thickening up to give a little light rain or drizzle. pretty mild here, elsewhere i think it's going to be a cool but probably frost free night. i think it will probably dry off through today in the south—west of england and wales but stay quite cloudy. some of the cloud affecting south—east england. quickly, we'll see showers developing in northern scotland, a few arriving in northern ireland, northern england, and then this time eventually across the midlands towards east anglia as well. those showers could be heavy and possibly thundery. and on the whole, it will be a bit cooler than today although still 18 degrees in the brighter skies in the south—east. into the beginning of next week, may be some showers on monday for eastern parts of england but some wetter weather coming into the more southern parts of england and wales on tuesday and some stronger winds. now on bbc news... as the coronavirus continues to claim lives around the world, global questions invites its international audience to put their questions to a panel of experts on the impact the pandemic has had on china, its economy and its relationship with the rest of the world.

hello, i'm zeinab badawi. welcome to the latest in the special series of global questions from london. people in governments everywhere are trying to cope with the death and destruction unleashed by the coronavirus crisis. here in the uk we are still in lockdown and as economies take a hammering, people are asking, how did we get into this dire situation in the first place, with many pointing the finger of blame at china. is that fair? that is the topic of this global questions — coronavirus crisis focus on china.

well, we are now in the headquarters of the bbc here in central london and because of lockdown, we have to bring you our audience members who will be posing questions from all over the world, as well as our two panellists all via video link. so let me tell you who is in the hot seat this week. we've got guests from washington and beijing and from washington, stephen moore is a long—term adviser to donald trump and is now a member of the president's economic recovery task force set up in the wake of covid—19. he's a senior contributor to the conservative advocacy group freedom works and is a writer and regular tv commentator. and from beijing is victor gao, he is a former chinese diplomat and is now vice president of the centre for china and globalisation, which is one of the most influential think tanks in china. he is also a regular commentator on the media. that's our panel, welcome to you both and to our questions. i'm going to give you a round of applause here. remember, you too can join the conversations. it's #bbcglobalquestions.

and now without further ado, let's go to our first question and it is from new delhi in india. fire away please, your question? wildlife markets, neighbourhood wet markets and worldwide industrial farms have been breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases like the covid—19. is it time for us to reboot and rethink consumption habits? all right, victor gao, that's one to you because we've had a lot of criticisms about the wet markets in china, isn't it time for the world to stop this? the traditional wet markets are very much part of the lifestyle of the people in many countries, including china. i would say many items traded in the wet markets are perfectly fine. there are very restricted items including exotic animals which should be completely banned. and i think starting in january this year,

the chinese government has tightened the ban on the trade, hunting, buying and selling and consumption of many wildlife. and i think this is absolutely the right thing to do. it should be introduced throughout china and gradually, i hope, such wet markets will be very much reduced. this is very important for public health and whatever that will remain of a wet market, need to improve the hygiene conditions and people who visit these markets should abide by strict rules. good enough for you stephen moore in washington? hi, everyone. yes, i agree with victor, i agree with everything he just said. i think there is a real global health issue with the wet markets and i think they need to be either highly regulated or preferably shut down, because of the spread of disease globally. let's go to sheffield in the united kingdom, conner marriot, your question please?

my question is, would the outbreak have been handled any differently had the chinese communist party valued human life? victor, quite a stern question for you there from sheffield. i thank you for your question. as a matter of fact, if you look at the facts, ever since the outbreak of the epidemic, which we now call pandemic, the chinese government has spared i'io resources in fighting against the covid—19 and in saving as many lives as possible. as has been reported, several people above the age of 100 have been saved. lots of people in their 80s and in their 90s have been saved. if we can save any life, whatever difficulties there may be and whatever hardships there may be, we need to overcome all the medical difficulties to save lives. that is the reason why the death rate in the

outbreak is very, very low compared with many other countries. saving lives is the most important thing in the fight against coronavirus. it is about 5000 dead in china as opposed to 60,000 in the united states. how would you answer this, stephen moore? i think china has acted irresponsibly since the start of the coronavirus. the fact they kept secrets, the severity of the coronavirus, has cost many tens of thousands of lives. it has cost the us economy trillions of dollars of lost gdp and i think the chinese government in beijing needs to be held accountable. victor we have had that sentiment echoed on social media, we have had so many people saying, would the coronavirus pandemic threaten and weaken democracies and strengthen authoritarian regimes like china?

