pause our discussion of coronavirus, and give some thought to other stories around the world that might otherwise have made the headlines. michael, do you want to kick off on this? 0ne one of the things that is vaguely, it is not vaguely, it is completely about coronavirus. the country with, i think, now the fourth largest outbreak of coronavirus, it may change, is iran. because over the last few years, reporting restrictions have made it virtually impossible for western journalists to remain in tehran and cover the country, and it's a very important country. we have no idea what's going on. to me, that is something

that is a lack, because iran sits in a very important strategic position, i'm able to follow news from kurdistan via twitter. in baghdad, pilgrimage season is on, we don't know if people are sneaking in from iran to go to the pilgrimage sites. all of this is critical because, as we learned in china, when you have a dictatorial regime, you can argue whether china is a dictatorship or merely authoritarian, but the dictatorship in iran... what we need now more than anything is clear, open sharing of facts amongst medical professionals about what is happening, and we are not getting that. i would like to see more from iran. lyse, a little further

east for your story, one which has resonance forjournalists around the world. yes, it throws us back to last time the world thought it was fighting a common war, that was the attacks of september 11th. news came from pakistan that the high court overturned the death sentence for a british—born militant who was convicted of abducting and murdering the wall street journalist who was 38 at the time, daniel pearl. he said he could be released from jail because there was not enough evidence of him actually carrying out the act, he was just an accomplice. there was a huge outcry, including from the us state department, and the lower court said, fine, we are arresting them and they cannot leave. it is a reminder of the unfinished business of other wars. should be pointed out that the tail isa very should be pointed out that the tail is a very murky.

there has been an investigation from georgetown university that actually 0mar sheikh was involved in it but actually didn't murder daniel pearl himself. and the real guy who did it is languishing in guantanamo bay. who is the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. a complicated tale but a reminder that these wars have a very long tail and the suffering and pain connected to them. daniel pearl was trying to find some of the people involved in the attacks of 9/11 in pakistan, and he paid a terrible price, it was a horrible story at the time and still is. stefanie, your interest in europe, there was one particular eu country you wanted to mention. i am maybe staying a bit closer to home, it is a story that has been reported in the uk and europe but i think it's an interesting story on a wider scale.

on monday this week, the hungarian parliament with a two thirds majority allowed viktor 0rban from now on to rule by decree, this without any time limit. this is something we have seen, especially in hungary, but also in poland, that these countries tend to really undermine the constitutional checks and balances of their countries, whether it be undermining the freedom of the press, also the independence of the judiciary. we can really see that some governments now use the crisis to just. . .simply for power grabs. on one hand, the question evolves from how will parliament, and therefore democracy, after the crisis get into the place it should be? on a wider scale, the question of civil liberties. if i look at germany, my own country, it is quite famous for data protection. because of our history,

people are very wary of any intrusion of their privacy and private lives, of course because of the nazi story and the stasi in the gdr. it is seen as a very good means to track people with smartphones, where they are going, how much they are moving. and once this is over, do we go back to civil liberties and the protection of the private person as we were before coronavirus? we are forever reminded,... as a sociologist and political scientist said after the attacks of september 11th, they reminded us that it is often not the event itself that has the longest repercussions, it is our response to the event that could actually prove to be more catastrophic. we saw what happened after the september 11th attacks, two major international invasions, etc, etc, and decline of civil liberties in many

parts of the world. as stefanie mentioned, the human rights chief of the un yesterday spoke out about this and warned that the surveillance, which is quite effective in some countries, the tracing that south korea has used has been very effective. but some leaders could take advantage of the situation as stefanie has been talking about in hungary to take all powers, to use michael's phrase, a law unto themselves, at this time because they can say, "anything justifies it because i'm saving lives." as the pandemic ravages parts of europe, an old dispute has been revived under a new label. member states are debating corona bonds, a way of sharing the cost around the eu to help the member countries whose economies are most affected. but as in the eurozone crisis of a decade ago, they're in the south, and countries like germany and the netherlands — prudent with their money — have already rejected a call from france, italy, spain, ireland and five other countries for a common debt instrument. as for that, one of the world's oldest unions is feeling the economic strain too —

