president trump has said more than four million americans have been tested for the coronavirus and many more testing kits are being made available. the governor of new york says he'll launch an aggressive antibody testing campaign next week, to see how many people have had the virus. the british government says a shipment of 84 tonnes of personal protective equipment, which should already have arrived from turkey, had been delayed till later on monday. more than 16,000 people have now died in the uk, from coronavirus—related conditions. in other news: police in canada say a man has shot dead 16 people in a rural community in nova scotia. reports say one police officer was killed, and that the 51—year—old suspect is also dead, after going on the run for hours. now on bbc news, dateline london.

hello, and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week, a world divided by hope and fear as some countries tentatively emerge from the shadow of the epidemic and others go towards it. even when lockdown is being lifted, other sorrows are just beginning as we all begin to absorb the scale of the economic damage. but death and destruction do not stop great power politics. the president of the united states has announced a cut in funding to the world health organization, accusing it of going soft on china.

my guests on socially distanced screens — isabel hilton of china dialogue and stephanie baker from bloomberg news. welcome to both of you. and here in the studio we have the bbc‘s chief international correspondent, lyse doucet. welcome to you. let us start with the who developments. stephanie, is that defunding from president trump a symbol of american withdrawal from global leadership, or is it something else? well, it's another example of american withdrawal from global leadership, but i fear it's a more cynical political move than that. i think he's trying to shift blame for his mishandling of the crisis onto an international body, and the irony here is that trump himself praised china's handling of the crisis back in late january and praised beijing's transparency,

so it's ironic that he is attacking the who for having done nothing, but the real issue is that the who needs to be strengthened at this time of global pandemic. it's a tiny organisation relative to the scale of the crisis we are facing. the budget is something like $2 billion. it really ought to be beefed up rather than undercut. but i think the real issue is how does trump respond to this long—term? if he's to deflect blame for it on to the who, what is the future of the who if indeed he gets re—elected in november? we'll deal with the blame issue in a moment but, isabel, first looking at china, if this is a distancing from global

leadership by the us, will china turn around and offer a helping hand to the who and other international bodies at this moment? china has rarely missed an opportunity to step into a vacuum vacated or created by the us president. it could do. there's been inevitably with trump a huge exaggeration of the scale of the us contribution. the us country contribution is the largest, but that's because they are assessed on the size of the country's economy. the us has the biggest economy. china is the next biggest. then we have japan and germany and the rather familiar list. but trump in his speech exaggerated that contribution by a factor of four or five, no surprise there. the other interesting thing about the who,

which i absolutely agree is underfunded, but 80% of its funding comes from other contributions, either voluntary contributions by states or people like bill gates, who personally pledged $100 million to combat the pandemic a few weeks back. it's a damaging thing that trump has done, one of many. china could supplement the funding. i'm not sure that that would be very good for the credibility of the who, because actually before this pandemic there were big questions around the relationship with china, which had derived largely from the who embracing traditional chinese medicine in 2018, which caused a huge negative reaction in the global medical community. traditional chinese medicine, in addition to being untested in a scientific sense, is also the driver of a huge amount

of illicit wildlife traffic, which comes to the roots of this pandemic. so that's not a good move, and i think china would be well advised not to embrace the who too closely at the moment. lyse, widen this out into the international system more generally. the international secretary said covid—19 is the biggest challenge in the organisation's history, 75 years. but the un security council seem to be missing in action. under a lot of disquiet and open condemnation for months, so much so that nine members of the ten non—permanent members of the security council finally pushed on april the ninth to have the first closed—door meeting of the security council. its delay was partially said to be, as we have already been discussing, the sniping between china and the united states, two of the big beasts, the veto—wielding members of the security council.

borisjohnson of course was ill, but they had that one meeting, and they discussed two motions, both focusing on fighting together against the global pandemic, but very little came of it. stephanie, coming back to this question of a retreat from global leadership, it's an obvious point, but the united states led the creation of these international organisations 75 years ago, and it did so because it perceived that an effective multilateral system with it in a leading position was in its own national interests. why does it see things differently now? it's really the us under trump, and we've seen him withdraw from international accords, everything from the iran nuclear deal, the transpacific partnership. he has defunded the un, he has paralysed the wto. so it's in keeping with his undermining international institutions.

