a very warm welcome to bbc news. my name's mike embley, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. clashes high in the himalayas, on the india—china border, leave 20 indian soldiers dead. after weeks of rising tension, both sides have deployed thousands of extra troops. a breakthrough for patients seriously ill with covid—19 — a steroid drug which is cheap and already widely available. the trump administration takes legal action to prevent the publication of a memoir by the president's former national security advisor, john bolton. we return to wuhan, the chinese city where the pandemic started, to see what lessons have been learned. china is determined that this place will not be remembered for a cover—up that put global health at risk, but rather

as the cornerstone of a great national victory. and the english premier league makes a return on wednesday, but what will it be like without the fans? it's the first deadly clash on the disputed himalayan border area in at least 45 years, this is bbc news, the headlines: between two nuclear—armed neighbours. chinese and indian troops have clashed along the disputed himalayan the indian army is saying 20 border between their countries — of its soldiers have been the most serious in several decades. killed by chinese troops in ladakh, in the kashmir region. the indian army said twenty of its soldiers were killed china has not confirmed any casualties. in the confrontation. this report from beijing acknowledged that it had also suffered casualties, the bbc‘s freya cole. but did not say how many. the world health organisation in the region of ladakh, has hailed the discovery indian military vehicles by scientists in the uk that a widely available steroid can make their presence known. dramatically lower the risk of death for the most seriously ill the territory has long—running covid—i9 patients. tensions with neighbouring the who called the research china and, in recent weeks, on the drug — dexamethasone — the fragile diplomatic ties a lifesaving scientific

have broken down, breakthrough. resulting in bloodshed. the trump administration is suing the former national security advisorjohn bolton we have reached a situation to block the release of a book where we were standing about his time in office. eyeball to eyeball and it has resulted in a scuffle the justice department said the memoir contained where we have lost classified information. our brave guards. mr bolton argues the president the clash between indian committed impeachable offences, and chinese soldiers which mr trump denies. occurred in the galwan valley, a treacherous and remote location in the disputed border between indian—administered location on the disputed border between indian—administered kashmir and the chinese ruled region of aksai chin. according to the indian army, three of its soldiers were killed on impact but, in a later statement it confirmed a further 17 indian troops were critically injured... china has not confirmed fatalities and both countries have blamed each other for the confrontation.

translation: we solemnly request that india follows the relevant attitude and restrains its frontline troops. do not cross the border, do not provoke trouble, do not take any unilateral action that would complicate the border situation. it is reported no bullets were fired but the soldiers came to blows using rocks and clubs. the last war was in 1962. india suffered a significant defeat. the painful memory runs deep. the latest clash has triggered another round of anti—chinese protests in india, in a dispute which has the potential to escalate with grave consequences. freya cole, bbc news. there's been a significant development on coronavirus. for the first time, a drug has been shown to reduce the risk of dying from covid—i9. a cheap and widely available steroid, dexamethasone,

has been found to help some of the most seriously ill patients. our medical correspondent fergus walsh reports. for those laid low by covid—i9, for the very sickest hospital patients, at last a drug that can tip the odds in their favour. 6,000 nhs covid patients were part of the trial and the results were so overwhelmingly positive, they were rushed out days after the study was completed. it found that dexamethasone saves one life for every eight patients on a ventilator and one life saved for every 25 patients on oxygen. if it had been used from the outset of the pandemic it's thought it could have saved 4,000—5,000 lives in the uk. catherine milbank from buckinghamshire spent 12 days on a ventilator with covid—i9.

