the headlines: in spain, six million children have been allowed outside for the first time since the middle of last month. under ms can now have an hour a day outdoors, accompanied by an adult. the coronavirus has killed more than 23,000 people in spain. italy, which has recorded more coronavirus deaths than any other european country, is to begin easing lockdown measures. the prime minister, giuseppe conte, said restaurants and bars will be allowed to serve takeaway food from may 4. parks will also reopen, but schools are to remain closed until september. the saudi—led coalition in yemen has rejected a declaration by separatists of self—rule in the south. a statement on the official saudi news agency said all parties needed to return to the previous status quo. here, the government

is rejecting calls to relax its lockdown, saying the outbreak remains at a "delicate and dangerous" stage. the total number of uk dead now stands at 20,732, not including deaths in care homes or the community in england and northern ireland. it comes as prime minister boris johnson returns to downing street after two weeks of convalescence. 0ur political correspondent iain watson is at westminster. he's going to be chairing some of the meetings, which he couldn't do during this convalescence, his time in hospital, crucial meetings that discuss where britain may be going next in terms of the lockdown and how it may in future ease restrictions. so straightaway, around 9:00 tomorrow morning he is going to meeting senior cabinet ministers and the chief medical officer, the chief scientific advisor. this is what's sometimes called the war cabinet, others call it the covid—i9 meetings, the official name. they will be undoubtedly talking about some of the issues that dominic raab,

his defacto deputy, has had to grapple with in recent weeks. there's a lot of pressure from conservative mps, for example, to ease the lockdown. the chairman of the 1922 backbench committee of mps was telling bbc radio this evening that he felt some restrictions were illogical and needed to be eased. so the prime minister has to take on that pressure, but i think given his authority, he can perhaps make a more convincing case that there is not a dilamma, a dichotomy, between the health of the nation on one hand and the health of the economy on the other. and that's the key message i think that he wants to get across. so to some extent i don't think he'll resists pressure to ease restrictions, but he will want to ease those restrictions very gently, in a very incremental way. and, given some of the pent—up worries that some of his own mps have, never mind the wider public about the effect of the economy, it may well take his authority in downing street, to be able

to manage what will be a very difficult process with competing pressures. but i'm told the one thing he does not want to do is to do anything that might risk a second wave of infections. plenty more of that on the bbc news website. now, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. italy is the european country hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. it took a virulent hold in northern italy in february and now the national death toll stands at more than 25,000. italy's healthcare system has been stretched to the very limit and the social and economic consequences, well, they threaten to blight the country for years to come.

maybe the rapid spread of covid—i9 in lombardy was something to do with the ageing population or the italian way of intergenerational contact but first, the government tried to isolate the worst—affected areas from the rest of the country. it wasn't until thousands of people had been infected that prime minister giuseppe conte announced a nationwide lockdown on march 9. vibrant, noisy italy was plunged into fearful silence.

except in the hospitals, which were filled to overflowing with the victims of this cruel virus. mostly the elderly and the vulnerable. the death toll exceeded 10,000 before march was out. with intensive care units full, doctors had to make desperate decisions about who to prioritise for treatment. all the while, the healthcare workers themselves were in grave danger. in one of the worst—hit towns, bergamo, staff at the papa giovanni hospital warned the authorities their facility had become highly contaminated and was now a major source of new infection. one of its intensive care doctors is lorenzo grazioli who spoke to me from the hospital. i tell you that the hospital, the nurses, doctors, technicians, whoever, answer

like a concert opera house. nobody, itell you — nobody stepped down from it. did you ever come close to despair? to losing a sense of hope and maybe even motivation? well, motivation is one of the things you have not to lose. otherwise, in this situation, you will be defeated by circumstances. there will be, in the future, when all these things will finish, there will be time to reflect. now is not the time. now we have to fight. italy's coronavirus problem has now plateaued. the government has taken the first small step to ease the draconian lockdown. but enormous damage has been done. the country's weaknesses have been exposed. a debt—ridden inefficient

economy now faces a prolonged recession, and in the midst of economic vulnerability, there are fears of a resurgence of italy's age—old scourge, organised crime, the mafia. one of those sounding the alarm is the veteran mayor of palermo in sicily, leoluca 0rlando.

