reached a deal to make multinational companies pay more tax in the countries where they do business. finance ministers meeting in london agreed to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each other. a senior nhs official says the uk vaccination programme appears to have broken the link between cases of covid—19 and serious illness or death. the head of nhs providers says people in hospital with the delta variant of coronavirus are significantly younger — which puts less strain on critical care. the nigerian government has defended its decision to suspend twitter — saying the social media platform had been used to spread misinformation that had violent consequences. a joint statement from the us, the eu, britain, canada and ireland said the right to free expression was a pillar of democracy.

now on bbc news it's dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. this week we are asking should the uk unlock from covid restrictions or not? should the rich nations provide excess vaccines to poorer countries, and what can we expect from forthcoming global summits? the g7 here in the uk and president biden and vladimir putin meeting in geneva. joining me we have got

thomas and stephanie. and joining me here in studio is the bbc�*s esteemed health editor hugh pym. welcome to you all. freedom from c0vid restrictions in england onjune 21, that is what borisjohnson is hoping will still happen. scientists fear another wave despite the success of the uk's vaccination programme. let's start off with you hugh. june the 21st, will restrictions be lifted in england? borisjohnson says, you know, the data is looking pretty good but actually, a lot of the figures are going in the wrong direction at the moment. yes, i think this one will go right to the wire, possibly up until the 14th ofjune because the government has made it clear that, for england, a week's notice will be given of any lifting of restrictions planned for the 21st. the first possible date. but they will be watching data

throughout the week leading up to the 14th and right now the situation across the uk is not looking quite as bright as it might have been and of course, all of the uk's four nations are looking very closely at all the stats because they are making decisions themselves throughout the uk about to when to lift restrictions in different ways. so the latest data on infections across the uk suggests quite a big increase in the week leading up to may the 29th, that is based on community infections picked up by the office for national statistics, and the daily reported case numbers which are just people who have gone for testing. that actually shows a pretty big increase as well. more than 6000 in the uk for the first time since the end of march. but what the ministers and officials have to do making

these decisions is to say, yes, we expected cases to go up because we opened up a bit in may. how many people are actually going to hospital? how many, sadly, don't survive? how effective is the vaccine, actually, in this situation? of course, we have got this delta variant first identified in india which we now know is more transmissible and is increasing cases and is actually now the dominant variant in the uk. it has been described as a race between the vaccine and the variant but there are some people saying, actually, a huge proportion of adults in the uk have now been vaccinated and rich countries should start giving away their access vaccines to the poorer countries. we have heard from nepal and other countries pleading for more vaccines because they are so short of them. the argument in the uk in the different nations is you do need to get down to the 30—year—olds and below that to those aged over 18

because there is still a vulnerability to getting sick and then transmitting quite a lot of cases amongst lower age groups who haven't been vaccinated so they could spread it to the vulnerable who had not been vaccinated who are older. in other words, you do need to push on with the vaccine programme here. but is contested by some who say that once you get under people in their 20s you need to prioritise maybe sending vaccines to other countries more in need so it is quite delicately poised debate. the argument in the uk is that the oxford astrazeneca vaccine, developed in the uk and has been provided at cost only, not profit. that is part of the uk's contribution, they argue, to the global effort. stephanie, do you think the richer nations should be doing more and giving away more of their vaccines? they all talk about, we are not vaccinated until the whole world

is vaccinated but on the whole day seem to be wanting to vaccinate their adult population first before they give away too much more. no, absolutely. i think wealthy countries with advanced vaccination programmes are in a position to start sharing a lot more doses than they have so far. i mean, in the us there are now vaccinating 12—year—olds where in low—income countries i think less than 1% of people have gotten one dose. the fact of the matter is, you know, we have seen the virus, you know, surge in places with low vaccination with very little access to vaccines. take argentina, nepal, thailand and, you know, so far the us has promised to provide about 25 million doses, sharing most of the global alliance called covax which was set up last year to provide vaccines to low—income countries and so far it is way

behind on its targets. it is about 190 million doses short of where it was hoping to be by the end ofjune and it is kind of outmanoeuvred and outbid by wealthy countries that have blocked up vaccine supplies with bilateral deals with the most promising vaccine developers but the reality is the us in particular, i would say, is in a position to be sharing more doses than it is. at the current rate it is going, i think it is delivering about 70 million doses more than has been administered so they are really looking at a glut in vaccine supply and, you know, i think for each country should be realising it is in their self interest now to be sharing this vaccines more widely in order to contain the virus as well as slow the spread of these variants that are developing and seem to be boomeranging back to rich countries.

