welcome to bbc news — my name is mike embley. our top stories. the death that shook the world: a police officer who knelt on george floyd's neck stands trial in minneapolis. both sides lay out their cases. you'll hear it and you'll see at the same time while he is crying out mr chauvin never moves. the knee remains on his neck. sunglasses remain undisturbed on his head and itjust goes on. derek chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do. the use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing. brazil's president, reshuffles his cabinet — as latin america's largest country descends into further covid—induced chaos. freed at last: the giant container ship that's blocked the suez canalfor almost a week — is sailing once again. and — beijing is accused

of using questionable tactics in its attempt to control what's said about china's role in the pandemic — we have a special report. welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. the trial has begun in the united states of the white policeman accused of killing george floyd — with lawyers and civil rights leaders claiming the case is a referendum onjustice and equality in america. mr floyd's death in minneapolis last may sparked �*black lives matter�* protests across the world — as public anger was fed by distressing footage showing him begging for air as derek chauvin knelt on his neck. mr chauvin denies charges of manslaughter and murder. aleem maqbool reports from minneapolis.

this marks the start of what will be an emotional and fraught few weeks for the family of george floyd. but the reminders have, of course, never gone away of the way he died. we need justice. i think throughout this whole trial, that's one word that you will hear me and my family say a lot — justice. somebody needs to be held accountable. do you swear or affirm... the outrage the case sparked became an examination of systemic racism in the us. but prosecution lawyers started by bringing back the focus to the man seen here on the right. this case is about mr derek chauvin and not about any of those men and women, it's not about all policing at all. this is when i started watching again. they showed jurors new cctv footage of the lead up to george floyd's death, as well as the full infamous video that caused such distress. and the most important numbers you will hear in this trial are nine two nine. what happened in those nine

minutes and 29 seconds when mr derek chauvin was applying this excessive force to body of mr george floyd. in his opening statement, the lawyerfor the former police officer defended his tactics. derek chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19—year career. the use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing. but primarily, they are also questioning one fundamental aspect of the death of george floyd, as i heard from a lawyer for the city's police union. the defense�*s main arguments are going to focus around whether or not chauvin actually caused his death. that is an argument that he would've died anyway. right, right. yeah, and i think, well,...

that, for a lot of people who saw the video, will sound ludicrous, frankly. um, well, the video isn't the whole story, it's a piece of the story, and that is what the jury will have to decide. these protests outside the courthouse are a reminder of the strength of feeling there was last summer, notjust here but all over the world. but in this case, one of the most important in us history, will come down to, of course, is the opinion of i2jurors. aleem maqbool, bbc news, minneapolis. so what is the crux of the lawyers�* arguments so far? our correspondent, lebo diseko, is in minneapolis. i think both lawyers have said that the crux of this is what caused george floyd's death so for the prosecution there was a phrase that really struck me when the lawyer said you can believe your eyes. so basically what you see on the video,

whatever the defence say, believe your eyes. that is what caused the death of george floyd. derek chauvin�*s lawyer defending his client saying that he had compromised health and he talked about drugs that were in the system and said he had a weak heart and all of these things compromised an already compromised heart in george floyd and he also said that derek chauvin had been doing what he was trained to do. interestingly, the prosecution say they will be calling the chief of police in the city as a witness and that he will be testifying that it is actually not what minnesota police are trained to do at all so it will be interesting to see how that plays out in the coming days. see how that plays out in the coming dam-— see how that plays out in the coming days. see how that plays out in the cominu da s. ~ ., coming days. where there are in his opening _ coming days. where there are in his opening days _ coming days. where there are in his opening days that _ coming days. where there are in his opening days that you - his opening days that you identified? we had three witnesses today. two of them are very, very powerful. the first one was a

911 emergency dispatch and she was the person who actually took the call about the initial disturbance with george floyd when the people from the shop had said that, had made a complaint about an alleged fake $20 bill. she was watching from inside the dispatch centre. she became so alarmed by what she saw she actually rang the officers supervisor and said i am concerned about what is happening, calling the police on the police. the other person who was a strong witness was a person you see trying to intervene. he was a martial arts expert and he said that his training enabled him to see that what derek chauvin was doing was cutting off the blood supply for george floyd and the

movements were further cutting off the supply of. the proceedings in court ended today because the fiba families were watching the proceedings on, member of each family is allowed to watch the proceedings in the courthouse. that dropped out sever technical reasons they finished slightly earlier and they will pick up with the last witness tomorrow. latin america's largest country, brazil, has descended into covid—induced chaos, with more new case numbers , and deaths , than any other nation on earth. president, jair bolsonaro, has also lost two key cabinet ministers, as he comes under increasing pressure over his handling of the pandemic. mark lobel reports. throughout the pandemic, governments around the world have tried to avoid hospital scenes like these. queues for intensive care units. this one filmed over the past week in south—east brazil, where the local mayor has rallied against locking down. some covid patients have

