this is bbc news, the headlines: an enormous crowd of opponents of the belarusian president, alexander lu kashenko, has gathered in minsk to demand his resignation. it comes amid growing anger over alleged poll—rigging, and police violence at subsequent protests. but the president has vowed to stay in power, claiming belarus is under threat from foreign forces. the speaker of the us house of representatives, nancy pelosi, has said that she will recall the chamber later this week to vote on legislation to protect the postal service. democrats have accused president trump of trying to hamstring the cash—strapped postal service to suppress postal voting in november's election. new zealand's prime minister has announced that general elections due to take place in mid—september have been postponed because of a fresh covid—19 outbreak. jacinda ardern said date has been pushed back to october the 17th.

now on bbc news, dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline. this week... breakthrough or betrayal in the middle east? recession hits borisjohnson‘s promise of a decade of prosperity. and "that little girl was me" — the "bussed to school" daughter of jamaican and indian immigrants becomes only the fourth woman ever on a us presidential ticket. my guests on socially distanced screens are mina al oraibi, editor of the national, a news service for the middle east. and michael goldfarb of the podcast frdh, or first rough draft

of history. and here in the studio, the bbc‘s business editor simonjack. welcome to all three of you. now, president trump called it a historic peace agreement between two great friends of the united states. palestinians said their friends had sold them out. iran has called it a huge mistake. the deal between israel and the united arab emirates will make the uae only the third arab state to have full diplomatic ties with israel. and in return, israel's agreed to suspend annexation of parts of the occupied west bank. mina, this is one to start you off with. is this a case of the uae recognising the reality that was already there? in some ways, yes. there are realities on the ground but it's also a very important moment after the fear of annexation

only a few weeks ago. we say this is a larger problem. which is the occupation of palestine but the realities on the ground and in 2020 are different from 1967 and the palestinians have slowly been losing land and the israelis have been trying to create the realities on the ground and have been made for all intents and purposes a point wanting to annex a new palestinian territories in july. the uae put out both a private and also a very public stance calling on israelis not to do so. the uae ambassador to the us... it was the first time you had a golf official speak directly to the israeli people. —— gulf. and said to them there are two routes you can go. we can have a route of relationship, we can build towards police, or we can have annexation and further disruption in the region and that will complicate matters beyond the possibility of ever having a palestinian state so from then

——and it seems that the israelis heeded that word so from then we saw the exhilaration coming to this point which was the announcement and the trilateral call between us president donald trump, crown prince mohammed bin zayed, and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. so in some ways the uae itself has had some behind—the—scenes discussion with the israelis and important collaboration on certain issues including covid—i9 that sees the whole world is needed to come together and try to come to solutions to deal with the pandemic but it is also an important point that the annexation was a very serious threat and while it is a suspension, this is a processjust like the process towards establishment of the bilateral relations between the uae and israel is going to be a process. so is the matter of suspending annexation, so it is important to see it in that context. israel's has heeded

views on annexation. ——michael, i want to ask you whether you agree that israel's has heeded views on annexation. obviously the israeli prime minister has had something to say about annexation. are they clear or is it clear what they amount to? i'm not sure about that. i think there are two more parties, and we will come onto them, but the first is of course the trump administration in washington and washington is always a major player and intercessor between israel and its neighbours. the other player is iran and we will get to that. what happened was, to a certain degree this comes after israeli domestic politics. people who pay attention will know that they have already had three elections in i think under 12 months, bibi netanyahu has had so many escapes and has been predicted to lose and he doesn't and he always ends up being the person who cobbles together the coalition that governs and it is very interesting that even now he is in a coalition

and it is agreed that the person who leads the other large party and the coalition will succeed him as prime minister yet he didn't bother to tell him a thing about these negotiations. the annexation was a promise to the right wing of israeli politics. netanyahu made a promise to the prime minister which is important because he is being investigated for, i guess, fraud, and might face charges when he leaves office. this met with total disapproval from the trump administration and they worked very hard to find a way to walk israel back from this and at this point, the united arab emirates ambassador to washington played a key role meeting withjared kushner

the president's son—in—law who was the chief adviser on middle east matters and we end up where we are today, with his unexpected announcement that there would be this diplomatic relations for the first time between the uae and israel but now we come to iran quickly, which is the relationship between the uae and israel was quietly going on. they are part of the anti—iranian alliance. " entente cordiale" is being built quietly between certain arab states because they fear iranian influence in libya and in lebanon. this is a critical part of this as well. we will come back to that in a second. while we are dealing with these three players in the negotiation, we talked about the politics and the economics of it but what about the economics of it? what do the players stand to gain? there is almost always an economic angle — that some would say