thomas, i mean, some people watching this might say charity begins at home, vaccination begins at home. we need to look after our own country first before we look after the rest of the world. welcome i don't want to... but i will admit that this - new pandemic that hit the world globally at a moment - when nobody was prepared for it and as you say, i all these governments are elected into power by the electorate, - have to mind and consider their own population. - but at the same time they also have to be understanding - of the fact that you don't save your own country. and population if. you don't make sure that the rest of the world - will participate in the general saving effort and so we have learned, all the while, and, i yes, i agree with you, - you have to mind the store, your own store. you have to be generous, as it

were, to your own population. | to show that you care for them but you also have to educate . everyone in your own country, that you cannot buy safety - by isolating yourself - against the rest of the world. this is a global pandemic and if there is a future pandemicl of this kind hopefully. we will all learn from it and we will start right - from the beginning to spread the available medicine and help in as wide a way as possible. i we have learned that _ from what we have experienced in the last 18 months. the question, this issue about, you know, should the richer countries be vaccinating their children? it is now becoming possible. when adults in some of the poorer countries around the world hath not been vaccinated. this is becoming a key question, isn't it? welcome it is. certainly on the back of news

that the medical regulators given the go—ahead and said it is safe to vaccinate children under 12 and over following the ema for europe has also given the green light to that and in the us the fda, and in fact, the us has started vaccinating children aged 12 or over and it is planned in france as well. it is not definitely going to go ahead in the uk. thejcvi, the expert committee on vaccinations which advises the government will give a view on whether it should happen. no doubt some of these ethical issues will come into play. it has been indicated by ministers that there is enough pfizer to go through to 12—year—olds and over. children certainly don't get seriously ill based on the data but they can transmit it to communities and therefore you would want to vaccinate but it is a delicate issue. the us and france with a lot lower levels of uptake, then there is more of an argument

for getting the vaccine into children. but certainly, it is a very topical issue right now, as you say. some of these richer countries do have huge stockpiles of vaccines. the uk has millions and millions. either in its hands or on order. yes, i think that that the vaccines currently being used in the uk, a lot was ordered and also johnson and johnson, the doses which are due to come through there. the single—dose vaccine. and others which have not yet been formally approved and the argument of british ministers is, well, we moved quickly to secure these and we do need to act for the benefit of taxpayers but it is certainly leaving governments like that open to suggestion, you have ordered far too many, can you not release some at this stage? thank you for that. later this month there are two important summit

meetings coming up. the first is the g7 and it is being hosted here in the uk and in fact, i will be in cornwall covering that for bbc news next weekend. the second is the first face—to—face meeting between presidentjoe biden and russia's vladimir putin in geneva. thomas, it is summit season. sketch out for us what you think will be the importance of those two summits. it is a pretty tall- order to be summarising the summits in such a short time. - let me start with a second one. the dialogue, as it were, between president bidenj and president putin. i am reminded of what happened exactly 60 years ago _ injune 1961 when kennedy- and khrushchev met and it was decided to be a summit - where the mettle of the young american president was tested. will putin do the same? i hope not. biden is the most experienced politician in america _

at the moment and he does not need the russian president - trying to find him out- so they are having to work for a stable relationship. the problem with russia is, the main bone of- contention is ukraine. a democratic hopefully western country which| russia cannot accept i close in the proximity. they consider ukraine to be a threat - to their own- authoritarian rule. that is why president putin has leaned on this other dictator. in his neighbourhood . in belarus, lukashenko. and supported him an air piracy where plane was forced down . and a belarus dissident - was apprehended and so forth. such events cannot be tolerated and we need to unite to make . sure that won't happen, but on the other hand . there is a mixed signal coming| from the biden administration. he shown himself willing to reconsider some of. the approaches towards russia.

for example, he has waived . sanctions against the company which built in germany- the nordstream gas pipeline which was a very big i issue in the beginning of the biden presidency. and so that has been moved off the table of opposition, - and their meeting, which is a way to recognise | russia as an important ally, and they can talk about common problems like covid, _ probably even the - middle east and other issues the world over. so there is a reason for trying to work a relationship. - now, that said, lam not very hopeful it will - happen straightaway. earlier president biden - was asked in an interview, do you think that president putin is a killer and he said yes. - and when they met for- the first time ten years ago when they were both vice . president at the time biden looked into the eyes of putin

