this is bbc news. i'm aaron safir. our top stories: britain's prime minister boris johnson tells the bbc his government didn't understand coronavirus at the start and could have handled things differently. us federal officials repossess the chinese consulate after donald trump ordered its closure. in the increasing row, where next for a diplomatic relations? iraq creates a city in the desert to bury its coronavirus dead. we report on the scale of the outbreak there. black lives matter in brazil. we have a special report from the country where police killed nearly six times as many people as in the us last year.

hello and welcome. borisjohnson has conceded that the way the uk government responded to the coronavirus pandemic might have been different, if the nature of the virus had been better understood. in a bbc interview to mark the end of his first year in office, the british prime minister also admitted there were "very open questions" about the timing of the lockdown back in march. he was speaking exclusively to our political editor laura kuenssberg. 366 days in number ten. hi, laura. hello. welcome, welcome. he won an election... sanitiser? we left the eu... you walked through this door as prime minister... but the days have been dominated by a crisis no—one could have imagined — covid—i9. what have you got wrong so that you get it right next time? i think, laura, when you look back at this crisis, everybody can see that this

was something that was new, that we didn't understand in the way that we would have liked in the first few weeks and months, and i think probably, you know, the single thing that we didn't see at the beginning was the extent to which it was being transmitted asymptomatically from person—to—person, but i am very proud of many of the things that people in our public services did, that members of the public did, to deal with coronavirus. what you are saying today now is that the response was too slow because the disease wasn't understood? i think it's fair to say there are things we need to learn about how we handled it in the early stages. i think what people really want to focus on now, is what are we doing to prepare for the next phase? but, prime minister, people also want to know what happened though, prime minister... you're talking about this as though it is in the past, laura, and it's not, it's the present. hindsight isn'tjust a wonderful thing, it is also a useful thing.

sure. and people want to know what happened. 16,000 people died, who have tested positive, what do you think the mistakes were? we mourn every one of those who lost their lives, and our thoughts are very much with their families, and... were you taking it... and i take full responsibility for everything that government did. your health secretary claimed a prospective ring had been thrown round care homes, you know that's not the case. well, we have done a huge amount. it was too late, wasn't it? i mentioned the difficulty of testing, but actually, thanks to the fantastic work of our care home sector, if you look at what is happening now, the number of new outbreaks in care homes is massively down, and we're testing every care home worker weekly... so it'll be different next time? testing every care home worker weekly, every care home resident every 28 days, we will increase testing... what is your priority now?

i mean, you have had this roller coaster year. the priorities are exactly what they always have been. except more so. we are doubling down. covid has taught me that for too long this country has moved too slowly sometimes, so we need to go faster. yes, the country has been going through a very tough time, and psychologically it has been an extraordinary time for the country. but i also know this is a nation of incredible natural resilience, and fortitude, and imagination, and i think we will bounce back really much stronger than ever before. optimism, his familiar trademark. do you see yourself being here for the very long—term ? well, we are working very hard, laura. i thought i'd got through this interview already, folks! but borisjohnson has already discovered the real challenge of life in power is perhaps surprise. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, downing street.

you can see the full interview on the bbc news website. us federal officials repossess the chinese consulate after donald trump ordered its closure. the officials were seen prising open a back door shortly after the us government's eviction deadline. chinese staff earlier cleared the consulate of documents and other material. washington says the building had been a hub for chinese espionage and property theft. in retribution, and us consulate in china has been ordered to be shutdown. where next for international relations? ian, thank you for your time relations? ian, thank you for yourtime and relations? ian, thank you for your time and forjoining us. let's start with that, it has been a long week in us— china

relations, along few months in a long few years, how would you assess the state of relations right now? they are deteriorating almost on every front that matters between the two countries whether it is hong kong or taiwan or the south see, diplomatic closings of consulate, throwing out journalists from both countries, intellectual property, that is a pretty long list, not to mention the fact that the united states blames the chinese for the so—called wuhan the chinese for the so—called wu ha n flew the chinese for the so—called wuhan flew as secretary pompeo, trump and others have spoken about it. it is also accelerating, that deterioration. it is broadly accepted between both democrats and republicans, there is almost no one you confide in washington who think we should have a softer reset of policy with the chinese and furthermore, increasingly, american allies around the world have their own set of issues with mainland china, so as bad as this year has been