is what gets these deals to get done. looking at the economic interest, the uae wants to be a major player politically and economically in the region and what this does is it gives it access to the israeli technology base, the universities of israel. 15% of students at israeli universities are arab. they've got some of the best technology out there — an opportunity for them to diversify the economy and for israel you have a less interruptible supply of oil because a lot of their oil comes via iraq and via turkey, and also you have got a big new defence customer for the us. one of the biggest trades, one of the biggest businesses in this conflict area is of course arms and they have already got a $0.5 billion order for some anti—mine vehicles and there is a prospect that they could sell f35, which is the most expensive defence project in world history, and they want to sell

as many of those as they can, which they can't really sell to the uae because they have got this gentleman's agreement with israel that they will only sell then the top—notch stuff and not their neighbours, but this possibly gives them the opportunity to increase that trade. talking about the palestinians... what more can they do to push back to prevent other arab states following the uae‘s example? the palestinians are in a difficult position and notjust because of the uae. the situation on the ground in palestine is very difficult, the difficulties politically, economically and so forth. the palestinian leadership at this point should be looking at ways to take advantage of this time that's been created to halt annexation, and try to find ways to manoeuvre, to gain some momentum, and that's what the emirates have said that they want to get out of this. trying to push back doesn't really lend the palestinians

anything on the ground and one of the things they should be building on is the status of eastjerusalem. they uae, like the rest of the arab league, continues to hold onto the status of a palestinian state to protect the status of eastjerusalem. that won't help the palestinian cause which i think it is important. i think it is important also. michael spoke about the sort of alliance that is in—built in the region when it comes to iran. it is really not just about iran. the region is going through so much turmoil, and in some ways, how are the palestinians trying to say we want to find a way to get out from the difficult corner that the occupation has put them in? it's notjust about iran, it's about the different voices in the region that try to use the palestinian cause of their own benefit. we've seen the turks say that they want to pull their ambassador from the uae even though turkey have had ties with israel since 1949 and is the largest muslim—majority country trading with israel. so instead of helping

the palestinians, they're just trying to just put up rhetoric without, in reality, cutting off their tie with israel. a quick word from you, mina, on whether this is a serious mistake. is there any way that they can make that a self—fulfilling prophecy? you're sitting there in the uae yourself — is that something that the emirates are concerned about? the iranians are forever threatening, they have their proxies also threatening to put their realities of what the region should be. i don't think this is actually a threat that should be of concern but what is concern is that you do have militias and proxies that are waging civil strife in iraq and syria, have created all sorts of havoc in lebanon and don't serve

the palestinian cause in any way but actually have hurt other arab countries along the way. mike, just a quick outlook for me on the electoral advantage or otherwise for donald trump. he promised when he came into office four years ago that he would get deals in north korea, deals with iran. this is a dealfrom the man that claims to be a proponent of the art of the deal. how much will it matter to him in november? it won't make any difference come november, and i'm reminded of something that mina told me in 2017 when he took over. he will get on really well with the saudi rulers and the uae rulers because he deals through family, which is the way the monarchies in arabia like to deal. mina is right, he deals with family and it is working for him. thank you for being concise on that point because we now move on to economics. at the start of the year, borisjohnson predicted an exhilarating decade for the uk of growth, prosperity and opportunity. but within six months, the pandemic has pushed britain into its deepest recession on record. the chancellor now admits hard times are here but promises to leave

no—one without hope. simon, why did the uk fall so hard and why is it at the back of the european pack? any country in the developed world. one of them is the fact that the uk economy is incredibly focused on services, any country in the developed world. and services, that face—to—face stuff. whether it's hairdressing, restaurant, hospitality, leisure, stuff that makes up the uk economy, that has been very hard—hit, the pandemic has not allowed that part of the economy to operate at anywhere near its full capacity. services 80%, manufacturing 10% of the economy, but in germany manufacturing makes up 30% of their gdp. that is one of the main reasons. others say that the lockdown came a bit late in the uk

even though they had knowledge for it. what happened now is that the chancellor is playing — i don't know if you remember the game kerplunk — do you remember that? when you have all the marbles there at the top and all the little struts here, supporting it. what he is trying to do now with a very generous, very big programme of government spending and protection forjobs. he has now got to try to carefully remove these supports without all the marbles crashing down. for some people, his plan is not nearly delicate enough. he plans to remove the furlough scheme, which has supported 9.5 million jobs uniformly across the economy by the end of october, and there are some businesses and some industries which are not going to be anywhere near operating at full capacity by then, and some people are saying that isjust too blunt. and i mentioned that the chancellor said he was going to leave no—one without hope or opportunity because this is a government that came in at the end of last year promising to level up social mobility. is thatjust bravado?

