this is bbc news. our top stories... president biden announces plans to share the first batch of its unused coronavirus vaccines — three quarters will go to the covax global programme. why exiled uyghurs are in london to put pressure on the international community to act against china. portugal is removed from the uk safe green travel list. a bitter blow for travellers hoping to get to one of the very few options for european holidays and twitter introduces a new subscription service — but will users want to pay?

welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. the biden administration has unveiled plans to share millions of unused covid vaccines with the rest of the world. they'll distribute 25 million doses immediately, with a goal of handing out 80 million by the end ofjune. of that initial batch, 19 million will be allocated to covax, the global facility designed to distribute vaccines fairly. the remaining six million doses will go directly to countries experiencing surges and to us neighbours. they include mexico, canada, south korea, and ukraine. president biden�*s national security adviser, jake sullivan, outlined the criteria for vaccine distribution. we've received requests from all over the world, and a number of important factors went into our decision about how to allocate these first 25 million vaccines. these factors included achieving global coverage, responding to surges and other specific urgent situations

and public health needs, and helping as many countries as possible who've requested vaccines. gavin yamey is the professor of global health & public policy at duke university, and gave me his reaction. covax, the global sharing mechanism, has only distributed about 76 million doses so far to low income and lower middle income countries. this 19 million doses donation from president biden is a good first step. it's churlish to complain, right? on the other hand, it's not commensurate with the size of the problem and the need. it's like putting a really tiny band—aid on a giant gaping, bleeding wound. we really are going to need 11 billion doses in order to vaccinate 70% of the world. that's a proportion many scientists think would allow us to reach vaccine herd immunity.

it's an important step, a small one, and let's not forget that the reason covax has so few doses is nations like the us, like the uk, like israel, new zealand, canada, they hoarded doses, they cleared the shelves and there were none left for covax. you have a hoarding nation like the us finally donating some doses. a few crumbs from a rich person's table, if you like. in which case, how do you make those vast numbers of doses available? is it waiving the intellectual property rights? is it making the manufacturing processes, helping poorer countries set up production to make their own vaccines? all of the above. look, right now, rich countries are sitting on around 200—300 million doses, sitting on fridges, unused,

sitting in fridges, unused, not needed, ready to go. they should be shots in arms in lower middle income countries now. secondly, rich countries have bought an additional 1.5 billion doses, advanced purchases, that they don't need. they need to free up those doses, they are not made yet but they will be soon, and give those to covax. and lastly, your point, absolutely we need what is being called a people's vaccine. we have to make sure that low and middle income countries are empowered to make vaccine doses themselves. no more trickle—down manufacturing where a few doses might make it down from the global north to the global south. waive the patent, transfer the technology. that is not going to make doses tomorrow. i'm not naive enough to think that. but it could, in four or six months�* time. and there are manufacturers in thailand, bangladesh, egypt, hungary, ready to go.

give them the ip, transfer technology, support them to manufacture doses. this pandemic will be with us for years to come, we have to globalise the manufacturing. in a week's time president biden will arrive in the uk as the leaders of the world's largest industrialised democracies gather for the g7 conference. one of the issues on the agenda is their relationships with china and ongoing concerns about beijing's alleged persecution of the country's uighur population. the us is among several countries to have accused china of committing genocide — china denies these accusations. this week dozens of uighurs have come to london to put pressure on the international community to act — caroline hawley reports. this man wants to tell the world his story. so does gulbaharjalilova, to speak out for their people. china's accused of mass atrocities against the uighurs, of incarcerating over a million people, of subjecting uighurs to forced labour and sterilisations —

allegations it denies. but in this remote area of north—west china, wearing a headscarf or having a beard can put you behind bars. gulbaharjalilova says she was arrested in 2017, accused of terrorism, and put in a cell with dozens of other women who were all given regular injections and pills that stopped their periods. once every ten days, she says, they were forced to strip naked. this man was accused by china of revealing state secrets ini993, and jailed. he now has asylum in norway, where he's active in the uighur community. but in 2017, he says he got a video call in which he could see his brother and sister hanging by their arms

from a ceiling. he says a policeman called and told him to stop funding uighur groups in turkey, to stop mixing with other uighur exiles. he refused. since then, he says his entire family — 30 people in all — have disappeared. it's impossible for us to verify their accounts. china prevents independent journalists and human rights organisations from operating freely in xinjiang, where most uighurs live. these pictures from state media show the region as a happy tourist destination. chinese officials call it a place of harmony. but the witnesses who've come to london to testify at a self—styled tribunal will tell a very different story. it has no government backing or legal force, and china has vehemently