10 million people are nowjobless in the united states of america. michael, how is the united states coping with that prospect? well, i don't think anyone can begin to have a policy for that. when the economy — and it's being shutdown piecemeal, remember that the federal response from the white house has been — two weeks ago, they were saying "we will be in church for easter." now finally the penny has dropped, and they are acknowledging that this is going to go on for quite some time. and the states are having to shutdown new york city, now the epicentre of the global pandemic, effectively shutdown. it was going to be a moment of increased unemployment, but i think even people who study it — 3.3 million people filed unemployment claims last week. 6.6 million people in the weekjust finished, that's 10 million people.

to me, it seems to me that this is a moment that's the equivalent of the 1929 stock market crash. the stock market crash didn't immediately cause the depression. and to answer your question, several years went by while the ripples, big ripples went throughout the economy and ultimately ended with mass unemployment and banks collapsing. i think when you look at 10 million people filing for unemployment in a month where we were all astonished when a republican administration and a republican senate voted to give every american adult $1,200 for a month. now, that's not going to be nearly enough. because once you start taking away jobs in this number, no—one knows how many come back, nobody knows at what level pay will be when you go back to work.

and because it could be months yet before the economy is functioning, you're looking at a mass unemployment event with no way for the government to help because everybody is going to be told to stay at home. it's an impossible situation and a very dangerous one. stefanie, in europe, this kind of tension, how serious is it? you could argue, unlike the eurozone crisis, it is quite hard to blame the southern european countries, because everybody is being affected by coronavirus, itjust happens that their economies are weaker to start with, which you could argue is a failure of the eurozone system anyway. yeah, i think it feels a bit like deja vu, but the feeling is that it will be much worse than the eurozone crisis, which started in 2009 and then dragged on for a very long time and, in fact, was never really solved. apart now from the financial question, i thought, at least at the very beginning of the crisis, europe was kind of all over the place.

so you saw countries shutting down their borders, which they can of course, because if the nation says there is a threat to public safety and public health, they can close their borders. poland did that, for example, and caused that interruption of tra ns—european traffic. and especially the transport of really essential goods. germany decided for some days to put controls on the export of protective clothing, which was of course also seen as a very selfish decision. so this has now calmed down. for the european commission, to be fair, it is very difficult to interfere there because things like health and also control of the borders at the end of the day are national sovereignty. it is not unlike many brexiteers are saying, the commission decides everything. that is not the case. the member states have a lot of competencies. of course, it is seen

now that the dialogue is even more difficult. the council meeting last week was a video council. next tuesday is the next finance ministers council, also done via video link. it is going to be interesting what comes out of that meeting. all i'm hearing from brussels is that they will postpone a decision, and countries such as germany and especially the northern country will argue that actually there are billions of euros help by the european central bank, by the european investment bank. the commission just announced a 100 billion package for workers that have lost theirjobs. i don't think there will be much of a difference to what we have seen in the eurozone crisis. if i could just add in, one of the interesting things about this crisis is that it's shown that many of the veteran politicians around europe, and indeed around the world, have been overtaken ideologically. so, in the netherlands, for example, which has had the loudest voice in countering this idea of a corona

bond, the prime minister, his coalition is under pressure, two of the parties have joined him —— thatjoined —— that joined him —— thatjoined him in forming the government are more inclined to show fraternity and solidarity with italy, spain and france. which also has a severe outbreak. i think there will be a lot of pressure, and i would be interested to see what kind of pressure the current ruling coalition in germany may come under. in the end, the economy is so thoroughly intermingled, particularly on the continent, that to say, well, we are not going to help corona bonds or, indeed, the best way to go forward, we are not going to help italy or spain, it could have an incredible knock—on effect on the northern countries. i think as the weeks go by, politicians are going to come under more pressure in the north than perhaps they are at the moment.

