following the forced diversion of his flight has appeared in a video statement — confessesing to organising anti—government protests. it appeares to have been made under duress. eu leaders have now banned belarussian airlines from its airspace and are drawing up targeted sanctions. the head of the world health organization has condemned what he says is the scandalous inequity of access to covid vaccinations around the world. speaking at the opening of the annual assembly, tedros ghebreyesus said, the gap was making the pandemic worse. the us secretary of state, antony blinken is on his way to the middle east for talks following the fighting between israel and palestinian militants. state department officials say his priority will be to work -- is

—— is priority will be working day today. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. these are tough times in south africa. officially, covid has taken more than 55,000 lives. researchers reckon the real figure is much higher. and right now there are fears of a third wave of infection. but many minds in the ruling party are consumed not by this national health and economic crisis, but by anc infighting and mudslinging over corruption and accountability. my guest is finance minister tito mboweni. has the anc lost the plot?

tito mboweni in limpopo province, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much for having me here. i've been here before on hardtalk, but those days i was at the studios in london. this time i'm speaking to you from modjadjiskloof in limpopo province. thank you very much indeed. well, it's a, it's a pleasure to have you on the programme, minister. last time you were with us on hardtalk, of course, none of us had heard of covid—19. now your country is still in the grip of a national crisis thanks to the pandemic. how damaging in that context is it that the ruling anc is so riven with division

about issues of corruption, particularly concerning your former president, jacob zuma? the most important thing for us in south africa at the moment is to make sure that the entire population understands the interventions that we have to put in place to fight against the pandemic. basic non—pharmaceutical interventions, and then obviously the roll—out of the vaccine now, but the basic non—pharmaceutical interventions are important. that's the first thing. the second thing at the political level, you're asking me the question about the fight against corruption. the african national congress, the governing party is very resolute in its determination to fight against corruption, irrespective of whence it comes. and therefore, whoever is involved in corruption

must know that the law will be after them. and that's what we are doing, irrespective of who they are. and which office they once held. doesn't matter. they all must face the wrath of the law. that's a very important opening statement you've made, "irrespective of who they are," you say. so let us turn right now to the case of jacob zuma. he is facing court trial on charges of corruption, which involve, what, 2.5 billion us dollars. now, mr zuma is still a member of the anc. so, a very basic question. is it now time that he was suspended or maybe even expelled from your party? i think you have to ask that question from the official spokespersons of the party, but what i know is that there's a basic political decision within the party that if you are charged for fraud

or corruption before a court of law, you must step aside from your official position. now, that's the position, for example, that's confronting the secretary general of the anc. he has had to step aside. and that's a basic fundamental framework under which we operate. we have to be very strict and very direct about things like this. many post—liberation parties fall into difficulties because they fail to maintain the basic principles of the revolution, if i may put it that way. well, yes... therefore... hang on. let's try and keep this really concise. what you've just said suggests to me you think zuma should be suspended right now. we know that he recently attended a national executive committee meeting of the anc. he is still very much operational inside your party. so why isn't your party acting?

i think you need to ask that question from the deputy secretary general of the anc and not from the minister of finance. and let me ask you this. how real is the possibility of what, in essence, would be a civil war inside your party? you refer to the now suspended secretary general of the anc, ace magashule, who faces his own very serious corruption charges. he said last week when the trial of zuma was adjourned, he said, "zuma must be supported at all times. "as anc leaders, that's how we were brought up." there were hundreds of demonstrators outside the court at the time of the adjournment who said that they would do anything necessary to defend jacob zuma. your party could tear itself apart. i am very confident that the african national congress will stay together, united. those good people, those men and women of

the african national congress will stay together. over the years, the african national congress has faced many difficulties, from 1955, �*59, 1969 and so on. i'm a member of the national executive committee of the anc, and i'm quite convinced that the majority of members of the national executive committee will keep the party together, and those who want to disobey the decisions of the national executive committee will find themselves out of the door by their own volition and by their own deeds. just another thought about the anc. your own fellow countrymen and women, they want to know that your government is truly focused on the crisis you're facing. but they know that jacob zuma and ace magashule are going to be facing trial.