denounced everyone involved. translation: the so-called uighur special tribunal - is neither legal nor credible. it's just another anti—china farce, concocted by a few people. the chinese authorities say that the witnesses to the tribunal are all acting, are actors, that this is a show. both say they've come to london to put the spotlight on the uighurs�* collective suffering, and china's efforts to erase their identity. caroline hawley, bbc news. the detained bela rusian opposition journalist roman protasevich has appeared again on state television, tearfully confessing to helping to organise anti—government protests. he is also seen recanting his criticism of belarus's authoritarian president,

alexander lu kashenko. his family and opposition groups say he was clearly speaking under duress. the authorities, who've labelled mr protasevich an extremist, claim television confessions by government opponents are purely done voluntarily. officials in sri lanka are desperately trying to contain a potentially devastating oil leak from a sinking cargo ship. the ship caught fire nearly two weeks ago, and debris and oil have already spread onto the coast, sparking fears of an environmental disaster. the bbc�*s secunder kermani has more. an environmental disaster that only looks to be getting worse. after a fire broke out around two weeks ago, this huge ship, the x—press pearl, is sinking. desperate efforts to tow it further away from sri lanka's western coastline have failed, with part of the boat striking against the sea bed. millions of plastic pellets that were being transported have already contaminated

sri lanka's beaches. clean—up operations are under way, but the tiny pellets used to manufacture everyday products are often mistaken for food by marine life. the fear now is of a possible huge oil spill. around 350 tonnes were on board. it's not known how much has been burnt off. this is by far the worst marine environmental disaster sri lanka has ever seen, because if there's oil spills, it's going to be adding onto the plastic pellets and on top of the chemicals and the toxins, and the environmental disaster is going to quadruple. at the main fish market in the city of negombo, local fishermen know this could be a devastating blow to their livelihoods. the pandemic means any clean—up is likely to take even longer. "the authorities need to stop environmental damage happening," says this

fisherman. "they should have sunk the ship as soon as the fire started. it's not officials who will pay the price for this. it's us." 25 tonnes of nitric acid were also on board the ship. a leak in one of those containers likely caused the fire. port officials in both qatar and india had earlier refused to allow the chemical to be unloaded there. an investigation is under way, but for now, the focus is on preventing even more environmental damage. secunder kermani, bbc news. two people have died after a residential building collapsed in rio de janeiro on thursday. residents described hearing a booming noise followed by a fire. more than 100 firefighters were involved in the rescue effort in the city of rio das pedras — the birthplace of rio de janeiro�*s so—called "militias" which operate profitable and deadly rackets throughout the city.

among their money—making operations, they build residential structures without official permission or approval. sources involved in the rescue said the building that collapsed was not approved by authorities. stay with us on bbc news, still to come... as a major airline buys 15 new supersonic planes, will we soon be hearing the boom in our skies once more? the queen and her husband began their royal progress to westminster. the moment of crowning, in accordance with the order of service, via a signal given with the great guns of the tower. tributes have been paid around the world to muhammad ali who has died at the age of 7a. outspoken but rarely out—fought, ali transcended the sport of boxing of which he was three times world champion. he was a good fighter, he

fought all the way to the end — even through his illness. yes, he did. uefa imposes an indefinite ban on english clubs playing in europe. today is the 20th anniversary of the release of the beatles lp sgt pepper's lonely hearts club band, a record described as the album of the century. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines... president biden has announced plans for the us to start sharing millions of doses of covid vaccines with the rest of the world before the end of the month. portugal questions a decision by the uk government to move it from a so—called green travel list to an amber — it means british travellers will now have to quarantine on their return from portugal.

twitter has launched its first ever subscription product. the new service, called twitter blue, allows users to "undo" tweets — a long—awaited feature — and organise saved tweets into bookmark folders, among other things. twitter blue will initially be available in australia and canada. analysts say the tech company wants to expand from its core business of selling advertising on the platform. social media strategist meg coffey in perth, western australia, says she'll definitely be joining. i can't wait to sign up. for me, twitter is my favourite platform and has been for a very ling time. for a very long time. i'm a super—user, and the things i have gotten out of twitter far outweigh what a monthly service is going to cost me so i can't wait to sign up for it, i think it's brilliant. you're speaking as someone who works in the social media sector, you're a specialist, you engage with it a lot. are people who use it casually, maybe to browse while they're waiting in the line of a coffee

shop, really going to pay another subscription on top of all the others they have? yeah, see, ithink that's the difference. because i am someone who uses it every day, and i use it for work, it makes sense for me to buy it. but if you just use it casually, you don't spend a lot of time on the platform, not using it for news, sport and politics, i can see how it wouldn't fit in for you and you would go, "no, social media needs to be free, it's just toool for me to communicate with people." on the business side, this is really interesting, because the problem twitter has is monetising. you can reply on advertising but it's such a competitive market when you're up against the likes of google and facebook and youtube and all the rest. do you think this could become their main source of income or is itjust an addition? that's a tough one. i think it's probably going to be an addition. the amount you're going to pay