lyse, it's interesting, the example there that michael gave of the comparison with the 1920s and ‘30s, because i suppose the dilemma for any politician now is that your reputation destroyed by how you answer or don't answer these challenges. president hoover, a man who had helped to feed the starving masses in europe at the end of the first world war, a man who had quite a lot of good things in his political past, his reputation was destroyed by being the man in office there. the shanties set up for people withoutjobs who were homeless and starving, and fdr came up with his message of hope. nothing to fear but fear itself. there are political opportunities, but also a huge risk for leaders around the world, how they tackle this challenge. this is the kind of crisis we generally use phrases like defining moments. this defines citizens, it defines the states, and it defines the relationship between the citizen and the state. it brings it right down to the basic. people are elected

or people are in power to protect their people, and now their people need protection. this will sit long in the memory, even in china. china has not been able to suppress the voices there, and that is a country which has huge control over the internet and other means of communication. people are saying, you are not telling us the truth, you are not protecting us. as stefanie says, there was an impression that britain was slow. people are saying, what does that mean in terms of lives? individuals are asking, did i lose my grandfather because we were not quick enough? did i lose my mother who's a nurse because she didn't have the protective equipment? people, individuals, neighbourhoods, societies, countries will remember what their governments did not do or did do at this hour of need. good. thank you very much. let me ask for a final thought you would like to leave us with at this time. lyse, first of all,

you had a thought about the future of government? well, there is always, to use another phrase, there are also wars within wars. it is a journalistic lexicon. we are already hearing about the battle of narratives. people still remember to this day who came to us in our hour of need in the first world war, the second world war, who fought against us, who took too long to came who took too long to come to ouraid. we have ceremonies, we have monuments to remember who stood shoulder to shoulder with us. this is already being discussed, we are focusing on europe. apparently they did a survey in italy where 60% of italians say not enough aid was coming from europe and saying that the chinese and russians are helping us. factually, i understand that it is not the case. europe did do more for italy, but people believe that the chinese did more. when this is done, because one

day this will be over, people will remember the heroes. the heroes on their street, the heroes in their country, but also the heroes who stood by each other, which is why, day in, day out, we are hearing from the un and other world organisations, let's work together, so that at the end of the day we can say that we all did whatever we could to keep all of us safe. stefanie, a brief last thought from you. very briefly, i was very moved yesterday by the nurse, the head of the royal college of nurses, who spoke at the government press conference, and was talking about these two nurses that lyse just mentioned, two young women, three children, and they died working to save patients. they were pleading, please stay in. i mean, this weekend, it's really hard in britain,

wants to go outside, you have kids to pacify — there is going to be such nice weather, everybody wants to go outside, you have kids to pacify — but please, everybody has to stay indoors. michael? just to say to all people viewing — read your papers with proper journalistic scepticism. the projections about what will happen next, how many numbers, how many this — we simply can't know. the data collection on this disease have been very, very poor, so learn to read the numbers, it will help you with your anxiety. learn to read the numbers with some scepticism. if you hear a hard fact — 5,000 masks for 500,000 nhs workers, you can take that to the bank. if someone says, you can have 100,000-250,000 deaths, that is a meaningless extrapolation — ignore it. thank you all very much forjoining us on the programme. my thought before going — this virus is infectious, but a smile is much more so. from dateline london, until the same time next week, goodbye.

hello there. sunny spells and blustery wind is the order of the day today. in fact, there is hardly a cloud in the sky at the moment. as we go through the mine, we will see it develop icloud across western fringes and that will thicken. scattered showers across northern ireland and maybe western scotland. the strongest gusts in excess of a0 miles per. a blustery story but plenty of sunshine and so temperatures are likely to respond. picking at highs of 21 celsius in the south—east. a little cooler out to the west. that is going to push its way steadily eastward through the evening and overnight. it will

bring a spell of heavy rain free time and slowly clear away for the south—east monday morning. behind it, a clearance of sunny spells and a few scattered showers into the far north—west. not quite as warm, but not bad for this time of year. highs of 12 to 18 celsius. that is it, ta ke of 12 to 18 celsius. that is it, take care.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. queen elizabeth is to make a rare television address to britain and the commonwealth, stressing the value of self—discipline and resolve. england's health secretary has warned the government will look again at allowing outdoor exercise if people flout social—distancing rules. if you don't want us to have to take the step to ban exercise of all forms outside of your own home, then you've got to follow the rules. one of the uk's top scientific advisors says there is currently no precise exit strategy from the lockdown. exit strategies from this were very problematic, challenging.