is there a way that he can this game? look, he is writing some very big cheques. the uk borrowed 300 billion and perhaps even £400 billion this year and a lot of that priority will be spent on areas where they won votes in traditionally labour seats, but i think what is going to happen is you have got a situation where what's going to emerge from this is a kind of state—sponsored capitalism of the kind that you would not have... borisjohnson would not have been dreaming of when he first got the keys to number 10. i think you will see that reflected across the rest of the global economy. whereas capitalism usually let it do itsjob, let all these companies go bust and see what grows in its place, i think you will see much more state intervention. michael, let us take it to the us because state—sponsored capitalism is also in the air there, the economy has fallen by less than the uk but of course donald trump wanted to go into november with a roaring economy. how good are his chances of an economic recovery by november? i would say they are pretty small. it is interesting that gdp has

fallen by about half of what is to has fallen in the uk and there are reasons for this, and simon will have better details than i do, but it is a more diverse economy. but more importantly, we never shut down nationally. i mean, there have been tighter restrictions in one part of the country or another but the economy takes over more, people got on and flew to business meetings, you know, without protection, and the downside of that of that is that the us never flattened the curve on covid, so we are still having outbreaks all over and eventually that will have an impact on the economy, and it will be still going on in november, when people go to the polls, but the whole idea of using gdp of the measure at this moment strikes me as probably not being helpful, because going back to 2008, when we had the crash, gdp recovered across the developed world much faster than employment.

people were only just getting back to earning the same amount of money on average in america that they were earning in 2008 just before covid hit. now we have the situation in the us where the unemployment rate is in double digits, and unlike the uk, there was no furlough scheme. there was a little extra top up from the federal government to states in unemployment cheques, but that stopped this week, and an attempt to find more emergency funding for that met with the typical congressional response — they went on summer holiday. so a lot of people are going to see their unemployment cheques reduced by several hundred dollars a week. all of this adds up to gdp going down but more importantly, and the reason why we should look at employment before anything is that clearly

it was the shattering of employment norms in 2008 which led to the political response in the united states that culminated in donald trump, and in this country, in brexit, where a lot of people just are so dissatisfied with the status of their lives they are willing to go for a populist line in their political activities and i think that is what we have to look for rather than gdp because gdp will recover. it will recover long before the vast majority's economic prospects will recover in the us and the uk. mina, we have looked at the us and the uk. the gulf is a good place from which to observe the globe on trade and economic integration. how does it look from there? well, this year has had the double whammy of the slump in oil prices at the beginning of the year and a very erratic oil market and then of course we had to covid—19. the gulf countries are the oil producing countries and the situation is different from those that are not oil—producing.

in the gulf, particularly the two largest economies, saudi arabia and uae, there was an early lockdown and that pain was in march and april and may and they are now slowly emerging from those lockdowns and in the uae you have some cautious optimism for the rest of the year and what it will look like. the problem, and i completely agree with michael here, is the issue of unemployment in other parts of the arab world and particularly for those who rely on daily wages and lost those day wages with covid—19lockdowns but also with the concerns that there will be second and third waves. that is where the concern is. but in the gulf the opec plus deal has helped maintain oil prices and we are seeing they are steady and you can that... it is continuing to be strong and pumping some of the money into the economy but the concern is for other countries in the arab world is already fragile and this has been a real blow to them.

mina's points is really true to many countries, that strict lockdowns are unsustainable, containment is the name of the game but it has real economic applications. the real wildcard here. a lot of people have been disagreeing about what the recovery would be. one of the senior economics of the bank of england expected a v—shape recovery, and others say that when you go this far down you are bound to go back pretty quick, and we saw that in the uk — a 9% increase from may tojune, so you have gone back up already. it is this next bit, and what we don't know is of the eight million people that are now on furlough — there were 9.6 and they are coming down because of those people counted twice — how many of those people are unemployed but just don't know it yet? so that will be the thing, and mina and michael talking about jobs — it will be aboutjobs but economically it will be

about how much demand is going to be lost from the economy as people find themselves without a job. that is the unknown here. this next bit is notjust economic but political. no confetti, balloons or big hats. the democrats will hold their 2020 national convention virtually, but the line up this week includes many of the party's big names and barack obama has already waded into the election campaign by accusing president trump of attempting to kneecap the us postal service. joe biden talks of an assault on democracy. michael, we're going to have to keep this fairly concise, all three of you, because we have only got a few minutes left on the programme, but tell us how serious this row on the postal service is in the run—up to november. well, actually, it is very, very serious. postal voting was going to be an issue anyway — donald trump politicised it before covid hit. now you have got this pandemic it might actually be an unhealthy thing to go into a crowded polling centre