she received dexamethasone after her husband, paul, gave consent over the phone for her to take part in the trial. when someone tells you that your wife's hanging on the edge of something that could go either way, and you know that there is current proven drugs that are already in the medical industry already that are prescribed to people, when you know that they are around and there's a chance it might help, you grab it. without trying these things... the researchers, us, no—one's going to get anywhere in finding out the right drugs to help the pandemic that's happening and still going on. as we're coming through it, i'm eternally grateful and will be for the rest of my life. dexamethasone has been around for decades. a steroid, it's widely used for arthritis, asthma, and other conditions. this is a genuine breakthrough in the treatment of covid—i9. dexamethasone, either in tablet or injectable form, is available in every

hospital pharmacy. the treatment costs around £5 on the nhs and will be even cheaper in developing countries. so this drug has the potential to save lives across the world. we've been on a huge search for treatments that actually will improve survival for patients with covid. this is the first drug. not only is this the first drug that improves survival but it is available worldwide immediately and is affordable. that's fantastic news for patients. the drug helps stop the immune system from overreacting to covid. it's not a cure, but it will help more of the sickest patients to overcome this disease. fergus walsh, bbc news. beijing is re—imposing restrictions in many parts of the city, in response to a new cluster of covid cases. questions are still being asked about china's early handling of the outbreak. the first case was in the city of wuhan, probably at the beginning of december last year. in total there were

nearly 4,000 deaths, at least 50,000 infections there. john sudworth has just returned from wuhan. for two months, time stood still in this city, as it endured one of the world's harshest lockdowns. now it seems a distant memory. interrupted lives have resumed again. but beneath the appearance of normality, the authorities are on edge. people we arranged to meet are followed by plain—clothes police. who block our car. why are they doing this? we're stopped from filming. we can't leave? and at this apartment block a group of officials keeps a careful eye on us. are we being detained?

during the lockdown, anger erupted here over how it was managed, with a national vice minister heckled on an official visit. "it's all fake," they shout. it was a sign of how the crisis shook the foundations of a system, one now firmly back in control. "no interviews," she's told. "people may say something they don't mean," this official says, explaining his concern about ourfilming. injanuary, wuhan‘s health service was the first to experience the onslaught. but despite evidence the disease was spreading, the public was given little warning. doctors were silenced by the police, and one of them, li wenliang, later died.

at a small shrine, an offering is made to a dead brother. ms wong, who doesn't want to use her full name, has been told by the police not to talk to the foreign media, but has chosen to ignore that warning. 44—year—old wong fai died in early february in the same hospital as dr li wenliang. "they should have warned the public in time," his sister tells me. "if they hadn't covered it up, my brother might be alive now." anyone asking similar questions too publicly is quickly silenced. for china there is now only one narrative that matters in wuhan — the undoubted success in eventually bringing the virus under control.

china is determined that this place will not be remembered for a cover—up that put global health at risk rather as a cornerstone of a national victory, one that demonstrates not the weakness of tight political control but its strengths. in wu han‘s political control but its strengths. in wuhan‘s night market, business is still slow but, by the crayfish stores, there is only patriotism and praise. chinese people united to control the epidemic, this man tells me, but you foreigners do not know how to protect yourselves. here is another difference. 0utside one of the hospitals, unless we have just interviewed, is

intercepted by the police and question. they are pulling her over. of course, if it brings you trouble, we will not use your interview. she causes later and asks us to delete the interview. it is harder to fight a virus in the face of public criticism and democratic debate. but without them, might china miss the signs of the next public health crisis as well? john sudworth in wuhan. in his next report he'll explore how the virus may have originated. let's get some of the day's other news: brazil has reported a record number of new coronavirus cases over the past twenty four hours — nearly thirty five thousand. the country — second only to the us in the number of infections — is on course to register a million cases by the end of the week. more than 16,000 people have died from the disease. president trump has signed an executive order to reform policing in the wake of widespread anger

at the killing of an unarmed black man, george floyd, last month. the measures include financial incentives to change policing practices and a database to trace abuse by officers. the head of the us central bank has warned that the path to economic recovery remains uncertain due to the coronavirus. jerome powell said low—income households had seen the sharpest rise in unemployment. his comments come as us retail spending figures showed a record monthly increase of nearly 18% in may as shoppers returned to stores. the trump administration is suing the president's former national security advisor john bolton to block the release of a book about his time in office. the justice department says the memoir of the veteran republican contains classified information that would compromise national security. it's believed the book contains allegations that president trump committed a number of impeachable offenses. the book is called the room where it happened, and he was in the room at the time and what is going on is he's writing about 17 months working