when will they be transparent? we need more openness on china and why doesn't the government admit they tried to hide covid—i9 in the beginning? what do you say to criticisms like that and what stephen moore hasjust said?|j disagree with the allegations made. let me put it on the record. ever since the discovery of this very strange pneumonia, at the time it was called, on december the 27th 2019, china moved into action and as early as december the 31st 2019, the chinese government contacted the who to report on this very strange phenomenon. and throughout the first week ofjanuary, china scrambled to do massive amount of research to try to get to the bottom of this very strange virus. china was as eager as any other country to come up with the exact nature of this coronavirus. ok, no cover up, stephen moore? i think that is

propaganda and i think the world will hold china accountable. in the united states there is talk about reparation payments china will have to make to the united states. many countries, including the us, will reconsider how reliable china is in the global supply chain. and again, it is almost worse now that china will not fess up to the damage they have called to the world economy. i have many say what victor has been saying and it is false, they did not allow journalists to report what was going on, they did not allow doctors to report the severity of this illness. it is doubly concerning to me that china will not come clean and admit what they did. all right, clear disagreement there from both of you. let's go to our next question, from sweden. good afternoon, everybody. would china accept an independent

visit to wuhan from the who to conduct a full assessment of the origin of the virus and if necessary, abide by their recommendations on health and safety in order to minimise the risk of a future pandemic? victor, this is something we've heard, china did not and has not provided the original, original samples of the virus do the who, the world health organization, why not? it is false. in january 2020, china invited the who delegation, which included two experts from the united states. they visited beijing and wuhan and they visited the patients in hospitals. the director—general of the who visited china met with the chinese president, xi jinping and china has never stopped communicating with the who and new member states of the who has the full knowledge and benefit

of china's communication with the who. can i just stop you there, for just a minute, the question was to conduct a full assessment of the origin of the virus. have you allowed the world health organization team to do that and given them access to the original samples of the virus? listen to this, we know the state of california is doing autopsies as we speak, because they realised some of the deaths originally diagnosed as deaths caused by the flu last season was actually caused by the coronavirus. the state of new york is doing autopsies, i think we need to give the scientists that time and the freedom to continue their tests. and, there are many, many indications that the coronavirus problem existed in the united states as early as in january 2020, if not in december 2019. therefore we

should avoid jumping to conclusions, let's give the scientists the time to do their research. this issue needs to be resolved by the scientific community, rather than politicising this and rather than shifting blame from one country to another. the united states need to do their ownjob in saving people, rather than being divided and blaming china for the deaths and the infections of the coronavirus. the united states wasted the complete month of february and much of march without doing much to prepare for the coronavirus. this is the issue. i think if any investigations need to be done, this is the investigation. all right, stephen moore, a lot of accusations being levelled at the united states from victor. you need to give him a full answer. look, i think we do need to

find out exact origins of this i'm not sure if the world health organization is the institution to do that. donald trump has pulled the united states out of the who and the funding. but we do need an investigation of what happened, china has to open up their information so we can prevent another pandemic of this and we can prevent a recurrence of the coronavirus. yes, but victor also said there is a lot of pointing the finger of blame at china and he is saying that is not very helpful. and your president has really been one of the main people doing that, you know, talking about the chinese virus and whether speculating it originated in some laboratory in wuhan. all those comments really helpful? we don't know right now whether china's sins where omission or commission. that is to say there is an investigation in the united

states as to whether china intentionally misled the world by coronavirus. i don't think it is that, i think it is incompetence by the chinese government, but it has cost lives. notjust in the united states, but around the world. i am disturbed to hear victor apologise for the chinese government. i think that makes the situation worse, they should confess to what they did and come clean and how we can prevent this global pandemic from happening again. stephen moore, you say you don't go with the conspiracy theorist, but can i ask you directly, as a member of president trump's economic recovery task force, his more extravagant claims, he is saying if he loses the election in november, he will blame china. do you support those interventions by him or are they unwise? i think we should not make accusations that we don't have evidence of. but i think it is