in your local neighbourhood and vote, people would like to vote by mail, and clearly the government is making it...more difficult. overnight there were reports of postboxes being removed from the street in montana as a way of preventing people from voting. i applied for my postal ballots this week and, you know, i got an e—mail back saying they had accepted it and you will get your full ballot in september, late september, early october, and then then this morning, you know, you read that, well — you need to get your ballots in perhaps a month beforehand. well, that is a month before election day and i am mailing from the uk so it is a very nervous—making thing, and on top of that states usually don't know how to count postal ballots anyway. i mean, pennsylvania has... and wisconsin — two important swing states. in 2018

pennsylvania state had about 4% of ballots sent in by post, wisconsin was about 6% by post. what is going to happen if they get 30 or 40% by post? this is good to be a huge, huge problem on the federal government... i'm just going to intervene because we're so short of time, but we definitely got the message from you — it really matters and we need to watch it. secondly, kamala harris — i mentioned her at the top, the little girl bussed to school, the child of immigrants, fourth ever woman on the us presidential ballot. trump is calling her "phony kamala". ifjoe biden picked a man he would be calling the man a name as well. he just calls people names and it is part of his brand. kamala harris is the best pick, in my opinion, thatjoe biden could have made — she is a strong, influential senator and people have made their decisions by and large and what she does is shore up one constituency, african americans, who drifted away

from the party in 2016 but who came out in numbers for obama and less so for hillary clinton, but more importantly women, who will all remember how she questioned brett kavanaugh, one of the turning points of the trump administration. so it is a strong pick and whatever donald trump chooses to call her, she shores up the democratic vote and that is the most important things you can possibly do. mina, how does it look, the presidential campaign? obviously huge amounts are at stake for everybody in the world in a us presidential election. how is it seen from the uae? there is interest of course in what these elections will bring about and i will speak here as an iraqi actually because biden is remembered at by iraqis as somebody

who as senator propose the biden plan, which was to carve up iraq based on very crude sectarian divides, and many iraqis have not forgotten that. so there is a concern in iraq and other parts of the that that sort of foreign policy that looks very crudely on sectarian and ethnic divisions coming with a possible biden administration. but the flip side, donald trump has been very unpredictable so for many people it is almost equal what happens because we deal with the ramifications of what american voters decide. mina, michaeland simon, thank you all so much. simon, you are going to have to get your say on the us presidential election next time. whoever wins, the biggest issue they are going to have to face as the economic cold war between the us and china. policy on that is something that will sum up the dividing line between the two. thanks to something that up so briefly. goodbye for now. that's it for dateline london for this week — we're back next week at the same time. goodbye.

hello there. we had lots of thunderstorms across england and wales on sunday, but it's not every day you see one of these. yes, a waterspout that formed out in the bristol channel, and this was seen by a number of our weather watchers, actually, from north somerset. it was also spotted around the newport area of south wales as well. that was all associated with this low pressure that's across northern france. we can see an occlusion. this band of cloud here that brought some thunderstorms across eastern england, and they were torrential. 28 mm of rain on sunday fell in bedford. looking at the weather picture at the moment, this system, essentially, is going to split into two bits, with this branch not really making much progress further north. that means the rain will continue to affect greater manchester, lancashire, merseyside along with wales for a time before easing later in the night. it won't really push that much farther north. that means the far north of england, northern ireland and scotland stay largely dry over the next few hours,

but with low cloud. there'll be some mist and fog patches, and maybe a little bit of drizzle around some of the eastern coasts in scotland as well. for the rest of monday, the low pressure will continue to move its way in, and that will bring showers. this time, the showers will be affecting scotland and northern ireland through the afternoon, but it's further south across england and wales that the day's heaviest showers are most likely to be. 20 or30 mm in the space of an hour. again, that's enough to cause some localised flash flooding. in between those showers in the sunshine, still feeling warm, still a little on the humid side. but we're not finished with the showery story just there, because tuesday will be another showery day. this time, the heaviest showers look more set to go in across northern england and scotland. lots of thunder and lightning, a bit of hail mixed in with some of these. fewer showers in the south. still one or two fairly pokey ones as we go into the afternoon. beyond that, we see some changes in the weather. this area of low pressure, slow—moving, will be with us for much of the rest of the week

with fresher air following this cold front through. it means on wednesday many of us start off on a dry note, but the cloud and rain will spread in across northern ireland, england and wales. eventually, it will turn a fair bit windier across the south—west. gusts of around 30—110 miles an hour, all the while staying largely dry in scotland through the afternoon with sunshine. fresher air then arrives from thursday onwards, but that's not an end to the wet story. it stays unsettled with rain or showers to take us into next weekend.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm aaron safir. our top stories: chanting. in belarus — huge crowds fill the streets in one of the biggest protests yet against the president. but alexander lu kashenko remains defiant — telling his supporters he won't give up his country, after a week of demonstrations against his contested re—election. new zealand's general election is postponed because of a fresh outbreak of covid—19. house speaker nancy pelosi announces a vote to prevent changes in postal services ahead of the us election.