and said, i don't think- you have a soul. so there is no real sort. of national rapprochement between them and no natural understanding. _ and they will have to work on it to try to mediate. - the ukraine issue, as i said before, is a difficult one - for putin who cannot accept . a democratic western country in the neighbourhood that threatens_ his own authoritarian rule. it seems to be an intractable situation and we will - need to wait and see what comes of it. - now, in cornwall, it is- an equally intractable event because the several issues which are on the table, - each of them takes a whole conference to solve. - there is the question of global trade. - britain is very much - in the forefront, as a global nation, now having left the eu, to want to expand trade - relations with the world i

and they also want to work on taxing big tech companies which so far has been a bone| of contention but overall, - which will absolutely outshine all these other issues will be the issue of how to deal- with another global pandemic if the world is hit by it. - we are coming together- here at an important moment and i said before the world . at large has to recognise this as a global problem. we have to forget all our own individual nations i which we have to serve. we have to think globally. gordon brown has published a new book, seven ways - of saving the world, - and he said how shocked he was that global cooperation was lacking in the beginning. of the pandemic when - isolationism ruled supreme. so the cornwall gathering will. have to unite behind a common approach to global pandemics.

stephanie, let me ask you how important is a lot this for joe biden, do you think? it is his first overseas trip as president and, you know, some people are saying, actually, he should not be seeing putin at all. he is rewarding putin by even having that face—to—face meeting with him. yes, absolutely. many are questioning what he is hoping to achieve by meeting him. for putin the meeting itself is a victory. it signals his acceptance on the global stage, you know, and as thomas pointed out there is no love lost between the two of them. there is no personal chemistry, you know, and there is a very long list of issues that biden will no doubt raise and admonish putin for. everything from the poisoning and jailing of the russian opposition activist, navalny, the spate of cyber attacks that

have happened in the us emanating from hackers in russia. now, we don't know to what extent that is sanctioned by the russian government but that is certainly another bone of contention between the two but, you know, i think it kind of reflects biden's worldview that he kind of want to engage with adversaries in the hopes of trying to, diplomatically, so to speak, as a way of trying to find some common ground, figure out whether you can get certain issues forward and i think some of issues will be perhaps iran's nuclear programme where there are perhaps shared interests. possibly a new arms control treaty, syria, what have you. so there is a long list of things that they do need to discuss. all i can say is it will certainly be a very different summit to the one in 2018 between trump and putin which was, as you may remember, a disaster. trump was trying to curry

favour with putin, said he believed him when he said that russia had nothing to do with election meddling in 2016. and it was by and large seen as an embarrassment. you know, so this will have a very different tone to it and we will wait to see how much of the sort of clash that might happen behind the scenes we get a view on the kind ofjoint statement that they might put together at the end. let me just ask you about the g7 summit in cornwall because the pandemic of course is going to feature very heavily. and it is a chance, really, for more co—operation between the big nations of the world. yes, and as we have been hearing, calls are coming in from diplomats and former leaders and others putting pressure on the g7 to really come up with a big financial

contribution to vaccine roll—outs in developing nations. gordon brown, the former british prime minister been one of them. saying that the g7 collectively has got the firepower to make much bigger contribution at the moment financially. the health ministers have been meeting in oxford. they've come out with a communique, one bit of which includes a push to speed up and harmonise drug development so that drug trials can happen a lot more quickly and there are standards for doing it but there's one thing learned in this pandemic is the normal rather ponderous way that drugs are approved had to be thrown out of the window to get to treatments and vaccines to the patient as quickly as possible and then there are moves to boost international agreements on certification so that vaccine passports and certificates could be more easily available. but of course this is

all talk at the moment. whether any action follows is another matter. we are talking about talking. 0k. before we go i want to ask each of you to tell us something that has caught your eye, maybe a story or event we ought to be covering. let's start with you thomas. there happen a number of cases lately of compatriots _ of mine in germany and other eu citizens who came to _ heathrow airport and had problems being accepted | by the border force either- as some of them who had settled status and were allowed - to in britain but the documents were not recognising. they had to be verified, and others who thought. they wanted to try to work and the border force said no, this is not possible _ and they were put in detention. and straightaway- asked fly back home. there is been a general sort of breakdown _ in good spirits and good vibes, as it were, between _ the forces that be at. the border and visitors.

i think all these problems are causing a lot of reputational i damage to britain in europe because these stories - about what you envisagej and what you experience when you try to enter britain, they spread like fire, - they are all over the media in europe and they lead - to an increased ill will- towards britain and i think we need to study what happens at the british border— and whether or not a new sense of xenophobia is taking hold - of those officials and we need to really fight it _ tooth and nail to not allow this to happen. _ thank you for that. stephanie, what has caught your eye? well, you know, two cases of pro—democracy activists being arrested, i think i would love to highlight. 0ne, obviously, today is the anniversary of tiananmen square massacre and a pro—democracy activist was detained. can i pronounce her name right? just a very sad moment.