and they know that both men deny all of the very serious charges. they know this could run on for a long time. i just wonder whether you accept the words of william gumede, the chairman of a big ngo in your country, democracy works, who says that this has become a battle for the soul of the anc, particularly the fate of zuma. do you, as a senior member of your party, agree with that? i've known william gumede for a long time. he has been saying that for the past 20 years, it's not a new expression he has used. so i don't think there's any battle for the soul of the anc. the anc soul is intact. when we look at the allegations, particularly those around mr zuma, they involve tens of billions of dollars going into corrupt deals, what's been called generally state capture, the scale of the corruption. now, cyril ramaphosa, your boss, your president,

says that the governing party could and should have done more to prevent corruption in years gone by. is that enough, or do people, senior people like you and him, need to be much more frank with the public about your own failings to deliver clean governance? we are determined to make sure that the rule of law in the republic of south africa holds the grounds. so anybody who faces fraud and corruption charges must face the law. they must go to court, explain their case, respond to the prosecution's case. and then thejudges must determine whether they are guilty or not.

south africa is a law—governed society, and anybody who's accused of any wrongdoing must appear before the court, whether he's the minister of finance or he's the president of the republic, it doesn't matter, or whether you're a retired military general or whatever the case might be. if you are accused and the prosecutorial authorities, have a case against you, you must go to court and answer, irrespective of who you are. so on a personal basis, you know him very well. how disappointed are you with jacob zuma? not least, right now, his determination to fight all of this and to use any method he can, frankly, to try to avoid going to court and having this trial take place, because, of course, his defence team got it adjourned last week. well, i worked with mr zuma for many years. in fact, i think as early as 1982, thereabouts, so i've known him for many years.

and from lesotho, from maputo in mozambique and from london, from lusaka. and i think that all that he needs to do is to subject himself to the court processes and prove his innocence there. and i think that as somebody who has been in the struggle for so many years, i'm sure he's interested in the protection of our constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and that he will subject himself to a fair process of the law. that's very important. and also, if he does that, it becomes an example of how leadership conducts itself when confronted with such difficult matters.

this is important forfuture generations as well, so that the future generations know that all of us abide by the law and that none of us is above the law. you yourself have been heavily criticised by people inside the anc and also the affiliated trade union movement cosatu because of the way you've spoken out on financial governance issues. not so much in south africa, but there were some infamous tweets you made about the relationship between the president of zambia and the chief of his central bank. and as a result of those comments you made, cosatu in particular called you a national liability. they seem to think you should be removed from office. do you have a personal problem now with some of the key figures in your own ruling party and the trades union movement? not at all, not at all. i have very close working

relationships with the members of the national executive committee of the anc, the general secretary of cosatu, and also the other leaders in cosatu, the leaders of the south african communist party. we have differences from time to time. and i think one thing that's very unique about me, if i mightjust say something about myself, i call a spade a spade and not a big spoon. and if you call a spade a spade, you are going to get into trouble from time to time. but i like and enjoy getting into trouble. well, all right. in the spirit... yeah, minister... in the spirit of calling a spade a spade, i hope perhaps you'll be very frank with me about why your government has failed to really effectively

find ways of controlling covid—19 because three of your key provinces are now facing a very dangerous third wave. it looks like a fourth province is about to declare that it's in the third wave of covid—19, and your death toll is far higher than any other country in africa. why have you failed? one of the things about south africa is that we don't hide our statistics. we say things the way they are. i'm sure, if you dug deeper into the statistics of many other countries, you are going to find so many hidden facts. we don't hide facts. when we look at the way the pandemic has affected the whole world, all of us should be talking about how wejoin hands together to fight the pandemic. and in south africa, we have now begun the process to roll out the vaccine. in fact, i'm going to be vaccinated very soon. i've been told that because i'm

