the half—brother of the king of jordan is being investigated, for allegedly plotting with foreign parties to destabilise the kingdom. new coronavirus restrictions are being introduced in india's worst affected state, as the country records the world's highest number of daily infections. emergency workers in the us state of florida are trying to stop catastrophic flooding after a leak in a toxic waste—water reservoir. more than 300 homes have been evacuated. the reservoir contains over 2 billion litres of polluted water. efforts to plug the leak have so far failed. you are watching bbc world news.

now on bbc news, dateline london. hello, i'm shaun ley. welcome to the programme which brings together uk commentators, bbc specialists and foreign correspondents who file their stories for audiences at home dateline london. this weekend, as christians celebrate easter and renewal, we're devoting the programme to one theme — after the pandemic, can we renew our world? and is reconciliation possible when people in so much of it seem so angry? to try to answer that are catherine pepinster, the first woman to edit the tablet, the international catholic newspaper.

michael goldfarb, veteran foreign correspondent for us public radio. his podcast frdh is inspired by the ambition ofjournalism as the first rough draft of history. and in the studio, the bbc broadcaster and china specialist, vincent ni. welcome to all of you. it is good to have you with us this easter weekend. pope francis, who delivers his easter message for a second yearfrom inside the basilica, rather than to the thousands of catholics who gather most years in st peter's square, practised what he preaches when, last month, he made the first ever papal visit to iraq. he was seeking not only to reconcile christianity and islam, but also to inspire muslims to heal the division within theirfaith. yet faith is weaponised in conflicts around the world — used, if you'll pardon the expression, to demonise minorities. china this weekend marking qingming, the tomb sweeping festival, stands accused ofjustifying conversion and suppression of uighers on the grounds of their faith, islam. it now permits catholics to worship. is that reconciliation or has

the vatican been co—opted to beijing's cause? how credible is reconciliation in brazil or the united states, where politics is now so polarised, and, perhaps not coincidentally, so ineffectual? in a global pandemic, which we're all in together, why are we so angry with each other, especially when it's manifestly not in our own best interest? catherine pepinster, let's start with the pope. this visit to iraq was, on a personal level, in terms of his own safety, quite a big risk to run. it's the first time a pope has been to iraq, even though it is one of the countries of one of the birthplaces of christianity. it had quite a message designed to resonate beyond that one country? yes, you are absolutely right. this was an historic occasion for the pope to go to iraq, but he was really quite committed to trying to get it organised

and he wanted to take there a message of reconciliation. reconciliation is a word that has come up time and time again throughout the eight years that francis has been pope. i think if you look at his writings, when he mentions reconciliation, he also always mentions dialogue. that reconciliation means you have to talk to people, you have to find ways through your differences. he was also keen in that visit to show his solidarity with the christian minorities who have had such a terrible time in recent years. but alongside solidarity with one particular group, he is saying, you have got to talk to the other side, as it were, as well, you have got to have that encounter. and i think it is something we see such a lack of at the moment in our world.

you've mentioned some of the countries in your introduction where this is such a problem. we have also seen in places in the past such as in south africa and northern ireland that reconciliation and dialogue can make a difference. michael, it might seem a trite to say, but plenty of people will be watching this programme who i suspect will be thinking it is all very well to say what the pope is trying to do, but religion, whether religious people themselves want it to be this way or not, probably they don't, but religion has been used as a justification for what is otherwise unjustifiable, in terms of violence, in terms of political and economic colonisation as well as subjugation. is faith the problem, not the solution? faith is not the problem. it is exploitation by politics, politicians and rulers that is a problem. it has been a problem

for a very, very long time. we are still living, despite people's concerns we are ending the age of enlightenment. the age of enlightenment began as a response to 150 years of unimaginable barbarity and cruelty as christianity went through its great reformation in the west. the foundational texts of the enlightenment, i will mention two — the theological and the letter concerning toleration byjohn locke are both written in a sense to say for too long, the clergy — whether it be catholic priests or ministers in the protestant faith — have had the ear of the prints

and they have been using that access to foment division and impose their will on the whole of society. and they called for toleration. you can have a public space where you can be catholic you can be a sunni or a shia — although they were not referring to the islamic world then. it has come now in modern times to the islamic world and we have been living less so today, but we have been living for several decades while the islamic world has a kind of civil war that has been going on. but it has been fomented by politicians and used by politicians to cement their own power. there is an element of hypocrisy in all of that. my own view is faith is personal, faith is what you were brought up in, and it should stay personal but you have to be very careful when you bring it into the world of politics, because then it becomes a different game. there is, catherine, a kind of depressing repetitiveness about this, isn't there? in the 16th and 17th century, it was catholics who were feared by some