— 4.99 here in australia — times 25 million people, that's not going to happen. so i think it will be a side thing. but those that are the super—users, who love twitter, will be more than happy to sign up and not see ads, or have that way to limit it. ads will still exist for some, but i think it's definitely a side hustle for them. do you think other social media platforms will follow suit? i think it's a "watch that space". i think for the average user, they are going to baulk if they have to pay for social media because it should be free. facebook and instagram love to copy what everyone else does, so they will be watching very intently to see how this goes, how it rolls out, how many people take it up, and what the feedback is about that. i think it's too early. what is interesting is facebook always used to say "always free", on the front of facebook, and they removed that a while ago. watch this space. it's being rolled out in cananda and australia — why do you think in those two

countries in the world in particular? we get a lot of things in australia before the rest of the world, i think because we have the perfect test population — we're english—speaking, we're 25 million people, so it is controllable, we like the things america and the uk likes, so it's a great way to test it and see how it's taken up. what's fascinating to me is that twitter is not that popular in australia. so i'm surprised it came here first even though we are the perfect test population. twitter�*s been working to fail fast with some of their new products lately, so i think they will pay a lot of attention, make sure they get it exactly right before they take the risk of rolling it out in a bigger country and it just not working. meg coffey. hundreds of uk holiday—makers and would—be travellers have had their plans thrown into disarray — as quarantine rules for those returning from portugal are to be reintroduced. the country had been the only mainstream european travel

destination on the uk's green list — but those returning from there after 4am on tuesday will now have to isolate for ten days and take two coronavirus tests. the bbc�*s transport correspondent caroline davies reports. it was a brief moment in the sun. after three weeks, portugal is off the green list. for passengers heading out there today, the news came as a shock. gutted, really. but, anyway, it is what it is. i understand, but we can't quarantine when we come back. we've got to work. so we just had to cancel everything. frustrating. it's not a problem for me, i'm retired. but my daughter was coming out with her friends on sunday. they've now had to cancel. so four of them are really disappointed, i guess. i definitely can't quarantine - for ten days when i come back, due to business commitments. so i probably... i will make a decision very shortly as to - whether i go at all. in portugal, beach bars

and restaurants had been steadily filling up. uk visitors were surprised by the announcement. it's a little bit sad, really, because we're here, we're on holiday, and everything seems really safe. everyone's wearing their mask, probably a bit more protected than the uk. it's just sad that it's going onto the amber list. we travelled here because we didn't have to isolate on our return. so for tourism, i think it's going to be a big blow. the news was crushing for the seabrooks, who run this beachfront bar in the algarve. well, unfortunately, we've employed ten new staff in the last week, and every single one of them is going to have to be made redundant. it's just terribly sad. and again, the suppliers, carriers, all of the testing centres for the travellers to get back efficiently without queues, it's just rubbish. there's no two ways about it. it's heartbreaking for us, we're going to have to let all these staff go again, and we don't know when — if — we'll be able to employ them again.

no other countries have been added to the green list either, meaning portugaljoins spain, greece and france on the amber list. the small trickle of passengers back into uk airports over the course of the last few weeks hasn't been the restart that many in the industry wanted. but today's announcement is a very bitter blow. well, the uk has, essentially, with the decision that it's taken today, which i said was unjustifiable and completely irrational, cut itself off from europe — and from the world, for that matter. i would urge them to re—look into this, because there are so many families now who can't reunite that should be able to do so, and i think it's utterly confusing for british people. so, what's the justification? we've seen two things, really, which have caused concern. one is, the positivity rate has nearly doubled since the last review, in portugal. the other is that there's a sort of nepal mutation of the so—called indian variant

which has been detected, and we just don't know the potential for that to be a vaccine—defeating mutation, and simply don't want to take the risk as we come up to 21st june. seven more countries were also added to the red list — afghanistan, bahrain, costa rica, egypt, sri lanka, sudan and trinidad and tobago. with concerns about new variants, some have argued that the government have made the right decision. to be cautious at this stage, it's, yes, an extreme measure, but it's a pandemic situation and you don't want more variants coming to the uk. but many who were planning foreign trips, and the industry that was hoping to take them, will be bitterly disappointed by today's news and worried about the uncertain shadow it throws across the summer. caroline davies, bbc news. one of the most famous lawyers in the united states has died at the age of 87. f lee bailey was part of the defence team who worked for oj simpson during his

murder trial dubbed the trial of the century. he was also known for representing some of america's most notorious defendants in court including albert de salvo, also known as the boston strangler. united airlines has revealed a plan to bring back supersonic passenger travel by 2029, announcing it would buy ultra—fast jets from denver—based aerospace company boom supersonic. commercial supersonic flights ended in 2003 when concorde, flown by air france and british airways, was retired. christopher wanjek, who authored spacefarers: how humans will settle the moon, mars, and beyond, says while it's a thrilling prospect, there are plenty of challenges ahead. very exciting. i'm wondering why it took 20 years since the retirement of concorde. will it be environmentally friendly at a time when we are being urged to fly less? right! big open—ended questions, it sounds too good to be true, they want to fly on biofuel.