i think there is support in the us for these multilateral institutions and international cooperation, and we'll find out how big that support is in november when the election happens and whether or not trump gets re—elected. but this crisis has exposed and exacerbated a tendency for national self—interest to prevail over multilateral cooperation. we've seen that in the scramble for masks, the us trying to get its hands on masks. in asia, germany, briefly stopping the export of masks, and this other scramble over supplies of reagents and swabs. so i think it's a broader point that during times of crisis there is a retreat to national interest and in undermining of international institutions. we've seen that with the eu, and there is a real question mark over the effect this crisis will have on the eu. they are squabbling over the issue of shared debt to battle the coronavirus, the so—called corona bonds. again, it's exposing these divisions, which were apparent during the eurozone crisis of a few years ago. so i think this need for shared responsibility is even greater now, but i think there's a real fight for survival, and i think it's

exposing the weaknesses of these institutions. isabel, your take on that. some people are calling this a g—zero wealth referendum on the failure of the g7, the g20. we've heard about the un security council. is this a world where we simply cannot organise effectively in a multilateral fashion? i think it's almost worse. it's almost an anti—matter situation at the moment. we had a 620 meeting after the coronavirus became a pandemic, and almost nothing came out of it. it was absolutely startling.

at the root of it is the trump administration's retreat, which we've discussed, and this toxic competition with china. competition with china is inevitable across a number of fronts. it existed in the 0bama administration, but there were large areas in the co—operation where it was beneficial to both sides and really flourished. i'm thinking particularly, for example, of climate change, where the 0bama administration and xi jinping reached a productive agreement. but i can't see this changing until the us election, and that will depend on the results of the us election. until then, europe is providing some leadership on some things, at least individual voices are.

in europe we have merkel at the end of her time, we have macron who hasn't quite made it as a substitute, hard as he is trying. we have britain in a state of political vacuum, still. so it's very difficult to see where it's coming from, where constructive leadership would come from at this point, and into a vacuum of course all sorts of negative forces rush. we have screening propaganda aimed at domestic constituencies coming from all sorts of places, particularly, again, the us and china and, in the middle of this, toxic disinformation and bad actors who simply paralysed the political process, so it's not a great situation right now.

let's spend a couple of minutes dealing directly with the sniping between the us and china. the pandemic almost turned into a proxy for this great power struggle. lyse, when the rest of the world looks at the constant sniping between beijing and washington, do they see a system superiority on either side as president trump or president xi might like them to see? or do they see, as in the words of william shakespeare, a plague on both your houses? we've already mentioned most nations, most individuals are looking inwards now, thinking about their family, their society, their own country, how to get enough masks and ventilators. the reckoning will come. it's not the moment now, when the crisis hasn't even peaked, but the reckoning will come. what we've seen in crises in the past is that often crises tend to affirm people's beliefs

that they held going into the crisis rather than changing them dramatically. would this have been on such a scale, permeating all aspects of our lives and relationships, that it would give us a jolt to think about it differently? but already there's discussion about who will be able to seize the moral high ground. which was the country which looked beyond its borders? what isabel mentioned about the vacuum, we have a little surge of power coming out of the engine room of world powers, with president macron on friday saying he spoke to president putin and that he spoke to president trump and borisjohnson, and they will have another meeting of the un security council, a virtual meeting of the five permanent members, to discuss a global ceasefire. people will say, who stood up for others? who helped out with masks and protective equipment when we really needed them? and people are saying, well, there's a lot of scrutiny now about using these unprecedented powers, both in terms of technology and our telephones and tracking et cetera. will that end quickly in some democracies? will some leaders say,

when will we end this? we saw viktor 0rban in hungary taking unlimited powers for himself. there are others saying, look at president macron. he imposed one of the strictest lockdowns. who is he to criticise others? there are big questions, people are going to exploit this moment to start finger—pointing. but let's hope there's less of it than people joining hands together to work together. isabel, take us back to the chinese situation. they are obviously slightly ahead of the curve in terms of their experience of the worst of the pandemic and coming out the other end. it's obviously hard to get a sense of where the chinese public stand, given they live under an authoritarian system which doesn't believe in freedom of information, but insofar as you can judge, where do you think their mentality is going to end up on whether it affirms commitment to their system or sends a doubt about their system?

well, as you rightly say, carrie, it's hard to be definitive, about chinese public opinoin, partly because it is 1.3, 1.4 billion people, but because we don't have access to it in the way we do in other countries. but there was a little window in late january around the death of that doctor, if you remember, the ophthalmologist in wuhan who had raised the alarm and had been rebuked by the police and publicly humiliated. he died and there was a huge outpouring of national feeling. around that time, chinese censorship seemed to falter. it's normally quite a strict system, but it seems a little off balance, not quite sure what to suppress, what not to suppress, it didn't know what it was allowed, and we got a kind of window of two or three weeks where the strength of feeling was pretty impressive and the range of accusations against the authorities was pretty broad. now that's been shut down,