because they were said to have divided loyalties — how can they be loyal to our country when they still have this loyalty to the pope in rome who is a foreign prince? we've heard the same aboutjewish people — well, they are a rootless people, they cannot have any loyalty. we have heard it about muslims, we have heard it in various forms that sound benign, the early �*80s — could you be truly british if you are cheering on india cricket, for example. it is the benign end, but it can slide very quickly into something more sinister and more negative. is part of the problem, though, that faith itself encourages this? one thinks of the crime of apostasy — the idea that you can be of the same faith, but if you deviate in a particular way, you are somehow betraying that faith?

michaeljust mentioned that politics is the problem not faith. i think it might possibly human nature that is actually the problem. these difficulties keep coming over and over again. i think one area where we are seeing this insistence on loyalty is in china. we see this time and time again — the chinese communist party seems to not be able to abide the idea that people could have a loyalty, devotion to a particular religious faith and also be chinese, be accepting of their government. and if there is one area of pope francis that is hugely controversial is his endeavours to form some kind of dialogue with the chinese, which doesn't seem to be getting christians in the country any further down the road to some kind of normal life. it seems to be an intractable

problem and his attempts at reconciliation and dialogue with the chinese, i don't know if he is naive, but is not getting anybody very far. because that is an interesting example, isn't it? what had been the persecution of christians, catholics in modern day china, and then this kind of insistence from the chinese leadership, as i understand it, right, you can chinese bishops, you can have practice, but we kind of have to have a bit of approval about who these people are you are putting in charge, because you are almost setting them up as a rival authority. i agree with what michael said — religion itself might not be i a problem but when it is mixed with politics, internal- politics or external- geopolitics, it is a problem. from china's perspective, i when they look at the map

where xinjiang lies, . it is bordered by eight countries, pakistan to india . to afghanistan and to russia. we are talking about their divided loyalty concept and faith is one of the things that sometimes political leaders see as a potential threat? yes, there was an element of internal security, - also an element of external geopolitics here. _ when it comes to faith - and politics, if they are mixed together, this is where the controversy lies. i notjust in china, but also in myanmar in the plight. of the rohingya muslims, - buddhist monks becoming very political, some high—profile ones reportedly have said l things like every- muslim is dangerous. this is where things start to get out of control. - you have religion. mixed with politics. that is an interesting example because we are at a point in myanmar, there is a kind of very — arguably quite

poisonous link between ethnic identity and faith. if you are a nationalist loyal to myanmar as a concept, you are likely to be buddhist. 90% of the population is buddhist. and as you've said, this idea that any muslim is potentially dangerous. we have seen an example of that in the treatment of the rohingya minority. is there any pushback — is there a sense of any people who are uncertain about the way this has gone? well, certainly, the - international outrage over the last three or four years. we have seen reporters . going into either myanmar or in neighbouring countries and reporting on the plightl of rohingya muslims. also pope francis last year also mentioned yazidis, i uighurs and rohingyas, - calling them persecuted people. so there is international. pushback, but we all know what is happening in myanmar

today and there doesn't seem| to be the opportunity- to have a dialogue between what is happening in myanmar- and what is perceived outside. as you said, it is not dialogue, it is dispersal and execution for those who are protesting. michael, this takes us back to idea of the politics. if we are talking about reconciliation and we talk about politics, it's hard not to think of the united states — and again, weirdly there is almost a sense that as the practice of religion has declined, or at least the organised practice of religion, some of that passion has gone from faith into politics and politics has become almost a form of religion in itself? let me just — before i come back to that, i want to pick up on something vincent was saying. this is again politics and religion, that neither pakistan nor turkey, which are muslim countries, has been particularly loud

in criticising china for its treatment of its muslim minority in xinjiang, and that is politics writ large. turkey, both leaders of both countries are very, very — they would call themselves islamic politicians, i think, but they are not standing up for their muslim brothers. but coming back to america, some very, very interesting opinion research came out this week. they have sampled all kinds of opinion which shows that despite the fact that americans profess religion, one of the most religious countries in the west, church attendance has gone way down. they haven't explained why that should happen over the last

