after a day of demonstrations across the country. protestors are angry at a new law restricting the right to publish images of police. it comes after a video emerged of three officers apparently beating a black music producer in his studio. turkey has condemned the assassination of iran's top nuclear scientist. iranian president rouhani has blamed israel for the killing of mohsen fakhrizadeh and he says the country's nuclear programme will continue. this is bbc news. israel has previously accused mr fakhrizadeh of masterminding a covert nuclear i'm james reynolds. our top stories: clashes between police and protesters in paris during demonstrations against weapons programme. a proposed security law. the archbishop of washington, dc has been made the first african—american cardinal in the catholic church. turkey condemns the wilton gregory was confirmed assassination of iran's top by the pope at a ceremony nuclear scientist and calls in the vatican. for his killers to be held the archbishop is known accountable. for his outspokenness on a range of issues, the head of ethiopia's military says the army has entered the regional capital of tigray. including sex abuse scandals. and jumping for joy with a young woman who's become the first professional transgender footballer in argentina's top division.

now on bbc news, dateline london. hello and welcome to bbc news. hello and welcome to the programme bringing together bbc specialists with the foreign correspondents who file their stories to audiences back home with the dateline london. this week: england emerges from lockdown — only up to a point. why has ethiopia's man of peace turned to war? and in washington, transition begins, but isjoe biden too invested in the past? to discuss all that, we're joined by stefanie bolzen, uk and ireland correspondent for germany's welt. the author agnes poirier, who writes for the french weekly news magazine marianne. with me in the studio, mark urban, diplomatic editor for the bbc‘s daily news

programme newsnight. now, after the good news about vaccines, a harsh reminder this week that covid—i9 will shape our lives for months — notjust the restrictions that almost everyone in england will be under when the current lockdown ends next week, nor the christmas rules agreed for once between all four countries that make up the united kingdom — the sharpest reminder came from chancellor rishi sunak, boris johnson's finance minister, whose promise to level up the uk so that all regions share in its prosperity was leavened by the state of the economy — shrinking 11.3% in 2020, not recovering for a full two years. indeed, five years from now, it'll be 3% smaller than had been expected. stefanie bolzen, when you look at those figures, we are told that the british economy has not shrunk this much since the great frost of 1709. not sure how they worked that out, but there you go. the government has a lot more power now than it has in those

days to shape the economy. what do you make of rishi sunak‘s response? well, it has been very interesting to see how the chancellor, who was also supposed to be one of the possible successors of borisjohnson, and who is highly popular currently in the uk, how he is trying to bridge the situation. so on the one hand, protecting people — and we have a kind of new lockdown coming on in the uk on the 2nd of december which is called tier system which, in the highest tiers where cities such as manchester will still be in, is quite stark. pubs and restaurants cannot open. but on the other hand, keeping the economy going. if you look around europe, this is the dilemma you have everywhere. actually, in germany, my country, where cases are lower still than in the united kingdom, the government is keeping the lockdown until christmas. and it is even harsher than it has been before,

and no restaurants and no pubs, nothing is opening. so there is a real big crisis all over europe in terms of covid. agnes poirier, we have, on saturday, during the course of the weekend, the shops opening up in france for the first time — the first easing of the restrictions. again, the financial pressures are enormous on the french government — as they are on everybody else. i mean, presumably that makes this whole question of a brexit deal between eu and the uk even more pressing. the office for budget responsibility i think saying this week in the uk that it could cost a further 2% of growth if it does not happen next year. are those fears reflected on the continent of europe also? well, it is very interesting to watch rishi sunak in the commons this week, because he hardly mentioned brexit. he said, of course, that a deal would be a good thing

but he did insist that actually, a deal would mean that britain's gdp shortfall, which is already at 4%, just quitting the single market, and then it will be made much more worse if there is no deal. you can add another 2% of gdp shortfall. and all in the middle of a pandemic. because it is very easy to see — and indeed, not only in britain, in every country in europe — the economic impact of the economy shrinking this year and next year because of covid. but the economic consequences of brexit are really long—term. and to think that britain — my dear britain — is going to have to deal with the consequences of covid, plus of brexit, it seems to be taken lightly by the government.