for president trump, and he is behind in the polls right now compared to joe biden, behind in the polls right now compared tojoe biden, it is a lot worse for the chinese president. let's talk about using him briefly. china, india, many of its neighbours are having a dispute over the south china sea. what is the chinese strategy, do you think, when it comes to strategy, its overall objective and do you think that it is succeeding or failing? you must mention the uk where the relationship is deteriorating due to this international security law in hong kong rather than boris johnson following president trump. i think the chinese came out of this crisis with the economy that was growing, rebounding more quickly than any other major economy in the world and they also were able to crush the curve of paces

through surveillance and quarantine ina through surveillance and quarantine in a way other countries were not able to, but it is still very difficult position for a xi xinping before we talk internationally because the cover—up inside china led to a much worse explosion in cases than otherwise would have occurred and a lot of people in china we re and a lot of people in china were upset about that. also flat growth in china this year, even with 6% stimulus in gdp is far worse than he ever felt he was going to have to deal with, so was going to have to deal with, soi was going to have to deal with, so i think there is a level of insecurity in china's on leadership which has led them to become more reactive, what is literary and also more risk a cce pta nce is literary and also more risk acceptance when it comes to other countries and foreign policy around the world and i think that has led to the escalation in hong kong, that has led the decision to send more troops to the contented territory in the himalayas with

india where they killed over 20 indian troops in that contest attended tory, so i think a lot has to do here not so much with president trump, although the us election is coming up, but also more with what is going on in beijing. let's move away finally from the big, grand themes played out on the international stage in the role of presidents and leaders. for the average chinese citizen, the average chinese citizen, the average chinese citizen, the average european, the average american, what is the impact of these deteriorating relationships in their daily lives? how will people notice this big g optical tussle that is going on? if the phase one trade dealfaster, there is going on? if the phase one trade deal faster, there will be more tariffs and americans will spend more on consumer goods. the big issue i think is what we thought of as a world wide web where everyone has access pretty much to the same sort of applications has basically broken into and the fa ct basically broken into and the fact that the united kingdom is not going to be using huawei,

this means that a lot of decisions being made by the us, the uk, canada, a lot of other countries are fundamentally different than decisions being made by china and countries aligned with china. this is not the globalisation is we felt we we re the globalisation is we felt we were going towards. i'm sure we could spend many hours discussing this, but for now, we will have to leave it here. iraq's health system has been worn down by years of war and poor investment — and now it's being overwhelmed by a surge in coronavirus infections, which were up by 600% last month. fighters from the armed popular mobilisation units, which were formed to fight is, are now being mobilised to bury baghdad's dead, in a new cemetery in the desert. reda el mawy reports. 0n the cusp of life and death, like many iraqis, jamileh saadoun has endured

much in her lifetime. her son has been by her side for the last ten days. he is risking his own life to care for her. and he will stay until she recovers, or until she passes. in this battle, the doctors are heavily outnumbered. drjafar nassir says he only has half the medics he needs. they are dealing with the double trauma of nursing the sick and putting

their families in danger. 0utside, safir el mehdi is helping someone find the remains of a loved one. before the outbreak, safir was a taxi driver. now, he drives bodies to the cemetery. none of the usual burial sites will accept the bodies of covid—i9 patients. so, safir drives the bodies to the desert, south of the capital, where a vast new city for the dead has risen from the sands.

all 3,000 graves are for victims of the virus. sadly, jamileh, who we filmed with her son a few days ago, did not survive. workers try their best to provide some dignity in death. the government has been overwhelmed. it has turned to groups who fought so—called islamic state to bury the dead. iraqis are used to conflict, and this fight will get worse before it gets better. reda el mawy, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: the two friends who kept a 20—year—old pledge

to share a big lottery win.

this is bbc news. our main headlines this hour. borisjohnson tells the bbc has government did not understand the coronavirus at the start and could have handled things differently. it's been a week in which president trump has changed course: he's now urging the public to wear face masks, after previously resisting doing so. 0ne place that wants to do that is the city of atlanta. but in a sign of how divisive the issue has become, georgia's state governor has launched a law suit to stop this happening.