alongside donald trump and a lot of detail in that book. apparently he took a lot of notes during his time at the white house and it has, as you say, been in the process of vetting for some period of time, which was necessary because of his privileged position, indeed a contractual requirement of hisjob with the us government. but, according to the law suit, that vetting process was taking a long time and john bolton, allegedly, decided to take matters into his own hands, leading up to right now where the book is just a week away from publication and we understand, from some of the early reports about the content of the book, that he essentially says that he believes mr trump should have been impeached on several charges, not just the allegations to do with ukraine and, as you correctly say, the democrats wanted john bolton to appear as a witness during the senate trial. the republicans have a majority there — that did not happen and donald trump

was eventually acquitted of all charges. so now the book is in limbo, pending this lawsuit. we'll see what the judge has to say but, mike, it's certainly had that a lot more publicity just in the last few hours because of what's happened. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: playing to empty houses, but the english premier league is back tomorrow with the first matches since early march. there was a bomb in the city centre. a code word known to be one used by the ira was given. army bomb experts were examining a suspect van when there was a huge explosion. the south african parliament has destroyed the foundation of apartheid by abolishing the population registration act, which for 40 years, forcibly classified each citizen according to race. just a day old, and the royal baby is tonight sleeping in his cot at home.

early this evening, the new prince was taken by his mother and father to their apartments in kensington palace. germany's parliament, the bundestag, has voted by a narrow majority to move the seat of government from bonn to berlin. berliners celebrated into the night, but the decision was greeted with shock in bonn. the real focus of attention today was valentina tereshkova, the world's first woman cosmonaut. what do you think of the russian woman in space? i think it's a wonderful achievement and i think we might be able to persuade the wife it would be a good idea if i could to get her to go up there for a little while. welcome back. very good to have you with us on bbc news. the latest headlines: at least 20 indian soldiers have been killed in a clash with chinese forces in a disputed himalayan border area. the incident follows rising tensions and is the first deadly clash in the border area in at least 45 years. a cheap and widely available drug has been shown to cut the risk of dying from

coronavirus for severely ill patients. let's stay with that story. dr rishi desai is chief medical officer for healthcare platform 0smosis. he used to work at the centers for disease control. thank you very much for your time. first of all, how significant do you think the development or at least the revelations about this steroid are? i think they are very releva nt are? i think they are very relevant and, in fact, dexamethasone, the steroid you mentioned early on the programme, has been used for a long time, we know safe used in certain settings, so i think gives a lot of hope, especially to the folks who are very sick. until now we have seen that there are treatments, antiviral drugs that have worked for folks that are a little bit less sick, this one specifically helps those who are teetering on the edge of death and that makes a very, very big difference. and yet taking a steroid for a long time is not a good thing, is it? not at all, no, it's not a

good thing. in this case it would be for a long time, it would be for a long time, it would be for a long time, it would be for a short time, just for the time someone is trying to, essentially, acquainted down their immune response. what happens is that the immune response is a little too aggressive and the steroids helps often that a little bit so helps often that a little bit so you don't get all the damage to the tissue, which is why a lot of people die. and of course is complicated, but there are two particular problems, there is the virus itself and the way the body responds to the virus and they are two different things. that's right. early on the disease, the virus is causing a lot of damage and we talk about the antivirals that are being tested, remdesivir is a name that many of your audience may have heard by now, that is an antiviral that is attacking the virus, this drug, dexamethasone, is a steroid, thatis dexamethasone, is a steroid, that is really trying to soften or quieten down their immune response. there is this kind of storm you might have heard of