certainly true, the united states economy was booming before coronavirus. we are all frustrated, notjust in the us but in europe, that this virus was allowed to infiltrate so many countries. we know that italy got the disease from chinese coming into italy. we just want to prevent this from happening again because it has wrecked the world economy and has set us back, hopefully for only six months, but potentially a year or two of lost living standards for people around the world. our next question, we go all the way to the capital of sri lanka for our next question. i just wanted to know, can china reassure the world that there won't be another catastrophe like this after the existing covid—i9 crisis? victor, you are in the hot seat,

what is your answer? this is a very good question. but let me remind all of us, coronavirus is the common enemy of mankind. it doesn't attack one country versus another, for example. china is the first victim of this coronavirus attack. chinese economy, the first quarter of 2020 contracted for the first time in the last 41 years by 6.8%. the chinese economy was literally closed down in the latter part of january, the whole month of february and march. so you can see that chinese people endured a lot and make great sacrifices. i think stephen mentioned the confidence issue. if you look at different countries and how they dealt with the attacks by the coronavirus, china proved to be the very, very competent government in rallying people behind it and all kinds of lockdown downs and quarantines and managed to contain the spread of coronavirus. in the

process, china has gained a lot of experience and has cooperated with more than 100 countries in the world, as well as the who in sharing their experiences, in supplying ppe. china has shipped altogether, 1.8 billion protective masks to the united states alone. stephen moore, that is a point, on social media we have had some people saying shouldn't we applaud the contribution china has made since the pandemic has broken out? somebody else saying you know, china has worked very effectively in keeping its death rates down. actually, china should be applauded shouldn't it? just like china reports economic numbers, we just don't believe china's numbers when it comes to the number of deaths. just like we don't believe some of the growth numbers they put up. the most

important thing is how do we prevent this pandemic from happening again. we have got $100 trillion global economy. we should be spending money and resources to make sure all countries, china, united states and european nations, to make sure we are capable of dealing with these viruses and preventing them so that we don't see the trillions, it could be tens of trillions of dollars of global output that has been sacrificed and many lives, notjust loss from the virus, but from the economic deprivation that's happened because of the lockdown of so many economies around the world. 0k, let's go to bulgaria for the next question. hello. my question is the following, is china supporting any countries that are currently at risk from the coronavirus? victor, what are you doing? absolutely, china has

been supporting more than 100 countries in the world in supplying ppe, ventilators, masks and all kinds of protective gear and also sending out special medical teams composed of ten, 12, 16 doctors and experts. this has been very, very useful. and such cooperation is necessary, we need to rally behind the who and this is the reason why i say president donald trump needs to rescind his decision and continue to support the who. the who is the most crucial link right now in the international effort to get coronavirus. stephen moore, let's first of all get your response on the fact that china clearly is doing a great deal, helping 100 countries

and you shouldn't sever your ties with the who? the most important thing obviously right now is finding a treatment for coronavirus and finding a vaccine. the united states, as usual, is leading the way in both of those regards and it looks like we are making great, great progress in having a treatment which will change everything and save potentially hundreds and thousands of lives throughout the world. the world health organization has proven itself to be incredibly incompetent throughout the coronavirus. it has shown to be an apologist for china and the united states will not re—enter and fund the who until there are major, major reforms. the who, of course, refutes that kind of you from washington and says it also only has the mandate with which it is invested by all the

member countries. i want to ask you stephen, we are getting questions from social media along this theme, someone asks will there be any kind of sanctions against china for having hidden the outbreak and delaying to warn the world about it which has taken so many lives and caused this global, economic crisis? victor, i know you don't agree with that question but nevertheless we have had a lot of people voicing that opinion, can we sue china, will there be any sanctions against china for causing this? stephen, is that the kind of thing the united states might want to pursue, compensation and suing action? there certainly will be. there will be sanctions, there will be requests for reparation payments from china to countries, certainly the united states but i think the europeans are also talking about this. it is important, we have lost a lot of lives and we have lost a lot of our global output as a result of this.

so there will be, and there is some talk about, china owns $1 trillion of us bonds. if china refuses to pay they may be some nonpayment of those bonds as a form of compensation. so reparation, as you have said, compensation of some kind, serving china and a quick response from you victor, say it to stephen directly. i listened to what you had to say but i disagree. for china, the first country to blow the whistle on coronavirus, to be punished? this will create all the disincentives, because in the future, if any country suffers a coronavirus attack, this country will have no incentive to scramble, to take action, to do the research, to come up with a genome sequencing to report to the who and the world because it will destroy all the incentives to do the right thing.