joining me from atlanta was dr keren landman. i think it is critical. people take messages from the top and when we cr leadership doing the right thing and talking about doing the right thing and persistently doing the right thing, we tend to feel better about doing the right thing, especially in environments like we are in right now. when i have been out and about in situations where you are required to wear a mask, where people aren't, there are stares, there is social pressure, bit of social pressure, why is that not enough? why do some governors, state mayors want to enforce people wearing masks and is there any evidence that that is more effective? i think whatever you have experienced is not a universal experience, not in my city, not in my state and not in my country, certainly not in the world. in different parts of atlanta, different parts of the state, the norms are very different from other parts of the city or state and i think it is very... it is tempting to try to put

faith in people's desire to do the right thing by each other, but i think in the environment we are in right now, we just can't really rely on people's internal intrinsic drive to do the right thing and place others' needs over their own. from your perspective working in public health and infectious diseases, i wonder if you want to tear your hair out because if something is basic as medical advice for people has become politicised, how can you actually get effective messages across? public health has been dealing with this question of how to message really simple public health messages for a while and we run into problems when the advice we give to people becomes a symbol of something else and that is really what has happened here is wearing a mask has become a symbol of something, a symbol of alignment with some kind of political ideology in many cases, of being weak or a sheep

in many cases, so i think that really disrupts the ability of a public health apparatus to help people see the altruism of wearing masks because they have already received this message that wearing a mask is something else altogether, but we got through that. public health figured out how to message around condom and hiv prevention as was pointed out in the atlantic not so long ago, and i think we have to take that same approach here now, harm reduction approach, a less judgmental approach, allowing people to feel like they have control over whether they wear a mask and make the choice to do it out of a sense of human dignity rather than being forced to do it. the death of george floyd in

police custody in minneapolis had a profound impact across the world, not least in brazil, where last year police killed nearly six times as many people as in the us. brazil has a long history of racism and slavery. more than five million people were enslaved there. 0ur correspondent katy watson reports from sao paulo. a week before the death of george floyd, brazilians were mourning one of their own. 14—year—old joao pedro matos pinto was killed while playing with friends, a botched police operation in a rio favela. two deaths thousands of kilometres apart, and millions united in grief and anger. "black lives matter here, too", they said. but history keeps repeating itself. and in the sao paulo favela of americanopolis, people here are hardly living the american dream. guilherme was a 15—year—old with his whole life ahead of him.

but a few weeks ago, he disappeared, his body found dumped on the outskirts of the city. 0ne policeman has since been arrested, the other is still on the run. translation: guilherme was such a good son. he helped me so much with his younger siblings. i'm afraid for my children now, not for me. i don't even have the will to live any more. friends and neighbours have come together but so much has changed. "the police should be protecting us," this woman tells me, "but they don't because of the colour of our skin." guilherme's death devastated this community but is a reality lived by so many, they're not the first community to suffer and sadly, they won't be the last. the combination of racism, violence and poverty means it's also a reality that few people here think will ever change.

brazilians were taught to believe that racism didn't exist, that everybody got along without being discriminated against. it's what the president jair bolsonaro still believes. due to this myth that everybody is mixed, and even black people in brazil sometimes have difficulty to see themselves as black because here it's not only about where you came from, it's the way you look like. so if you look like white, you are going to be treated as white even if your parents are black. that is slowly evolving. unlike the us, black people are the majority in brazil and there is more pride in being black than ever before but change is slow in the pandemic complicates progress. translation: black people are dying from gunshots, from hunger, and now from covid.

as long as there's racism, there's no democracy. and fighting for democracy is fighting against the bolsonaro government. these are hard times. despite the challenges, these past few months have offered a chance for reflection. this in a country where violence and exclusion are so often normalised. racism is being more openly discussed. people here can't ignore it any longer. so, could the winds of change finally move brazil in a new direction? katy watson, bbc news, in sao paulo. thousands of hungarians have joined protests against wha they say is government suppression of media freedom. the demonstrations followed the resignations of dozens of journalists from hungary's leading independent news website, index, after their plea to resinstate their sacked editor was dismissed. he was sacked on tuesday — a decision he believes was related to his warnings of outside interference in the website's operations.