over 60, the time has come for the over—60 people to be vaccinated. i'm genuinely delighted to hear that you're about to get vaccinated. but the trouble is, you will then be part of the roughly 1% of your population that has received a dose of vaccine. your vaccination roll—out has not been as fast as, say, senegal, ghana, kenya, zimbabwe, botswana. you are the richest nation in the continent of africa. i come back to the basic question, why are you failing? well, we're not failing at all. we have got very strict health regulatory requirements in south africa. we began with the astrazeneca, though that it didn't work in south africa. we had to donate that, or hand it over, or sell it,

to other african countries. what do you mean, it didn't work, minister? what do you mean — it didn't work? because a certain variant had developed in south africa and the astrazeneca from the serum institute could not work. and then we had to rely on thej&j and also the pfizer doses, and you know, the problems with thej&j. i can't talk about that because i'll get into legal problems. but now we've got the pfizer doses in south africa, and it's the pfizer one, for example, that i'm going to be jabbed with. yeah, but i'm looking at a quote here from professor shabir madhi, who was involved in the astrazeneca trials. he says that, "stopping the roll—out of astrazeneca "in your country was a mistake because it does undoubtedly," he says, "protect against severe disease, "even if it doesn't protect against getting mild symptoms. "and selling our astrazeneca

vaccines to other countries "was a miscalculation, one that has set us back months "in our vaccine roll—out." do you regret it now? i think you need to have a conversation with the minister of health. let's talk, then, the economic costs of covid—19. the unemployment rate in your country is shockingly high, particularly for young people. i think it's, if you include those who have given up looking for work, the unemployment rate is well over a0%. now, what are you actually offering the hardest hit people in south africa in terms of real support? i think the most important interventions that we know throughout history is to provide an environment which makes economic agents to be active.

so there's government interventions as an economic agent on one side, but also private agents and private enterprise. and the most important parts of this story is the working relationship between the public sector and the private sector in the provision of employment or employment opportunities, contracts which create jobs and other economic activities. and the so—called animal spirits in the economic debate is very important. and i think we should not be in the mode of — what are you offering people? but what kind of an environment are you providing for both the public sector and the private sector to engage in economic activity? well, yeah, you might focus on animal spirits and getting the private sector moving, but the reality is that millions of south africans, poorest south africans,

have seen you offer them a below—inflation rise in their social grants, while at the same time you're cutting corporate taxes and talking about fiscal prudence. so many in your country feel that you're favouring business and ignoring the needs of those who are truly suffering from the covid pandemic and the economic crisis. stephen, basic economics, economics 101, will tell you that providing incentives for business, companies to operate is actually a job creator and not a job destroyer. so if, as a businessperson, you know that you're going to receive a tax benefit in the future, the tendency is for you to increase your economic activity,

in fact, to employ more people. this is what the cosatu trade union federation said of your budget in february. they said, "mr mboweni has delivered a budget that has not "for the 1a million people or more of working age "who are unemployed." they feel that you are basically looking after the private sector at the expense of the unemployed and the poorest south africans. politically, for the anc, that is a very dangerous place to be. that is their view. which i don't agree with. but that's their view. but politically, that's not where you need to be. if your own allies who have been with you in the struggle for decades now believe that you're a guy who's looking after the interests of big business and not the poor, politicians likejulius malema, and many others, are going to make huge political capital. they could very well do that,

but that's their view. that's their view. i disagree with them, but that's their view. it's a risk you're taking, minister. i take risks every day. and if it doesn't work, and if this unemployment rate of, as i say, the real unemployment rate of 40% plus persists, you and your government surely will lose the confidence of the people of your country. you know, i was in the government of president mandela in 1994 through to 1998. then i went to the central bank to become a central bank governor, and then after that i went to the private sector. and the structural unemployment rate in south africa has remained elevated. it's got nothing to do with the federal budget. anybody who thinks that it has to do with the federal budget really must have their mind

examined. the structural nature of unemployment in south africa has to do with the structural changes in the south african economy. and the fact that the primary sector, ie, agriculture, mining, have changed, even the manufacturing sector has changed. so agriculture and mining, for example, each one contributes about 5% share of gdp, and the manufacturing, both light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing are about 18% of gdp. the rest of it is the tertiary sector, whether it's wholesale trade, retailtrade, banking and finance, insurance, domestic services, government services, health services. that's where the thing is. right. but... and therefore... no, no, no.