china did the right thing. let's go to mumbai in india now for our next question. thank you. my question is, considering the anti—china sentiment that is widespread, can china and the us imagine a world without china as the manufacturer leader? stephen moore, america needs china economically, doesn't it? sure, globalisation has been a great thing, it has liberated many, many hundreds of millions of people around the world, the china—us relationship in terms of trade has been mutually beneficial, and a ——no question about it. although we do believe that obviously china has stolen our technologies. we have had this big debate about china not

playing by the rules and we have a big problem with the ability from the united states to export goods to china. they have had things higher than ours and they have stolen ip. in november and december, the talks between china and the united states benefited from that. i would like to see a continued and strong trade relationship between the two countries. i will go to our next question from uganda in africa. what is your question? why has africa been targeted and how does this affect the china relationship over debt relief? there have been a lot of complaints from african

governments, the way africans have been thrown out into the streets in some parts of china, what is your response? first of all, china always treats african countries and people as brothers and sisters. personally, ideal with many african friends. i treat them as brothers and sisters. african people in china working, studying or living here are very well taken care of. however, in the middle of the coronavirus we need to mention that everyone needs to be treated equal, everyone needed to abide by the rules, especially lockdown rules, quarantine rules. because sometimes you do not know if you are carrying the virus. sometimes you may be asymptomatic, you are infected but nobody knows, your doctor sometimes do not know and you need to be tested. sometimes again, and again. but you cannot throw people out in the streets can you? africans, americans, japanese,

whoever is in china, they need to be treated equally in times of our fight against the coronavirus. our final question now and unfortunately we have lost our guest in washington, that is a problem with lines during lockdown. the question is from uzbekistan. will china be the next superpower after the covid-19 crisis? china is already the largest economy with purchasing power parity. in china we do not like the label of superpower, because in chinese, superpower actually carries the connotation of lecturing other countries, putting yourself above other countries and refusing to deal with other countries as equals. china always

deals with big countries and small countries as equal. i would say, by that definition, china does not want to be a superpower and china does not want to challenge the leadership of the united states. china can live perfectly well with the united states. thank you both forjoining us from washington and beijing. i hope that you found this particular edition of coronavirus is crisis china insightful and bringing you the thoughts of both the united states and china. if you want to submit a question and be part of the programme. . . from me, until the next time, goodbye. thank you.

we have seen more cloud across the north—east of scotland, showers here. we have an area of low pressure in the north sea. the rest of the weekend, a mixture of sunshine and showers, some sharp ones this evening affecting the north—east of england down to lincolnshire and norfolk and one or two showers affecting northern ireland as well. those will fade away overnight. we will see the clouds thickening up in the south—west of england and south wales, a bit of light rain here, should be mailed. elsewhere, it cool but probably frost—free night. tomorrow sees much more cloud than

today across south—west england and south wales. it should be turning drieragain, south wales. it should be turning drier again, some of the cloud of faith in the south—east of england. centring elsewhere, scherer is developing quickly and scolding, if you are northern ireland and northern england, even through the middle east was east anglia and again though showers possibly heavy and thundery. for many temperatures will be a shade lower but still making 18 degrees in the south—east of england. into the early part of next week, that weather front bringing the cloud in the south, the southwest weakens. high pressure builds down from the north—west. we have some showers overnight continuing into monday, may and easter england. especially across yorkshire and into east anglia. temperatures continuing to drop away, except across south wales and south—west england. it all changes again and the south—west on tuesday because pressure falls here, we will

find us whether front arriving, higher pressure elsewhere means it will be dry. a band of rain will be affecting the south—west of england, west country, south wales, whence will be stronger across england, wales and northern ireland —— winds. in those wednesday temperatures will be lower, it will feel colder as well. they ease them from mid week on, the back of the rain in the south—west. many places will be dry and with some sunshine and temperatures will be rising again.

good evening. ministers are studying proposals aimed at getting the economy restarted, including easing some measures of the lockdown. the prime minister will set out plans next week with the communities secretary today saying he appreciated the restrictive measures were difficult for everyone. he was speaking during today's press conference, during which he announced a package of measures to support those living under the threat of domestic violence, sexual abuse and modern slavery.