four or five years, but my guess is so—called evangelical christians — and really, they are political christians — have become so dominant in parts of the country that there are many people in the south, in texas, in the west now, who would consider themselves in religious terms to be evangelical but don't want to go to church on sunday and have a political agenda poured down their throats, so they have stopped going to church. part of the problem in america, and one of the reasons why people have such a hard time talking, it does seem to be going through — i think it is in a state of cold civil war, there is the religious element. there is a sense that "this is my faith. lam right. my political opinion is right." that is more thanjust an intellectual thing, it is something they believe, that this is what the united states is, or was

when it was founded and is no longer, and i will fight, people use the word "fight", to make it what it was at its founding. and that is tied in with this political christianity. it is a big problem. that's a really interesting aspect of this, catherine, when we talk about the idea of reconciliation. you were saying about the importance of dialogue. dialogue only works if people are talking to each other and not past each other. and there is this sense, in terms of the practice of politics, they don't have to be convinced by fact any any more, it is an act of faith to believe in the ideology they believe in? how do you start to disentangle that, to be able to change people's minds if they fear that in changing their minds, somehow, they are losing their identity? i think one of the problems that we have right now is the impact of social media. because i think social media is upping the ante all the time, it is making people much more divided, rather than bringing them together.

and what it does is that it — people follow those who they agree with, except when they are unbelievably hostile to those they agree with. and what we see lacking in social media — and i think we see lacking so often in these divisions and conflicts we are talking about here — is that there seems to be a complete lack of humility. there's an assumption that one side is right and the other side is completely wrong and can be completely dismissed. and i hink if you are going to have dialogue, you have got to have that humility develop as well. and i think we see an enormous lack of that in politics as well, that the conflicts often involving politics, whether religion is part of it or not, the situation is made even more difficult because of

this lack of humility. and i am not sure how quite you encourage people to develop that kind of humility but when it is lacking, we just don't get the dialogue that is needed. ad we get in a country like brazil, a hugely successful and powerful country — a country that many admire and other countries aspire to be like brazil, to have gone from where brazil was to where it is now, but its politics has become increasingly polarised and distrustful, increasingly convinced the other side is corrupt and you cannot engage with them. president bolsonaro now facing his former rival — former president, rather, president lulu da silva, who has become the focus of this, it is hard to understand how a country like this gets to that stage of reconciliation without something much worse first? totally. completely, in a polarisedl

world, it is ordinary people who bear the brunt of. the polarisaion, really. look at brazil when it comes to the covid health crisis - and a vaccine is not largely. rolled out yet in the country. and top leadership — _ bolsonaro, president bolsonaro has been very reluctant to get people be inoculated, etc. - so it is ordinary people suffering from politicalj polarisation, and that is the problem — - that is the lack of leadership, whether it is in brazil. or in the united states. biden certainly wants to bring the country together- but it will take him - a long time, if not years, to make it happen. he is now starting from building infrastructure, | getting americans inoculated by some time the summer. but again, we are facing thisl unprecedented scenario now. we don't know whether there will be an economic crisis - following this health crisis. we don't know how the great

power competition between i the us— and china will develop. so this is a really divided and a divisive world - where there — is no apparent leader who can bring everybody together. from the international level and from an individual countries level. - i want to perhaps end on the pandemic, butjust picking up on what we were talking about earlier, michael, and catherine gave examples of where places had dialogue and reconciliation — she mentioned south africa, northern ireland had a peace process of sorts but you could question whether there was truly reconciliation. certainly there was a dialogue but was there certainly there was a dialogue but was there any certainly there was a dialogue but was there any accounting for past crimes? one country that seems to be happening in a way that has surprised people is colombia. the big process has led to some former leaders of the farc rebel group actually being charged with war crimes. so instead of saying we're kind of going to, you know, we have suspended this, they are taking the reverse approach. is that a productive

one, do you think? in the case of colombia — i mean part of it, there some — countries where you can bolster these things through aid. and let's be clear that is what happened in south africa, and to a very considerable degree in northern ireland, where there was a lot of inward investment from the united states to make sure that in this transition period where people who have been fighting insurgencies against one another for decades — in the case of colombia, going back to the 1960s — have an opportunity to talk and to deal with one another in a world where economic gain is being more evenly spread. and this perhaps can bring us back to america, where because inequality has been growing at such a pace, people don't feel like they have that kinda of

economic stake in the overall health of the society. whereas in colombia, that seems to be different. it should also be said that if you know enough about the wars that were fought in colombia between the farc and other groups and various governments and you know what half a century feels like, and i'm now so old i do know what half a century feels like, you mightjust be inclined to say "we don't have to fight about this stuff. we really don't." so time also heals, to a certain degree. and that is some message of hope and optimism, catherine. and i suppose one element is this — and we have heard it in different forms — we've had people trying to apologise and account for what has been done. not even necessarily by hand. whether it is apologies for historic child sexual abuse, whether it's apologies for slavery in the atlantic slave trade, whether, in the most recent