italy sits at the heart of europe, but it looks much more vulnerable than many of its neighbours. are the country's leaders capable of meeting this once—in—a—lifetime challenge? minister vincenzo amendola, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. italy is going through a tragedy and your death toll as a result of coronavirus now stands at more than 25,000. you have clearly suffered more than other countries in europe. why do you think that is? we saw the pandemic,

the spreading in our country before the others, before the other european countries, and they followed us two weeks later than we started, at the end of february. until now, we are working a lot, the curve already is touching the plateau, is coming down, but of course, we are concerned about some regions still under pressure. we saw that it was necessary, solidarity, union among all countries, at a european level, and this solidarity meant, also, a system of co—ordination for all the action and all the distribution of medical equipment that is necessary to win this battle. so in order to go on, our country worked a lot, just because we were hit before, in order to help

all the others to go out of this time. minister, you talk about solidarity, and in a short while, we will talk about solidarity with the eu, but let us talk about domestic internal solidarity first. do you believe that your government still has the trust of your people, given the way you have handled this crisis? if i look at the polls in terms of support to the prime minister conte, they are positive. but we know that the reality at this moment after two months of lockdown and a lot of sacrifice that the italian people did, it needs not to be considered as the only elements in order to be safe, because now the stress of our government is to boost the economy, is to support the social cohesion and a lot of people who were obliged to stay home. social cohesion means to help

the most fragile sector of our society, means to help the country to be resilient in this hard time and to plan a second phase, that is the recovery. the recovery, the reopening is very complex, we have to take care of the health of the people first of all. at at the same moment, try to give to our society the way to go out from the sacrifice that they did in the last two months. on this question of trust and being straight with your people, isn't it time to actually talk of regret, of mistakes that were made, particularly allowing that football game to go ahead — atalanta versus valencia on february 19 and then party political leaders, indeed, your own party political leader, involved in a don't stop milan campaign, keeping the city open, which went on right until the very end of february when it was quite clear that a crisis was unfolding. it might be better for your relationship with the people

to say "we got this wrong." i would like to say that many, many political leaders made mistakes, notjust in terms of leaders from the government party, but also the opposition, and most of them, they regret because in the beginning it was not understood, the powerful meaning of this spreading. many prime ministers around europe, they regret many delays in action. so the initial part of this spreading was not understood very well by many countries and by many political leaders, in the government, in the opposition. so it is not a question just to regret, but the issue that we were confronting ourselves with something unprecedented, in the history of our continent and especially on a global level. i understand that point. it is fair for you to make that point, but nonetheless,

the corriere della sera newspaper has looked at it in a thorough investigation in the failurings of national and regional government to co—ordinate properly, and in particular, failures to deliver vital protective equipment to hospitals, vitalfailures when it came to understanding that many of your hospitals had become breeding grounds for the virus. do you think there are really important lessons that you must now learn about the weaknesses in your healthcare system? 0n the healthcare, if you speak about the medical equipment, means masks and ventilators, all over europe, because as you know the production and the chain related to this particular medical equipment, unfortunately, we had to organise as the eu immediately. italy set up a system of national production immediately and all european countries did it, because this was an unprecedented emergency

that we have to face. if you are speaking about the relation between the country, the government and the region, of course there was need for co—ordination because the health system is also under the leadership and management of the region. but this particular issue, of course, did not mean that there was lack of co—ordination. we should have worked, and we have worked side—by—side to try to avoid all the particular problems. in terms of the lockdown, a decision has been made to begin a slow process of easing the lockdown, i believe, on may 4. how nervous are you that that could bring a second wave, a new wave of spread of the virus? this is a huge point that we are working notjust on the national level, but also at the european level. we need to have an exit strategy as the european commission propose and we need to work together because we do not know, until we have

a vaccination available, how it is possible to completely defeat covid—i9. so the second phase, the reopening, could not be fast, should be slow and well—organised and need some chain to reactivate it and industry and manufacture companies that start to work, like some are already doing means they also need to reorganise in terms of security and health protection in their fields of work. so it is a slow process that we are going to deliver already in the next week because we have to be prepared far more in advance than may 4. you're europe minister, and the italian flag stands proudly beside the european flag in your office, but do you really think the european union gets it

when it comes to the scale of italy's problems right now? your economy is devastated. your industrial production number went down by more than i6% in march alone. you're facing a profound economic crisis now. you talk of solidarity with europe, but do you see any real signs of eu solidarity and understanding? i see it, i have to be honest. i saw notjust in the apology that ursula von der leyen and charles michel, the president of the european council, did it. because, at the first part of the spreading of the covid—i9, there was not, let's say, a clear action towards italy. but then something moved. european commission, they took an initiative in terms of economic help. the european central bank intervened in order to support the resilience of