but my sense is that these memories will linger, and one of the reasons that we are seeing this very crude and virulent chinese propaganda, like fake videos of italians singing the chinese national anthem and that sort of thing, that's not having a very good impression abroad, but it's really aimed at the domestic market, and the message that the regime is trying to convey to its own public is that china is being admired and loved in the rest of the world because the chinese government has dealt effectively with the pandemic, and it's trying to suppress all memory of the first month, five weeks, when lamentably the chinese government did not act and allowed the epidemic to get out of control. those two narratives

are going to be in competition and will remain in competition, i think, long after this is over. one of the negative results of the us—china situation right now is that it is not going to help us get to the truth of the origin of the pandemic, which we all need to know, in order that it does not happen again, or that we reduce the chances of it happening again, and indeed in these circumstances i think that is going to be very difficult. stephanie, just a last word from you on this kind of systems perception between the us and china in relation to the sniping that you talked about originally. 0bviously, unlike china, the american citizens do get to vote with their feet in november. where are they currently? well, look, the federal government has shown its weaknesses

in responding to this, and what you've seen is individual states and their governors stepping in to fill the void and the vacuum that has been left by trump's mishandling and denial thing of the crisis. i think in many ways, it will... obviously this is going to have an effect on the november presidential election, and that is what is paramount in trump's mind — behind every decision he takes is all about getting the economy going again so that by the time november comes around, he is in a position, better position to get re—elected. but i think, ultimately, this strengthens — this crisis has strengthened the arguments of the democrats who have argued for things like medicare for all, and i think it's really exposed the weaknesses of the rhetoric that we've experienced over the past few decades about small government, low taxes, and revealed how important it is to have effective, well—funded governments to be able

to manage a crisis like this, which we don't have. so, i don't think — neither china, northe us has handled this crisis very well, and the thing that worries me going forward is if we find a vaccine, which i think we will, if there is a collapse in multilateral institutions in this competition between the us and china, who gets the vaccine first? and there's going to be a fight and a scramble over that, and i think that will get very serious. 0k. well, let's suspend discussion of the virus just for a couple of minutes, and look, as we do now on a weekly basis, at the stories that we are neglecting. lyse, take us to your story we would be talking about at length were we not talking about the virus. well, i've been keeping an eye on a story i always keep an eye on, which is what is happening

in afghanistan, which is of course the unfinished business of the last time the world had a global moment, which was the september 11 attacks of 2001, and the united states and the afghan taliban signed an historic deal on february 29 to end america's longest war. well, by now, there should have been weeks of talks between the taliban and an afghan delegation. that has stalled, the taliban attacks are escalating. there were some exchanges of prisoners this week, far fewer than were expected under the us—taliban deal, but at least a few steps, but there's huge, huge worry about a nightmare scenario in afghanistan as they deal with a stalled peace process, taliban attacks escalating, political infighting in kabul over two rival presidents and then the threat looming of the coronavirus. that sounds challenging. isabel, what is your story of the week other than virus? well, the story of the week, i think, happened yesterday

in hong kong with the arrest of a number of veteran civil liberties people, including the lawyer, martin lee, who actually helped to draft to the basic law at the time of the handover, and jimmy lai, who is apple media's apple daily media tycoon. about 17 very senior peaceful civil protesters or civil rights campaigners who have been arrested, and this is a major escalation in hong kong, which followsjust a few days from the new leader, the new chinese representative in hong kong, advocating a return of the security legislation, which kicked off the whole protests in hong kong over the last 12 months. so under cover of our inattention, china really has moved to dismantle the basic law and take out from the scene a number of people

who have exemplified, i guess, hong kong's responsible use of liberty, people like martin lee, really, to see him under arrest is a shock. and, stephanie, a quick, if you can keep it fairly brief, your story of the week. yeah, well, obviously, ijust think the us presidential election has been pushed to the back pages because of the coronavirus crisis. it would be dominating news right now — bernie sanders endorsed joe biden this week, and you see the democrats are now completely unified behind biden. it is going to be the most important election, it will determine a lot of the issues that we've been discussing today in terms of the us's role in global leadership and the reinforcement of multilateral institutions. well, we've only got a couple of minutes left. what i hope to do is just talk briefly around all of you about the economics of all of this, because it is a dimension in all of the stories that you've mentioned, and it is a huge dimension

of the virus story. the imf, lyse, now talking about the biggest global contraction since the great depression of the 1930s. huge applications for everyone, and most of all, the poor. this is the virus, which is said not to discriminate, it hits everyone from prime ministers to the people who clean the streets. but it has shone the harshest of lights on the gross inequalities in our society, so it's the workers who basically live from hand to mouth, the day workers who are thrown out of work now, many of them in societies which have no blanket, no buffer to give them money to hold them over. there's been a lot of attention to migrant workers across the middle east, including the gulf, millions of them are either being quarantined in places where they're to get the virus, even contract the virus more, or they've been told to stay at home and are not getting paid. there's some emphasis