died in line, waiting. translation: people have been talking for months - about the risk of the public health system collapsing. sadly, that moment has come. the virus is spreading across the country, as deaths are felt here at an alarming rate. there are political casualties, too. the president, who has rallied against lockdowns himself, has lost two ministers in one day. his loyal foreign minister, ernesto araujo, has been under pressure for weeks, after his trump—like attacks on china may have delayed his country's efforts to secure their vaccines. his defence minister fernando azevedo e silva's resignation — without giving a reason — came as more of a surprise. there's been a glimmer of good news — president bolsonaro's

newly installed fourth health minister, marcelo queiroga, says brazil could receive vaccine supplies from the usa sooner than expected. but for some, it's all too late. jose roberto ignacio spent much of his life ferrying the sick and injured to hospital, but earlier this month the retired ambulance driver took the familiar route once more — as a passenger gasping for breath. when the 63—year—old needed intensive care himself, doctors in sao paulo explained there was no more room. translation: all his life | he worked to save people, and in the hour that he needed help there was nothing for him. his son recounted watching his father dying without being able to do anything about it. there's no doubt similar fears for the thousands currently waiting for itu beds across the country. mark lobel, bbc news.

let's get some of the day's other news. the us has suspended a trade pact with myanmar — a responce to the deadliest weekend of violence since february's military coup. more than a hundred people, including several children, were killed on saturday. the biden administration has condemned an attack by islamist militants on a town in mozambique as �*horrific�*. the so—called islamic state group claims to be in control of palma, but the situation on the ground is unclear. workers at an amazon warehouse in alabama have been deciding whether to unionise in a closely watched vote that could mark a first in the us. 6000 workers were eligible to cast their ballots by the end of monday. the retailer has strongly opposed the effort. prosecutors in new york have announced new charges against ghislaine maxwell — the british socialite accused of grooming young girls for herformer partner, jeffrey epstein. the indictment adds another suspected victim, taking the total to four. ms maxwell denies wrongdoing — and is in prison awaiting trial injuly.

president biden has asked governors and mayors across the us to keep on requiring people to wear face masks in public. he says reckless behaviour is causing a rise in the number of coronavirus infections. one of the first big questions ofjoe biden�*s presidency is how he will deal with the huge numbers of migrants gathering at america's southern border, hoping to cross into the us. many have risked all they have — including their lives — to make the journey. few parts of the trip are safe, but one area in particular has become notoriously dangerous — the border between colombia and panama. the darien gap is home to murderous trafficking gangs — but the geography of the area makes it all but impossible to find another route. 0ur correspondent daniel pardo has been there — and sent this report. this is one of the most dangerous and remote forests in

the world and the border between colombia and panama. 0n the colombian side the region has been controlled by guerrilla and paramilitary groups who profit from extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking. recently this border has seen another type of crisis. thousands of migrants from all over the world awaiting their chance to cross the jungle. awaiting their chance to cross thejungle. they awaiting their chance to cross the jungle. they come from haiti, venezuela, cuba but also many countries of africa. it is impossible to know how many cross each year or how many died en route. in symmetries like this one it is increasingly common to see graves of those who drowned while trying to cross. these men are from cuba and they are trying to get to the us. translation: now because of the pandemic the border between colombia and panama is closed. there is no sign of

humanitarian organisations here. the future depends on those who can cash in by helping them cross illegally. this man is telling the men to start the journey. and this is the last sort of piece of civilisation that the migrants are going to sea for at least a week. now they are going to go into thejungle. the week. now they are going to go into the jungle. the coyotes seemed to be controlled by one of the most powerful armed groups in the country with around 3000 soldiers. but the army captain tells me illegal migration isn't the only thing they are keeping tabs on.

for at least 15 years migrants have been departing from the speech and crossing the border to panama but with the pandemic they tend to get stuck in here. they don't have access to a room, to water or toilet here. this journey can be deadly but hundreds of people embark on it every day. they feel that the risk is worth that. they want to reach the us and start a new life. stay with us on bbc world news, still to come. back afloat and on its way, after almost a week. the accident that happened

here was of the sort that can at worse produce a meltdown. in this case the precautions worked, but they didn't work quite well enough to prevent some old fears about the safety features of these stations from resurfacing. the republic of ireland has become the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace. from today, anyone lighting up in offices, businesses, pubs and restaurants will face a heavy fine. the president was on his way out of the washington hilton| hotel, where he had - been addressing a trade union conference. the small crowd outside included his assailant. l it has become a symbol of paris.