where the cells start generating lots of chemicals that cause a lot of damage. this is really attacking that problem wearers remdesivir is attacking the virus itself. despite all this there is a sense that attention is shifting from the pandemic worldwide, the numbers are likely to get rising for some time. yes. the factors everyone an individual attention span. i can usually watch tv for ten minutes before a start to wander. we have a collective attention span as a society and asa attention span as a society and as a world and i think out collective attention span has shifted, certainly in the us our attention is very focused on race relations and so that has taken away a lot of the attention from covid—i9. but, of course, the virus doesn't switch to the attention so it continues to ride in the background. looking at the big nectar, how optimistic are you? there are a couple of reasons they are very optimistic, there area they are very optimistic, there are a couple of reasons i am pessimistic. they will share all of those with you. a couple of things that are good, got

dexamethasone, which imagine, and remdesivir, and nomination treatments like user with hiv where there is a cocktail medicines coming together, that's good news, testing has gone up, basically worldwide testing has gone up, so that's good news. these are good things, other good things, there is a vaccine trial out there. there are many vaccine trials out there that are going to show promise, i hope, in the coming year. pessimistic issues are things like, you know, you see a lot of states that are basically saying we are fed up, we are tired, we need to open up we are tired, we need to open up our cities and our states and that is going to cause covid numbers to rise, especially in the skilled nursing facilities and areas like that. thank you very much we re like that. thank you very much were talking to us. absolutely. how about this quote? "we're seeing death by a thousand cuts, notjust of press freedom but of democracy." they're the words of philippine journalist maria ressa shortly after she was found guilty of libel by a court in manila on monday. ressa, who faces up to six years injail, is the editor of an online news site that's often critical of president rodrigo duterte.

the un has condemned the verdict and ressa says she'll appeal, but in the meantime where does this leave freedom of the press, and indeed democracy, in the philippines? we can ask sociologist nicole curato, she's based at the university of canberra and has researched these issues extensively. i know you have research these issues pretty extensively. the philippines has long been one of the most dangerous to be a journalist, this predates president duterte, and you have to wonder, he seems to be very popular, is press freedom that much of a concern for people in the philippines? press freedom has always been a concern in the philippines, you are right to point out that the philippines has been considered one of the dangerous places for journalists in 2009, for example, long before president duterte became president of the philippines had the worst massacre ofjournalists, think only next to a rock, and one of the reasons here is because the journalists in the philippines have always been vulnerable to attacks and there has been impunity against the attacks on

journalists, but what sets resident due apart is the tone that's coming from the president himself. he has humiliated and just a journalist in his press conferences, has called media companies unpatriotic, these discourses are amplified on social media, so what we see now was a ride —— widespread discrediting of legacy media and innovative forms of media. there is particular concern about the cyber libel law, because there is no real statute of limitations that applies to it. yes, absolutely. but i think what we have to remember about the cyber libel law is that this law was passed not by the duterte regime but the predecessor who was widely celebrated for his commitment to liberal democrat values. but what happened in the duterte a regime is that maria ressa and collea g u es regime is that maria ressa and colleagues are the first journalist convicted of cyber libel. that's why media groups are raising alarm bells in terms of the implications of this, not just to terms of the implications of this, notjust to journalist terms of the implications of this, not just to journalist to a popular and enjoying

widespread support like maria ressa, but journalist widespread support like maria ressa, butjournalist from the ground, from the grassroots, journalists who were not as well resourced. their publications can now be taken apart or pulled apart by potential political opponents, which has widespread implications to press freedom in the philippines. as you said, at least maria ressa has a legal team and much international backing. what is the solution and for the more local press? i think one of the calls here is to amplify the support that maria ressa is getting to journalist who are not as well resourced, journalists who are reporting on the grassroots and here i'm talking aboutjournalist reporting on the visible level about, for example, the corruption of the bossangoa or they journalist who corruption of the bossangoa or theyjournalist who is broadcasting with local radio, talking about poor delivery of government services. sol talking about poor delivery of government services. so i think if there's anything positive outcome can —— can come out of this issue is that the international community can start supporting local journalists whose name is not as prestigious as maria ressa.