and in belarus i think we have moved on and forgotten about the activist who remains injailand he appeared in a one—hour tv interview in belarus where he pledged his support for the belarusian president and, you know, confessed to alleged crimes and some of his supporters noted that, you know, he had marks on his wrist which indicated that, you know, he had been tortured. so here you have a case of two pro—democracy activists, you know, campaigning against authoritarian regimes who are now sitting in prison and it isjust a sad state of the world that, you know, they are just two of many other activists in similar situations. you think the world, the democratic world, if you like, does enough?

there have been a lot of protests and strong words about those things that you are talking about but is there enough action? well, you know, not enough. we are confronting these authoritarian regimes that are routinelyjailing, you know, activists. and it pops up in the news and then we forget about it, which is why i wanted to highlight the plight of the activist in belarus because it is easy to move on in the cycle and forget that these people are still sitting injail. so i don't actually think there was another that is done and not enough attention paid to these cases. and they are multiplying. a quick one to you, thomas. do you think that the democratic world, if you want to call it that, is doing enough on these things?

whatever you do in thesej instances you are actually hitting against a stone wall. these authoritarian - regimes, dictatorships, why don't we call theml by their proper names? will absolutely fight it i and move it off the table and not care a single iota about whatever protest l we put forward. if you want to go further. and punish those regimes by sanctions you have a problem in your own country. will sanctions hurt our own interest? | economic and otherwise? there is a limit to what we can do if countries behave - in a dictatorial sense and - reign supreme over the freedom of their subjects. that is a very hard nut to crack. - a minute to tell you what has caught your eye. long covid. the symptoms that can persist for many, many months after somebody has had the virus. figures from the uk say a million people report long coated symptoms and a big

increase in people who have had them for more than a year. i interviewed a woman of 26 studying for a phd and keen on outdoor activities like mountaineering and canoeing anti—said all of that had to change. it had totally changed her life and her message to other 20 year olds and anyone else who has not had and who is eligible, long covid is a very nasty long lasting condition which there is no cure or remedy at the moment. thank you very much indeed. that is it for this week. my thanks to thomas, stephanie and hugh here in the studio and of course, thanks to you very much for watching. as i mentioned, i will be in cornwall next week for the g7 summit. looking forward to little english sunshine on the coast. shaun will be here next week same time, same place.

hello. the weather on sunday is going to be a little hit and miss, particularly across england. you are likely to have a lot more cloud around compared to saturday and there will be a few showers around, too. but across scotland and northern ireland i think it is a case of sunshine right from the word go. now on the satellite picture, you can notice this little lump of cloud drifting out of the south—west. it's a weak weather front, it's actuallyjoining a big area of low pressure to the north but that will bring some showers to parts of wales and england from morning onwards. so this is what it looks like through the early hours, you can see some rain affecting parts of devon, dorset into wales and the midlands, a stray shower in the north of scotland. but generally speaking, it's a clear night in scotland, northern ireland, probably the lake district as well. but many of us in england

and wales will be waking up to overcast skies and it could actually stay like that through the afternoon as well. but i think the biggest chance of catching some heavier showers further south into the midlands, but also around wales and east anglia. the best of the weather on sunday — northern ireland, scotland, the lake district should be fine, but modest highs here, 16 to 18. in the south, despite the cloud and the showers we'll still manage around 21 also in london. you can see, there's the clock, 8pm, 9pm, still some showers around in the evening across parts of england and wales. so not a completely dry day but with a bit of luck you'll have prolonged sunny spells rather than the heavy showers. on monday, also likely to be some showers around, particularly across northern and eastern areas of the uk. so the best of the weather, although a little bit hazy at times out towards the west, i think. but decent enough, temperatures around 22 in london, 20 in liverpool and should probably nudge up to around 20

in glasgow as well for monday. and then the rest of the week, tuesday, wednesday and thursday we'll see the jet stream pushing low pressures and weather fronts and mostly between scotland and iceland, but there is just the chance that some of these weather systems will clip the very far north—west of the uk and the south will be closer to the high pressure, so basically the further south you are, the better the weather will be in the week ahead. further north, dry generally but always a bit more cloud. that's it from me, bye—bye.

hello and welcome to bbc news. it's being hailed as a "historic agreement", that could see global governments make billions more in tax revenue. the deal made by the g7 group of leading economies could shake—up the tax system for multinational companies, like big tech giants. it could include a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each other. tech companies google and facebook have welcomed the move.

0ur economics editor faisal islam reports.