no, no, let me finish. and therefore, the skill set required for this structurally changed economy is what we need to work on so that it will feed into the pipeline the skills which are now required in light manufacturing and also in the tertiary sector of the economy. right. but you've had years of low growth. you've had years of stagnation, infrastructure problems, and in recent times, recession. claude baissac who runs the eunomix consultancy group in johannesburg. he says barring a meaningful change of trajectory in south africa, it will become a failed state by 2030. can you fix that trajectory yourself? that's absolute nonsense. south africa will never be a failed state. that's nonsense. that's nonsensical. but can you turn around what you've acknowledged to be

this unemployment crisis? but i've explained to you what the problem is, and i have no other words to explain to you. the fact of the matter is that this country, south africa, has far stronger institutions that keep the country together, the pillars of the state together. whether it's the judiciary, whether it's the central bank, whether it's the national treasury, whether it's the defence force, the intelligence services, whether it's the non—governmental organisations, whether it's chambers of commerce and academic institutions, this country is far more stronger than any one of them on their own put together. all right. there's no way in which south africa's going to collapse. it's not possible. that's nonsensical. well, minister tito mboweni, i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much indeed

for having me here. it's my second time here and this time it was more difficult than before. well, we appreciate it. thank you very much. hello. we know may has been wet, and now with less than a week to go, the met office says provisionalfigures indicate that wales, despite all of the sunshine to end monday, has had its wettest may on record — those records going back to 1862. wales will have a drier tuesday, but depending on where you are, there will be further heavy showers to dodge because low pressure, although it's moving into the north sea, is still close enough to produce some of those showers.

now, there are weather changes on the horizon and we'll look at those in just a moment. this is how we're starting off tuesday morning. a lot of cloud across scotland, northern england, through north wales, the midlands and on towards east anglia, where you could be encountering some patchy rain to begin with. elsewhere, a few sunny spells. the cloudy zone will brighten up, but this is where we're going to see some of those heavy and possibly thundery showers, with the risk of hail during the day. quieter weather through much of wales, the midlands, into southeast england, bar the odd shower, and largely dry in northern ireland. but cornwall and devon clouding over with outbreaks of rain moving in. it'll be fairly breezy out there and temperatures for the most part in the range of 12 to 16 celsius. tuesday evening brings some of the heaviest showers in towards the midlands and east anglia before the day is done. the rain clears away the far southwest of england, further outbreaks of rain pushing in towards southeast scotland and northeast england. and wednesday starts where you're clear on a chillier note, some spots down into low single figures. and on wednesday, there will be a few sunny spells around, but much of the east of the uk

will be cloudy, and you could well see some outbreaks of rain turning increasingly light and patchy as the day goes on. but through parts of scotland and again northern england, through the afternoon, there could be heavy and thundery showers getting going. where you get the sunshine, though, it is going to be a little warmer. still quite chilly as thursday begins under largely clear skies. now, there will be a weather system trying to approach from the west. some uncertainty about how far it's going to get in during daylight hours, but it could well bring some cloud and rain into at least parts of northern ireland. but where you stay dry, with sunny spells, it'll be a touch warmer still. that weather front to the west willjust die a death and we're left with building high pressure going into the weekend, and that is going to bring rather more settled weather than we've had of late. not completely dry. there may be a weather system approaching from the west later on bank holiday monday.

but for most of us, it is looking this weekend drier and warmer.

this is bbc news, i'm ben boulos. our top stories. a belarusian journalist arrested in minsk following the forced diversion of his flight appears in a video — apparently under duress. european leaders ban belarussian airlines from eu airspace and draw up targeted sanctions against officials. in gaza, we meet one community grieving the loss of their children in the recent clashes with israel. the us prepares to mark the first anniversary of the murder of african american george floyd, which prompted global demonstrations against police brutality. and the italian winner of this year's eurovision song contest passes a drugs test, halting rumours he took cocaine at the event.