nicole curato, as prestigious as maria ressa. nicole cu rato, thank as prestigious as maria ressa. nicole curato, thank you so much. my pleasure. the english premier league makes a return tomorrow. aston villa will take on sheffield united and manchester city will play arsenal in the first matches since the beginning of march. but there'll be no spectators in the grounds, as our sports editor dan roan reports. it's the same competition but with a new look. banners and seat coverings in place of supporters and the only fans inside, projected onto giant screens. we were granted exclusive access to villa park as it prepares to host the premier league's eagerly awaited return and the man in charge here told me how much it meant. we do have the eyes of the world on us tomorrow night. the level of planning and preparation that's gone in makes me extremely confident. we've been starved of sport of all descriptions but particularly our national sport, football, so i think there is going to be a huge level of interest. relegation threatened aston villa featured in the last match before

the season was suspended. arguably the greatest challenge the premier league has ever faced, there's been times when project restart has been in doubt but it's happening and it will be notable for other reasons, too. players must keep their distance after goals and will have a special camera for celebrations. with social distancing in mind they cannot crowd around match officials. and broadcast innovations will give fans a virtual presence in the ground. liverpool, meanwhile, could be crowned premier league champions for the first time on sunday if results go their way. for some, the return can't come soon enough. dan roan, bbc news. just briefly, a couple of things for you, the findings of two different polls that suggest americans, generally, are sad but their marriages are holding up, according to a survey from the university of chicago. at least 40% of adults, they say, tell them they are very happy, that is they are very happy, that is the lowest in nearly 50 years. no surprise perhaps given the

pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the general fear out there, but the institution of marriage, it suggests, is standing strong, according to a monmouth university poll have the couples in the us expect to come out of the virus crisis with an even better relationship. 0r with an even better relationship. or to look at it another way, perhaps true misery really does love company. we should tip all—caps to the retirement of diego the daughters. he has 70 species very well. he has fathered up to 900 offspring. that was 900. diego was the star of a giant breeding programme in the galapagos before that he was at a zoo galapagos before that he was at a zoo in the us. you will enjoy his tiny years on an island off the coast of ecuador. there is much more for you any time on all the news, national and international, on the bbc website. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter. i'm @bbcmikeembley. thank you very much for

watching. hello there. expect a stormy spell of weather over the next few days. not just for the uk, across much of central and eastern europe. we've seen some sharp, thundery downpours. we start off quite promising but then showers are likely to develop in the uk as we go through the day. after a sunny start, afternoon thunderstorms could be an issue and because we have light winds, it could be slow—moving. so localised flooding not out of the question. we could start off with low cloud, mist, and fog. that burns its way back to the east coast where it may well linger, but elsewhere, lovely spells of sunshine but as the heat builds, the showers will arrive. they should be few and far between across scotland and northern ireland. the most frequent ones through wednesday will be across england and wales. so through the afternoon — this is a snapshot — you can see just a brighter colour denoting the intensity of those showers. slow—moving, a lot of heavy rain and some hail and thunder and lightning. it will be quite warm

and humid out there. temperatures likely 22 degrees, 72 fahrenheit. the showers will continue for a while through the early evening, hopefully starting to ease away before during the night, we could see more persistent rain pushing in through east anglia and moving through northern england. as we go through the day on thursday, rain to the north of england, then that's going to be replaced by some pretty intense thundery downpours across england and wales. in the space of two or three hours, we could see a couple of inches of rain. so, weather warnings have been issued by the met office, certainly worth bearing in mind if you're going out and about. a slightly quieter day in scotland 17—22 degrees the high. as we go into friday, england and wales will see the quietest of the weather. fewer showers around, but more frequent showers are likely through northern ireland and scotland. again, some of these will be heavy and thundery. 17—23 degrees as the high. we could do with some slightly quieter weather. we may well get it between england and wales for the start of the weekend as high—pressure builds, but this area of low pressure could spoil the story a little bit further north and west. so there's a chance this weekend of more rain to come across scotland and northern ireland, but it's drier elsewhere with the heat set to build across england and wales as we go into next week. 00:27:59,447 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 take care.