the italian economy. your former prime minister enrico letta, he — a couple of weeks ago he said that he worried that the european union was showing signs of the trump virus, that it was a question of germany first, belgium first, netherlands first, rather than true community, united spirit. many italians today still believe that is true. many italians, of course, when they saw this tough period that we were going on, of course, they were asking for more europe — a europe intervention. and i think that i know that this feeling of dissatisfaction is coming also from the fear of some adventure that europe did in the past. we still have in mind the last economical crisis that we lived, ten years ago, while europe didn't react immediately. i think that european commission, european central

bank and european council took decisions in four weeks that probably in the past we spent four years to wait on. so what we are having now is a more common and co—ordinated response that is helpful, because we think that no country can manage alone, because we have not the financial crisis on the stock exchange. what we have now is a crisis of the genuine value of the real economy, in terms of distributing, in terms of exports, that is linking all the 27 countries. indeed, minister. i understand you're trying to put a positive spin on it, compared with some of your italian colleagues. but nonetheless, the reality is that your prime minister, mr conte, has insisted that in the end there must be debt sharing, through the form of some sort of so—called corona bonds. that is that the entire eu, including the richest countries, like germany, should take on, assume, some of the debt burden that now sits on countries like

italy. the germans have repeatedly said no, and they didn't say yes even in the summit yesterday. so why are you being so positive? no, this is not a correct, let's say, report from the meeting of yesterday. i'm not positive because i'm europe—timistic. let's say i have a realistic approach to what we are living and what we have to do. and yesterday we agreed on some big steps forward, three fiscal tools that were already, let's say, agreed yesterday in terms of delivering before ijune. maybe, minister, italians look at the story of greece over the last few years, and they see that in the future, italy's existence in the eu is going to be very, very miserable. because, however you look at it, your national debt as a result of what has happened in the recent months is going to spiral way beyond the 2.5 trillion euros

it stands at. your national debt is going to be 180% of your national income very soon. that's what the experts say. and, as long as that is the case, your future in the eurozone is going to be miserable. i think your prediction is quite miserable, in the sense that what we saw from the history of greece and the last crisis that we lived was a big lesson that we learned as europeans. indeed, for this reason, between march and now we took many more decisions than were taken ten years ago, just in four years. so many recovery work was done also in terms of unity. of course, there are 27 national interests, and they have to find a compromise. but we know that, for this particular crisis, we have to be united. you keep telling me about solidarity, and you're giving me the technical reasons

why you believe the eu is doing what is necessary for italy. but look at the public opinion. look at the public opinions, minister. in your country, i'm looking at a couple of polls. 0ne survey — 59% of italian said the eu no longer makes sense. in another poll, italians describe china as a better friend of the country than germany. this is the reality of your politics today. italians have fallen out of love with the eu, and your political opponents on the right in italy are making huge political capital right now. i know, but i'm not speaking about another reality. i know. i have concern about this feeling about european union. but, as a politician, we have to look at the reality and to have a vision. our country, like each european country, without this alliance alone, in front of a global pandemic like this, pushing a huge risk to all the sectors of the society, can be lost. unity in european union, now, this means also defending

the national interest. i know that it's not at this particular moment, because there is fear, there is rage — could be something not so popular. but, in the mid and long—term, it's the only way to defend the national interest. well, you must be a great optimist, because you know better than me that your government is fragile. you represent a centre—left party, but you also know that the league party on the right, led by mr salvini, is many points ahead of your party and the other coalition parties in the opinion polls. if there is to be an italian election in the coming months, it looks very likely that the league and its other allies on the extreme right will take control in italy. that, to many europeans, is a source of real concern. my big concern nowadays is to protect the country from the pandemic that it's living, to protect the country

and the people, that they are making sacrifices, and to start the recovery. then we are going to discuss about political future, political options, and so on. nowadays, our concern is another. i know that many people like about prediction for the next election, but this is not the main concern that they have. but my point is about powerful messaging. when salvini, mr salvini, said this just a couple of weeks ago, first we are going to defeat the virus, then, he said, we are going to have a big rethink on europe, and if it helps, we will say goodbye to the eu without even a thank you, that's the message that's getting through to many italians. this is a clear political message. i mean, there are options. there are people who support european union alliance in order to change it, to strengthen it, to make it more resilient, to update it, because we see that the risk and the opportunities that we are living nowadays on the global level