because it's, as we know, it is such an ideological topic that you cannot be seen, even if you're — especially if you are in the tory government — to be seen as anti—british by saying, "well, actually we need a deal here". mark urban, what do you think the prospects are looking like for a deal? we will talk a bit about the health impact of covid in a moment. but let's just talk about this for the moment because it is an extra weight on the british economy if a deal isn't reached? i think there is clearly a majority in the cabinet for a uk cabinet, there is a strong desire on the part of the eu 27 not to let it go, not to walk away from talks — even though they think the british have been very intransigent. but nevertheless, the time is very, very short. which is why i think what we may end up seeing quite soon is suggestions of some of those extraordinary eu

tricks, like stopping the clock or in some way coming up with a form of transition that is not a transition. something both in the short term to ease the ratification process through the european parliament and national parliament uk, because even — people are even talking about having to come to a conclusion by the european summit the week after this coming one. well, that really leaves very little time. so increasingly, i think people will start to look at can we avoid falling off the cliff edge of trading relationships by extending, in some way? and also, i think it is conceivable there may be some sort of implementation period to get all those customs and other checks in place on the channel, irish sea etc. just on the impact of coronavirus, you have been filming in an english hospital this week. what is your impression? because i saw some figures suggesting that on average, this is an average taken across the whole of england —

hospitals were at 95% capacity when the safe capcity is 80%. that is a winter thing in the nhs. it is normal for them to be up close to capacity. we have been filming at salisbury hospital, throughout the year, actually — multiple visits at the peak of it all in april and all of that sort of thing. it is notable, firstly, that this is affecting them much less than the first wave. i mean, i think one could say that the deaths in that hospital will be somewhere around 20% of the level that they were during the first wave. they have got about 400 beds. they've got about 375 occupied. so quite close to that figure you were saying. but only 14 of those are patients with covid. so i think it would be quite normal for a lot of people in that part of the country to say "hang on a minute. but with levels like that — and an impact so much less than the first wave — surely we could have hoped for tieri restrictions?" well, they are not — they are in tier 2.

and i think that does cause many people to say, "hang on a minute. thisjust isn'tjust." i think the only counter to that is to say the reason that they are at that fairly low level of cases is all the restrictions that people put up with in the weeks before the english national lockdown came in. stefanie bolzen, it, i suppose, raises the question of whether the original measures that applied in england actually were very effective, if we are now finding a situation where england comes out of lockdown and most of the population goes into a much more serious restriction than the experience before. yes, of course, and this is also what you can see on a political or or parliamentary level. a lot of anger among mps — there is talk of 70 mps who are now plotting together to reject this new tier system

next week and a vote in the house of commons. that, of course, is a massive challenge to the prime minister for his authority. butja, places like kent, for example, which is in big parts very rural, people are very angry that they actually now have to live in tier 3 and cannot even go out for a drink with their own household. so, but, i mean, this is a dilemma and a question that you see all over the world — you see it in france, in germany, the discussions why, especially in ruralareas — or in germany, in east germany, for example, which has much lower numbers — people are so much restricted while they are actually perceived the health situation not as bad as it is in other areas of the country. thank you very much for that. now, a year ago, abiy ahmed was awarded the nobel prize for peace. ethiopia's prime minister had ended an enervating two—decades—long conflict with neighbouring eritrea, freed thousands of prisoners and basked in international approval. in the early hours of november 4, withjust a posting

on facebook, he ordered troops into tigray — a region in the north of the country run by the tigray people's liberation front — these are the politicians who used to run ethiopia before prime minister abiy. 40,000 people have fled to neighbouring sudan, prompting fears that the war could destabilise further an already troubled region. agnes, to the west, france is heavily engaged in mali, and trying to keep that country together. china aside, it might even be said that france is the most engaged country from outside africa in african affairs right now. how frustrating do you think president macron has found it to get other countries — notably the us — to engage in anything more than a supporting role? well, actually, there are actually talks — that's interesting — there are talks within the eu, actually talks with greece, talks with other countries to help french troops. but in terms of ethiopia, this is a different story altogether.

it's this classic story of a power struggle between the central government and dissident or separatist forces. there's a big humanitarian crisis in the making. we have very little knowledge of what is going on in the ground. all we know is we've got hundreds of thousands people being displaced. and also, the problem is that the ethiopian prime minister is refusing, for the moment, the help of the un and the help of the african union. and we know the solution is political, rather than military. and the people of tigray is suffering greatly. and of course, the irony — as you mentioned — is that abiy ahmed got the nobel peace prize. ithink, you know, in stockholm, in the nobel peace prize committee, they should think twice about giving that prize to a politician who is still exerting power.

we have seen it with suu kyu before and we know how developed when she got her prize. and why give the prize to barack 0bama? he had not done anything yet! he admitted that himself! there was hope, but you do not give the nobel peace prize unless you want to devalue it clearly. but of course, that is anecdotal. but what is going on there is really worrying. stefanie, what do you think abiy ahmed is up to? well, i mean, it is a very difficult situation there. i mean, i am looking at this more from a european perspective, and as agnes just said, france is desperate to have more engagement of the european union. and the european union, as ever, is very reluctant.