nick thorpe — our budapest correspondent — sent this report. this march for the independence of the media in hungary is winding its way through the streets of budapest from the offices of index to the prime minister's headquarters up on the hill. the people taking part in this march blamed the prime minister personally for the pressure on index and its potential disappearance now. there were emotional scenes earlier today as more than 80 of the staff of index handed in their mass resignations. that happened just a few days after the editor in chief was fired by the management. the staff are very clear in their own minds, that this amounts to an attempt by the right—wing government of the prime minister to either takeover or close—down index. index was by far the most popular critical or independent voice in the whole hungarian

media landscape with more than a million daily page views on its site. therefore, its disappearance would seem to represent a pretty major victory for the prime minister, whose government already enjoys a considerable dominance of the hungarian media. on another level, it could also harm him as his claima that hungary still has a diverse and free media will be severely damaged by the disappearance of index. nick thorpe, bbc news, budapest. long—time friends joe feeney and tom cook who live in the us state of wisconsin, made a pact many years ago — that if one of them won the us powerball lottery they would share it. and now, decades later, tom's numbers came up and he's honoured the deal. joe — who you can see here in the blue shirt

with tom and their wives — said he was stunned when his friend called to say they were sharing the jackpot worth 22 million us dollars. let's hear what they plan to do with the money and how the pact came about. whenever the bigger winner comes, we're going to split it. so we buy every week. never really thinking it would happen. that happened many years ago, and itjust kind of continued. almost 20, i think. a handshake is a handshake, man. i can think of a better way to retire. i bought two tickets and i won the powerball. what can i lose, a few bucks? they laugh. they have had a lot of time to think about what to spend the money. i have a good idea of what i would spend it on but maybe not appropriate on a news bulletin. you can reach me on twitter and keep up—to—date with all the latest news on the bbc news website. thank you for joining us. i will be back in a

few minutes with the news headlines. i have been looking ahead to our weekend weather prospects. on saturday, i do not particularly like what i see. a cloudy day for many of us with outbreaks of rain at times. looking at the satellite picture, just to our west you can see how extensive the cloud is and it is a complex area of low pressure that will bring different zones of rain across the country. a couple of weather fronts mixed in with this lot pushing eastwards. the first of those weather fronts is bringing rain at the moment to scotland, across wales and england too. as that rain clears, we will be left with low cloud, drizzle for northern ireland to a real mixture of weather and murky conditions will extend to scotland. humid night with temperatures around 17

or 18 degrees for some. tomorrow's forecast is a cloudy start with drizzle around. i have mixed in thejet stream winds here and hopefully you can see a bitjust here which is responsible for this line of very heavy showers that will extend across the republic and northern ireland, so heavy downpours around. as the dip in thejet stream, a trough hits the english channel, a way for the developer the english channel, a wave will develop and there will be easily of heavy rain across east anglia and south—east england, but this wave could push into central or southern england, the midlands, lincolnshire and yorkshire. there is some uncertainty about the zone of the wettest weather through the afternoon, but some areas will get pretty wet through the afternoon and as for the cricket, we will see some interruptions for play on the third test on monday where it looks like a complete wash—out, so one to watch as well. through saturday night, we will continue to see rain clearing away from south—east england. the skies were clear for a time and it will begin to start to turn a little bit less humid, but temperatures still the skies were clear for a time

and it will begin to start around 12 or 13 degrees or so. for sunday, the better half of the weekend for many of us, broadly speaking a day of sunshine and showers although there will be some lengthier bricks of rain moving into north—western scotland and a breezy kind of day but feeling fresher, more pleasant you might say particularly with more sunshine coming through. temperatures for most of us between 17 and 22 which will not feel too bad at all. into next week, from monday, lots of cloud, so not exactly triple—a rated weather, cloud and rain on monday, heavy rain as well, but turning drier and warmer as the week goes on.

this is bbc news. our top stories... britain's prime minister, borisjohnson tells the bbc, his government didn't understand coronavirus speaking exclusively to the bbc said there were open questions about whether the lot and had been imposed too late. us officials have repossessed the chinese consulate in houston days after president trump ordered its closure, as relations between the two largest economies in the world continue to deteriorate. and authorities in iraq have created a city in the desert to bury the number —— record number of people who have died there from coronavirus. doctors haveissued there from coronavirus. doctors have issued a stark warning that a return to normal life would be premature, as cases continue to