this is bbc world news, the latest headlines. the trial has begun in the us city of minneapolis of the white police officer charged with the murder of george floyd. (00v)the brazilian president, has reshuffled his cabinet — as latin america's largest country descends into covid—induced chaos. ships have started sailing through the suez canal again. a giant container vessel blocking the way has been freed. the ever given was trapped for nearly a week in one of the world's busiest trade routes. a team of tug boats succeeded in pulling the ship free and it's now been towed north for a safety inspection. dharshini david reports. for six days, it's gripped and confounded the world, but the bottleneck sealing one of the busiest shipping lanes has been uncorked. the ever given, owned by company evergreen, is finally on the move thanks to a fleet of tug boats, diggers and an exceptionally high tide. moving the ship was never going to be easy. the iso—year—old canal is less than 300 metres wide. by contrast, the mega

ship is 400 metres long, and 20 times heavier than the eiffel tower. almost 30,000 cubic metres of mud have had to be shifted, also shifting the costs. carrying 20,000 containers, the ever given is the answer to our growing shopping list. a similar number of ships go down the canal as did a0 years ago, but now they're carrying more than three times as much. around 52 go through everyday, accounting for around i2%, or £7 billion, of global trade. now, behind the ever given, there have been more than 300 vessels queueing, their cargo everything from food to medicine to livestock and cars. they too may have more trouble on the horizon. there is a large backlog of vessels that are waiting

to go through the canal from both sides, and i think even operating at full capacity, it's going to take probably several weeks to get back to normal. and in the meantime, of course, the vessels that are starting off that were due to travel through the canal at the moment will continue to be diverted. the ever given and its cargo was due to arrive in felixstowe next week, but its customers and many other still await an eta. we have six containers on the sea on the wrong side of the suez canal, and the reality, we're a fun gift business, which means our product isn't critical, but there's a lot of critical products and essentials on those vessels. but how to prevent a repeat of this disruption? analysts say the egyptian authorities will be looking closely. it's a major artery - for the world so none of us want to see this happening. again, so anything that can be done to create a safer -

environment for this i think will be looked at and dealt with in due course. - a pandemic, changes due to brexit, rising shipping costs and now this. the trade that propels jobs and profits has faced fierce headwinds. it will be awhile before it gets back on course. dharshini david, bbc news. a new study has found that spending very long periods of time in space and taking part in extreme endurance swimming, can cause the heart to shrink. the research compared the effects of astronaut scott kelly's year in space with a marathon swim across the pacific ocean by athlete benoit lecomte. the findings indicate that the gravity we experience here on earth helps our heart to maintain both its size and function. dr benjamin levine, professor of internal medicine at the university of texas, led the research. normally, under gravitational conditions on earth, the heart has to pump blood uphill against gravity. but in space or in the water, it doesn't have to do that,

and that, depending on what your background physical activity is, that can unload the heart. the heart's like any other muscle — if you weight lift and build your heart muscle and then your skeletal muscle we did some studies on the ground and we have shown that if you can exercise hard enough and intense enough while you lying down in bed you can prevent that adaptation. and scott kelly his heart certainly was fine. it did not get weaker but it did shrink and even the amount of exercise that he did have a year in space is insufficient. now, that did not surprise me as much as swimming. if we had to bed before the study i would have been nearly certain that his heart would have been protected

and would not have shrunk. i thought was going to get bigger from all the exercise he did but it turns out that swimming for eight hours a day in the pacific ocean is a low intensity effort not enough to overcome the effect of loss of gravity. you take this and how might this be dealt with instant space flight? i don't think these adaptations a long time, are they? the hot would generally recover if it has the chance but if you are only long space flight and what then? you know, i think — space flight and what then? 7m, know, i think webmaster is going to make sure that astronauts are able to exercise while they're in flight. i think the amount of exercise that the astronauts have been able to do on the international space station for example, six months in flight, and mr kelly's example one year in flight. to preserve the function of the heart. the heart has to pump against the blood pressure with every pizza

is never going to be completely unloaded and not overly concerned as long as future astronauts are able to do some exercise. now, thank you perhaps it might compromise some of theirfunctional some of their functional capacity. he told us that radiation in spaceis he told us that radiation in space is a problem for the hot committee. more on that another day. more on that another day. the united states has warned it could impose steep tariffs on british exports in retaliation for the uk's digital services tax — which has hit some of america's technology giants, including social media platforms and internet search engines. the british government says it wants to ensure that tech companies pay theirfair share of tax, but washington has drawn up a long list of british goods it plans to target. a long awaited report into the origins of the pandemic, from the world health organisation's mission