can they pull it off? they will need a lot of it and it is in short supply. that will raise the costs, with tickets at $25,000! good luck with that. a lot of promises right now. you touched on the cost. this is going to be for an elite few who can afford to spend this much on a plane ticket. that's right. that's not what they want it to be, but let's face it, concorde was that way. in today's dollars, it would be around $13,000 for a round trip, new york to london. that's probably what the cost is going to be for this new venture. i don't know how they can make it much cheaper. they talk about efficiencies, 50 years of plane technology, but it is a long way to get it down to $2500 per ticket. who is going to pay? the government, private investors?

right now it is private, but i think the government should get involved, that helped concorde get off the ground. concorde started in the 1950s, didn't fly a test until 1969, and then it took until 1976 before it went commercial. this is a start—up company with a bit of money from united airlines, can they pull it off all by themselves? i just don't think so. i think government investment is very prudent in this regard. will it have any effect on space exploration? i think it's a good stepping stone to get people excited again about another destination very far, quickly. let's face it, blue orbit, virgin galactic, spacex, they are talking about sending tourists to space but the ultimate goal for many of them is to have suborbital aeroplane flights, essentially taking you from london to australia in two hours,

new york to hong kong. a year after pride events around the globe were called off due to the coronavirus pandemic, thousands filled the streets ofjerusalem for the city's gay pride march. flying the rainbow flag and holding balloons and placards, those marching chanted for equality, supporting lg btq rights. the event took place under heavy security with some 3,000 police officers lining the route. ultra—right—wing groups had called for a counter—demonstration and several people were arrested on suspicion of potential threats prior to the start of the march. don't forget you can reach me and most of the team on social media. this is bbc news. thank

you for watching. hello there, it was a bit cooler on thursday. we still managed temperatures into the low 20s in northern scotland. highest temperatures were across east anglia and the south—east — 25 degrees in suffolk. you may not find temperatures quite as high as that in the next couple of days but for many it will still be dry and there will be warm spells of sunshine, as well. the fly in the ointment is all this cloud we have kept a close eye on moving up from northern parts of spain across france, and threatening to bring some showers across east anglia and the south—east. we have seen more cloud coming in across eastern parts of england for a while, hence the higher temperatures early in the morning. some clear skies for many other areas, quite a cool start for wales and the south—west. for many on friday, it will be dry with some sunshine, the threat of these showers coming up as the cloud thickens to east anglia and the south—east and already more cloud coming into northern ireland —

that will be spilling its way into western parts of scotland. it could bring one or two showers towards the highlands. not as warm as it was thursday for northern scotland. much of the country dry with sunny spells, top temperature of 19 degrees. a couple of degrees lower in northern ireland and already more cloud. it will be brighter towards the east. a good deal of sunshine for many parts of england and wales — strong sunshine and high uv — but more cloud for east anglia and the south—east for a time through the day and a threat of some showers and wetter weather towards kent and east sussex. a chance we could see a little rain in london during the cricket at lord's but it looks dry on saturday and sunday with some sunshine, as well. that threat of showers pulls away overnight and the cloud will break early on saturday morning. then we look into the atlantic and this is where our weather is slowly coming from for the weekend. that weak weather front will bring more cloud to western parts of the uk, it could deliver some heavy showers in the afternoon across northern ireland

and western parts of scotland. drier elsewhere with more in the way of sunshine towards the south east, and temperatures climbing up to around 23 celsius or so. heading into the second half of the weekend, probably starting sunny in many areas, temperatures rising and bubbling up a little bit of cloud, could squeeze out a few showers. a very low risk. the sunniest skies likely to be continuing around coastal areas and temperatures on sunday similar to those of saturday.

this is bbc news.

the headlines — the biden administration has unveiled plans to share millions of unused covid vaccines with the rest of the world. they'll distribute 25 million doses immediately, with a goal of handing out 80 million by the end ofjune. of that initial batch, 19 million will be allocated to covax. portugal will be removed from the uk's green travel list from tuesday, amid rising coronavirus cases and concern over variants. it willjoin the amber list, meaning holidaymakers should not visit and returnees must isolate for ten days. seven new countries and territories will be added to the red list. four countries have started legal action against iran over the accidental shooting down of a ukrainian airliner last year. ukraine, britain, sweden and canada all had citizens aboard the plane. they want iran to officially take responsibility for what happened. now on bbc news, hardtalk.