example, it is a university, a relatively small institution in a part of the united kingdom saying — out of step with other institutions around the world — actually, we have got this thing, we have got this bronze that was pillaged from beinin, in what is now nigeria, and it is actually intolerable for us to keep it, we will give it back — small acts that might have a bigger resonance? yes, when we look at an issue such as we have this morning, conflict across the world, it is easy to be very pessimistic. but i think you have just mentioned small acts and if you look across society — and we have seen this particularly in the pandemic — that there are countless small acts that do make a difference. the — i think the pandemic has exacerbated existing problems. michael was just mentioning inequality. we have seen how inequality

in the uk has really been exasperated by pandemic, but the pandemic has also highlighted the capacity for humanity to do good as well. and i think that is something perhaps at easter we can celebrate. and vincent, just on that thought, we have had this call from a number of world leaders — including borisjohnson in the uk, angela merkel, president macron — in a sense acknowledging that they are not adequate as individuals for the crisis — who is? — the talk of a future treaty for pandemics and say that we are all in this together, particularly the calls over vaccine nationalism. has it been such a bad experience for the world that this might be the thing to galvanise us to do something together? this is a really positive step. some 25 countries have joined a cause to establish this - treaty.

but i think the devil. is always in the detail and also in process. we are in a time of every. country believes they have the right to set the rules. it is ultimately about| who sets the rules, it is about whether it is the us, china, - the eu orthe uk. it is a very positive step i but it will take some time, especially contacts— and negotiating a multilateral heehy - — we know how notorious it can be sometimes — so it is positive but it. will take some time. time is one thing we have on our hands for now, not least many people sitting at home. thank you for being with us. thanks to catherine and to michael and to you vincent, and for you watching us. i am remembering that sometimes, you have to make compromises. what is it the protestant prince said? that after years of religion, the massacre of terrible acts in france when he said "paris is worth a mass".

from all of us at dateline, have a good weekend. we're back next week at the same time. goodbye. good evening. easter sunday's highest temperature was in was where i got very close to 18 degrees. but at the other end of the uk, the weather was changing, and it was changing drastically. that was shetland with some snow showers and some cold air, and that cold air is now moving southwards. behind this cold front, a much, much chillierfeel to the weather for easter monday. the start of the new week bringing much colder days and some frosty nights. snow showers quite widely but especially across northern scotland, where there will be blizzard conditions with some really strong winds. so as we start monday morning, then, the remnants of our cold front bringing some patchy rain into the south. behind that, sunny spells, yes, but plenty of showers,

especially for coastal areas. the showers falling as a mixture of hail and snow in most places and the showers most plentiful across northern scotland, where we'll see the snow really piling up over the highest ground. and there will be blizzard conditions here, as i said, with wind gusts of 50—60, maybe 70 mph. and even if you see sunshine through monday afternoon, 4—9 degrees the maximum temperature. factor in the strength of that northerly wind, this is what it's going to feel like. it will feel subzero for many, feeling like “4 there in aberdeen. now, as we head through monday night into the early hours of tuesday, you can see the snow showers continuing, particularly for eastern and western coasts, some for northern ireland and plenty more for northern scotland, and it is going to be widely a cold and frosty night, and there could be some icy stretches around as well first thing on tuesday morning. and another cold and wintry day to come on tuesday with some spells of sunshine. showers especially around the coasts but actually, a greater chance of seeing some showers inland and again, those showers are likely to be wintry.

and it's another cold day, still windy too — 2—9 degrees at best. a subtle change as we head towards the middle part of the week, and it comes courtesy of this little frontal system here. it is a warm front running in from the west. as the name suggests, the air behind it will be warmer, or perhapsjust a little bit less cold. temperatures will slowly nudge upwards. that front will bring a little bit of rain for some, but not quite all of us, so through the middle of the week, some slightly higher temperatures but then, actually, by friday in northern areas, it will turn cold once again.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: royal crisis injordan — former crown prince hamza accused of plotting to destabilise the country. new coronavirus restrictions in india's worst affected state, as the country records the world's highest number of daily infections. the florida reservoir leaking toxic waste—water, and the battle to prevent an environmental disaster. and tears ofjoy, the swimmer who's qualified for the tokyo 0lympics after being diagnosed with leukemia.