now in the media, like, when are we going to get out of the lockdown? when are we going to get back to life as normal? well, normal wasn't working for so many people around the world. the next big story is going to be the recovery. who's going to get those eye—watering sums for the bailout? and what about those who had nothing to begin with? having less than nothing is hard to contemplate. but it is going to be savage. unless many are saying let us use this opportunity to try to reorder the world as we know it so that the inequalities, we can somehow close the gaps. it's a huge ask, but on the other hand, we're living in an unprecedented time. stephanie, coming back to points you've been making during the course of the programme, an opportunity to close inequalities in the us, a presidential election coming up. sure. i mean, i do think people... the scale of the economic devastation hasn't quite sunk in yet, and to echo what lyse said, that this assumption that

we'll get back to normal, that we'll have this v—shaped economic recovery once the pandemic, once the virus is contained, but i think this will have lasting effects on people's behaviour. i think there'll be a fear of going out, a fear of spending in restaurants, fear of getting infected again, i think savings rates will rise because of people's fears for the future, and i think what you're going to see is a broad depression in terms of lack of demand to get the economy moving again. the numbers this week of china reporting... and, stephanie, i'm just going to give isabel a last thought on china on precisely that, because we're literally in our last minute of the programme. isabel, china posting its first contraction quarterly in modern history since the death of chairman mao — a big challenge. a very big challenge. what i think we won't see is the repetition of the financial crisis stimulus, because that's left

a legacy of debt, which is still a drag on the chinese economy. what one would hope to see is china accelerating its transition to green and low carbon. this is a hugejob creation opportunity and it's a huge opportunity for china to accelerate a transition that it was struggling to make. so, china could really exert leadership there if it holds to that course. we shall see. isabel, stephanie, lyse, i so wish we had longer, but that is it for this week. thank you all so much forjoining us. and thank you for watching. we will be back same place, same time next week. goodbye.

hello. although monday gets off to a fairly chilly start, temperatures are going to rebound. garden time by the afternoon. quite pleasant with plenty of sunshine out there, although you'll need to take some shelter from a brisk easterly breeze. and there is a lot of fine, dry weather to come this week. high pressure centred close to scandinavia — its influence being felt across the british isles, blocking any weather systems from coming our way. and these are your starting numbers for monday morning, then. most of us above freezing, but there will be a frost again across parts of highland scotland, but again, those temperatures are going to rebound. and while most are sunny, there is a bit more cloud around the channel islands, perhaps parts of cornwall, the isles of scilly, a shower can't be ruled out but most places will stay dry. this is a brisk easterly wind, though, especially in england and wales, average speeds gust 30—40mph, and it's coming in from quite a chilly north sea at this time of year, where temperatures are around 7—9 degrees. so the air is cooled closer

to that temperature, and you'll notice that right along north sea coasts if you are outside here, we're around 10—14 degrees, whereas elsewhere, although there's still a breeze to notice, temperatures will be rising mid—to—high teens and close to 20 degrees celsius in the warm spots here. now, as we go on through monday night, that breeze stays with us. we're mainly clear, that will prevent much of the uk from seeing a frost again. a frost is possible across parts of scotland. and the rain and showers mayjust pep up towards the channel islands, parts of cornwall, south devon and into to the isles of scilly. uncertainty about who gets what but the potential is there for something wet, anyway, overnight into first thing on tuesday. and then on tuesday, it's for most of us another day of sunshine with an easterly wind and those temperatures contrasting between the north sea coasts and those elsewhere that could see temperatures rising close to 20 degrees celsius. taking a look at the big picture wednesday into thursday. the isobars open up, the winds turn lighter and it looks to be turning warmer as well.

in fact, by thursday, some spots will be around the mid—20s. friday into the weekend, temperatures start to come down a few degrees. more cloud around, there is a chance of seeing some showers. but until then, it's another dry april week to come with plenty of sunshine — a brisk easterly breeze, especially along north sea coasts.

this is bbc news. i'm simon pusey, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. president trump says testing for the coronavirus in the us is expanding rapidly, as the death toll rises to over 40,000. the uk hospital death toll passes 16,000, as healthcare staff call for more equipment to protect them against coronavirus. we look at the different solutions to different covid—19 problems, with our correspondents around the world. this how blood from coronavirus survivors could be used in a new treatment for those infected. one other main headline: a guman in a rural canada kills at least 16 people — he was later found dead.