are changing. some others, they think, like it happened also in the uk, that going out from the alliance is a better choice. one final thought, and i've been speaking to the mayor of palermo, leoluca 0rlando. he's been in that position for many years. he says that, such is the economic hardship as a result of this coronavirus in sicily, he worries that the organised criminals, the mafia, are going to make a big comeback. he says a den of mafia jackals is now ready to exploit the new poor. there is a great risk here of an alliance cemented by despair. how can your government ensure that doesn't happen? ah, we're working on it. we're working together with the judges that are on the frontline to fight against the mafia. this is a concern that we are really aware of. leoluca 0rlando is right,

and we are working, because all the measures that we are having now, in terms of support, also the people, the companies, the entrepreneurs, means that of course they have to be channelled in the correct way, and never, ever take the risk to some infiltration of the illegal organisations. so this is a concern that is really aware for us, for the system of — the bank system, for all the government that is involved in this social protection action that is in place. we've talked about the health crisis. we've talked about the economic crisis. how long, in your view, is it going to take italy to recover from what has happened? in terms of, of course, defeating the covid—i9, as we know on the global level, on the world health organization is mentioning, we are going to defeat this. this is when there will be the vaccination.

the european union has also a line of budget spending now in order to boost the research against the vaccination. there are many companies, networks of researchers, that are working all over europe. so the first point that we have in the agenda is to defeat, with the vaccination, all the risk. in terms of economical recovery, in terms of social cohesion, we are working, we are side—by—side, all the 27. because faster — stronger is the solidarity, faster will be also the resilience and the recovery of the internal market union, the competitiveness of european union in front of the world, and also the capability of our industry and chain of value, to recover in terms of exports. so we know that we have to make it work, that we belong. european commission, central bank, they are with us, and now the 27 are moving altogether. minister amendola,

i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. it was a pleasure. thank you very much. hello there. we've had weeks of sunshine and dry weather, thanks to high pressure, but that's all about to change. this upcoming week is looking more unsettled, thanks to low pressure. it's going to feel different. it's going to feel cooler than it has done of late. the temperatures returning closer to the seasonal norm, and we'll see a fair amount of rain at times, too, particularly across the south of the country. for monday, we've got low pressure in charge. 0ne weather front bringing a lot of cloud to england and wales, the other side of the weather front bringing further showers and cloud to the north of scotland.

further south, we should see some sunshine — northern ireland, southern scotland, the far north of england. you could see some sunshine breaking out as well across the south—east into the afternoon. there will be quite a bit of cloud elsewhere, and one or two showers or longer spells of rain. a cooler day for all, certainly for england and wales, where we could still make 19 or 20 degrees in one or two places in the south—east of england. but with cool air, more cloud around, a few showers, the tree pollen levels will be lower on monday, so generally for most of us around moderate. now, as we head to monday night, we'll hold onto the showers across the north. some clear spells, but notice rain popping up across the south, as a new area of low pressure moves northwards to southern england and wales, and that rain will be heavy and persistent. but, with all the cloud around, temperatures shouldn't fall much below nine or ten degrees here. but a cold night to come again across the north, a touch of frost in some of the scottish glens. here's the picture for tuesday, then. this area of low pressure will be more significant. it's going to bring some persistent, at times heavy rain across the southern half of the country, whereas further north should be a little bit drier, brighter at times. maybe just one or two showers in the far north of scotland,

but most of the rain will be across england and wales, particularly central and southern areas. it will be heavy and persistent in places. could brighten up later in the day across the extreme south, but that might set off the odd heavy shower. temperature—wise, the low to mid teens celsius, so feeling cooler, certainly, where you have that rain. as we move on into wednesday, there's a legacy of cloud across the country from tuesday's low. you could see a little bit of brightness in places, but then the next frontal system will push up from the south to bring stronger winds and some heavier rain to wales, the south—west of england, and in towards the midlands through the afternoon. but it could brighten up later in the day across the extreme south—west. again, the temperatures reaching highs into the mid teens celsius. it stays pretty unsettled to end the week. there'll be further cloud with a few showers on thursday and friday.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm sally bundock. italy's prime minister sets out plans for a staged easing of his country's coronavirus lockdown. after recovering from coronavirus, borisjohnson will chair his first meeting at downing street this morning following a 3—week absence. a million australians register for a contact tracing app, but critics question the technology. and home at last: the group of stranded dutch schoolchildren who sailed home from cuba after the pandemic struck.