it is interesting to see and important to see that at least there are now talks between the us and the european union on what to do about it. and for the european union, this is so important to have a strategic and joint approach because of the refugees. there is such a massive problem politically and humanitarian, of course, with refugees coming from africa. we have actually seen those ongoing numbers of people coming from libya and from north africa, who come through africa to come to europe, so it is so important for europe to help stabilise regions like ethiopia or mali, because this is in the european interest. that part of africa, mark, has plenty of problems. you'v got sudan to the west — as i said in the introduction, 40,000 refugees have already fled from ethiopia, yemen across the gulf to the north. i spoke to a us senator this week — senator chris coons, who is quite close tojoe biden. he reeled off a list of countries who he said the administration is worried about.

it is not going to be possible forjoe biden not going to become involved in some form in what is happening in africa? it is not an easy one forthe us, ithink. clearly covid will be the number one priority for the biden administration. then there will be other foreign policy priorities as we're about to discuss. i think what is noticeable in this is the complexity and, in a sense, failure of the post—colonial legacy. almost all countries in that region, if you look at the long—running conflict in sudan, between the south which eventually obtained independence. in ethiopia, in fact a series of secessionist movements, eritrea a 30—year conflict, before eventual independence, tigray. .. this is why we came up with this federated structure in the first place, i guess. exactly. nigeria, the north. these issues are so complex. i think because of the examples of south sudan and eritrea, where secession has worked

and they have gained independence, the example is there for lots of other people who feel grievance against those colonial area frontiers. for the us to come in and actually exert a meaningful influence on that, i think is pretty questionable. on a point of detail, they have just recently ended the sort of independence of the africa command of the us military and rolled it under europe. which suggest a downgrading of it. that was supposed to be doing capacity building, training, helping governments to resist, if you like, the forces of disintegration and secession. so i do not think the us is brilliantly placed to get involved. agnes, do you think there is an argument for saying, clearly this is prime minister abiy‘s view. he has met the au and said politely, go away. he does not want to talk to the other side, he wants a military victory.

that is what he seems to be aiming for. he set a deadline, which has passed. he says he is going in, bombardment during the course of this weekend in mekelle, the regional capital. is there an argument that it might be better if there is a fast military victory, though that could be brutal, because the alternative could be a protracted conflict in which many more thousands of people are not only killed but are displaced and perhaps permanently? especially, you know, the un refugee committee saw in the last few days dozens of thousands of refugees crossing the border into sudan. suddenly it stopped. and so there is a possibility that military forces are preventing the people from the tigray region and from the town of mekelle, which i think has 500,000 inhabitants, to actually flee. and there is a scarcity of information of what is going on on the ground.

there are food shortages, but also fuel shortage, and fuel replaces, you know, thanks to generators, they compensate for the lack of electricity. so, yes, you are right. what is better? a striking military victory for the prime minister or for the situation to faster and last for months if not years? it is impossible. we are in europe, we are looking at it, and because we have had some colonial responsibilities in history and in the past, we are probably not the best to have a say and to intervene. so, you know, and the people on the ground are suffering. what is there to add?

thank you for that. "do what needs to be done". with those words donald trump finally allowed america's transition process from one president to the next to begin. president trump is still contesting the outcome of the election, but more states have formally certified their results and his legal challenges are stymied in the courts. joe biden unveiled his cabinet and, though he echoes mr trump's antipathy to "forever wars", it's clear that re—engaging with the world is near the top of his agenda. some in his democratic party fear this may be a re—engagement with the past rather than confronting the challenges of the future. mark, i suppose when you look at some of the names on that team. john kerry is the climate envoy, the former secretary of state. his former deputy, antony blinken, is now the new secretary of state. what do you make of those? what do you read into the line—up he is putting in place, particularly in terms of his engagement

with the outside world? it is the return of the experts. this is not the kind of blue sky thinking that donald trump applied to some of his initial cabinet appointments. as you say, tony blinken is a career foreign—policy guy. ditto, jake sullivan, the national security adviser. national security advisers seem to be getting younger. it's like policeman, i suppose they are! compared to me they are! the appointment of jake sullivan is a national security staff from the 0bama period. 0n the one hand, the people around biden say we cannot turn the clock back to ten years ago orjust before the trump administration. the world has moved on, china's more powerful, more strident on the way it communicates on the world stage. all those sort of things are different. but as you say, this attempt to kind of restore

the expertise, the stability, the common—sense of the 0bama period. this is going to come to a head pretty quickly, i think, on the question of iran, and the biden administration's pledge to get back in to the nuclear deal with iran. which i have to say is an ambitious one. i entirely understand why they want to do it. blinken and sullivan were both very personally involved in the long negotiations that led to it, but it is a big ask. the sunset clauses started expiring last month. so the clock is already ticking. the clock is already beginning to come unravelled on the way it was originally conceived. iran can now buy weapons and stuff like that and do all sorts of things it could not do previously. from an iranian perspective, you can see the united arab emirates firing up a nuclear reactor, the saudis long suspected to have had various programmes related to nuclear weapons.