to china, will be released on tuesday. china's response to the covid—i9 outbreak has been scrutinised since the virus was first detected in wuhan. but beijing has been trying to take greater control of what is said about its role in the pandemic — using often questionable tactics. krassi twigg from bbc monitoring reports. the truth about the coronavirus pandemic according to china. over the past year, china has been trying to convince the world that it has handled the crisis well. in an effort to shift any blame for the outbreak, beijing launched an all—out information offensive, fighting the assumption it all started in wuhan and undermining western vaccines. state media and officials have been keen to highlight the death of people who have received pfizer shots, questioning the safety of western vaccines without basis. we have seen evidence that audiences internationally are engaging in content produced by chinese state media outlets surrounding vaccine

hesitancy, surrounding concerns about the western vaccines. these messages are in some cases quite effective because it is reinforcing doubts that people may already be having. the fears are this kind of misinformation risks damaging public health. china's determination to push its counter narrative on the crisis goes back to the origins of covid—i9. this report by the chinese state channel, cgtn suggest that the virus came not from china but from a military research base in the us. china endorsed the theory in response to us claims that the virus escaped from a lab in wuhan, as well as provocative remarks by donald trump. coronavirus, right?

"kung—flu", yeah? this claim was amplified by a host of actors, state media outlets abroad in many languages. the so—called wolf warrior diplomats taking a fiery new brand of diplomacy to twitter and the huge network of bots. china really has a wide variety of tools at its disposal, and it's pulling all of these levers at different times to try and influence international narratives. and often times, this is to protect the chinese communist pa rty�*s genesee. beijing denies its involved in a misinformation campaign and insists that the world health 0rganization should visit other countries to investigate where the virus came from. in the meantime, china continues to portray itself as a global force for good, helping others out of the crisis. and you can get in touch with me and most of

the team on twitter — i'm @embleymike. hello. monday brought us the warmest day of the year so far, with temperatures in the southeast at 20.1; celsius, and things will get even warmer over the next few days. so a lot of warm, sunny weather, but not everywhere. some wet weather holding on across the northwest of scotland, really quite persistent rain there. and then later this week, from around thursday onwards, things are turning colderfor all of us with the return of some overnight frosts as well. for now, here's the weather front that's slow moving across the northwest of scotland. that's producing further outbreaks of rain, we could see some localised flooding for northern and western parts of the highlands, also for the western isles and the northern isles. elsewhere, a dry story, quite cloudy for parts of northern ireland, southern scotland and the far north of england. but the cloud should thin

and break up through the day, long spells of warm sunshine further south and light winds. temperatures up to 23 degrees across the southeast of england. but above 20 for england and wales, up in the high teens for scotland and northern ireland. through this evening and overnight, we see that rain persisting again across the western half of scotland, but it will start to edge its way gradually a little bit further south. temperatures first thing wednesday morning won't be quite as chilly as first thing tuesday morning, so typically between 7—9 celsius. now as we head through tuesday night into wednesday, there is the weather front, which slowly during wednesday morning will start to filter its way a little further south. so the rain's continuing across parts of scotland through the day, very slowly, some of it nudging across northern ireland. really, england and wales staying dry once again on wednesday, and with

those clear, blue skies, it will be another warm day. very warm in fact for march, between 19—23 degreese once again, but things starting to turn a little bit cooler across scotland and northern ireland too. ii or 12 here, and single figures across the northern half of scotland. that's down to the fact that this weather front is introducing colder air from the north towards the end of the week. as that slips its way down towards the south, the blue colours are going to return to the map. so this colder air moving in from an arctic direction, and that is going to feel very different as we head towards good friday and into the easter weekend as well. so certainly turning colder later this week, some wintry showers possible, but the next few days looking warm for many of us. bye— bye.

this is bbc news — the headlines.

lawyers in the us city of minneapolis have set out their opening arguments in the trial of a white former police officer accused of killing george floyd. the prosecutor replayed the full nine—minute video showing the former officer kneeling on mr floyd's neck as he struggled to breathe. brazil's president, jair bolsonaro, has been forced into a major reshuffle of his cabinet, following the resignations of his foreign and defence ministers. the president's popularity has declined sharply, as brazil suffers a second deadly wave of the pandemic — and major delays in its vaccination programme. ships have started sailing through the suez canal, after the giant container vessel that blocked the channel for almost a week — was freed. tug boats that took part in the rescue, honked their horns in celebration. egyptian officials say the backlog will be cleared in around three days. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk

with stephen sackur.