israel, of course, the great unacknowledged nuclear weapons state in the region. will iran really be willing to re—enter this agreement? there are powerful economic reasons why they should do so, but in security terms, it is an open question. stefanie, we have the killing on friday of iran's top nuclear scientist, mohsen fakhrizadeh, which the iranians say was the responsibility of israel. it is also possible to see it as an action, whoever was responsible, that will please, or not displease, president trump who pulled out of the deal, and is clearly a real sceptic about the ability of that deal to restrain iran. do you think thatjoe biden is being a bit too optimistic about the chances of restoring this deal? thinking he has enough leverage compared to president trump? perhaps even because of the sanctions by president trump to actually achieve it? that remains to be seen. there are lots of questions around why this killing has

happened now at this time and place. so, it is also interesting to see the comment ofjoe biden to say he is not going to be 0bama government number three. so while of course you could hear almost a sigh of relief this week when the names were made public of his new cabinet, and of course there's a lot of people who are coming from the 0bama administration, and therefore have very good contacts into europe. there is certainly the expectation that the dialogue and the relationship will be much better, much less erratic, and not so many surprises, like for example, the kind of not very pleasant surprise in germany in the summer when donald trump announced that he will withdraw one third of the us troops in germany. which is still a substantial number of 36,000 troops. which has a massive impact in security terms but also economically.

there is the hope that when it comes to the nuclear deal, there will be talks and it might restart. but time has passed and as mark said, things have become more difficult, also on the iranian side, we do not know how much they have worked successfully on their nuclear programme. so things are far more complex and difficult than they were five years ago. agnes, the elizabeth warren and bernie sanders supporters seem rather displeased byjoe biden‘s line—up. it is not as forward—thinking or progressive, to use their language, as they would like. do you think thatjoe biden is just going to be another 0bama? or does that underplay the fact that, unlike president 0bama, he had a huge background in foreign affairs before he was vice president? imean... there were quite a lot of failures in terms of international policy during the 0bama, biden administration.

they failed with syria. they failed to reset the relationship with russia. they also failed to constrain north korea. so it would not be good to go back to the 0bama international policies. and trumpism, rather than trump, is here to stay. so, yes, on one hand, wonderful to see that, for want of a better word, the grown—ups are back in washington. they are experienced, calm, seem to be competent. anthony blinken, state secretary was educated in europe, in paris. his french is actually betterthan mine. so that will be some satisfaction in some quarters. john kerry is probably going to do a great job with climate. we are talking about the iran deal, but there is the hope that the us will rejoin the paris agreement. but it is not going to be

back to 2016 or before. the relationship with china is going to be a tough test for the biden administration, but perhaps we should talk about europe and the us. i think there is need for fresh thinking on both sides of the atlantic. this is when germany and france have to agree, even though there has been some squabble recently, between the two, but basically of course we fear the collapse of nato, of course europe, we depend for security on the us and the return to more traditional us engagement in the world through biden is a good thing. but we should really work on being less dependent on having that strategic autonomy. and i think that is a huge topic for the eu to tackle. that defence policy. i think it is really of the essence, because trump has changed the world and america, not for the better. but it based...

thank you all very much for being with us. 0ne thought to leave you with. everybody mentioned china, according to a recent survey, there are fewer mandarin speakers and arabic speakers put together in the us state department than portuguese speakers. something they might want to address. more dateline next week. goodbye.

hello there. sunday looks like being a dull and gloomy sort of day for many places. could be down to —5 degrees first thing. milder across northern ireland, england and wales because we've got this blanket of low cloud. that's keeping it misty and murky, especially over the high ground, but i don't think we'll get the sunshine we had on saturday across kent and sussex. some sunshine, though, for the channel islands. it won't be as wet for northern england. the best of the sunshine probably across eastern areas of scotland. temperatures typically 7—ii degrees, with the higher temperatures more likely across western parts of the uk. weather starts to change, as you can see here, by the time we get to monday because the breeze picks up, we blow down this patchy rain from the north. there won't be much rain across southern england. most of the rain running into the hills of wales, north—west england, for a while in scotland, although we should get some sunshine here during the afternoon as the air turns

a little bit cooler. but elsewhere, mild, cloudy, damp sort of day, 00:29:03,588 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 highs of 10—11.