the headlines: both the us and and russian presidents have spoken positively about their summit in geneva, but significant differences were laid bare. president biden said he'd told mr putin that the us would respond to actions that threaten its interests. the two leaders held about four hours of talks. the first astronauts for china's new space station have blasted off in the gobi desert, for the country's longest crewed mission to date. it is china's first crewed mission in nearly five years, and a landmark step in establishing beijing as a major space power. hong kong police say they've arrested five executives from the pro—democracy apple daily newspaper in a dawn raid on its offices. the newspaper — which has opposed china's tightening grip on hong kong — is owned byjimmy lai, who's already been put on trial over similar accusations.

now on bbc news, it's hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i am stephen sackur. joe biden prepared for his geneva summit with vladimir putin by reassuring his partners in nato that america is back in the saddle, committed to the defence of european allies and determined to leave the alliances response to evolving geographical and technological threats. but how convincing is all of these reassurance? my guess is nato secretary generaljens stoltenberg. is rhetoric being used to paper over nato�*s cracks? jens stoltenberg, at nato headquarters in brussels, welcome to hardtalk.

jens stoltenberg, at nato headquarters in brussels, welcome to hardtalk. thank you so much for having me. mr secretary general, the just finished nato summit had plenty of talk about challenges coming from russia but also challenge coming from china. it left some people a little bit confused about your strategic vision. you tell me, as you sit at headquarters right now, what is perceived to be nato�*s number one threat? nato�*s number one task is to do exactly the same today as we have done for more than 70 years, and that is to protect and defend all allies

against any potential threat. but the threats we face, they shift, and during the cold war it was one well—defined threat, that was the soviet union, it was dangerous but it was in a way, clear. now we live in a much more unpredictable and much more complex world, where we see aggressive actions of russia, we seek terrorism and with the cyber threats and within a security consequences of the rise of china. this is a more predict that unpredictable world from challenges from every direction is what nato has to respond to but in a way we have been doing exactly the same as we have done in 70 years to protect all allies. your name hasn't changed, you are still the north atlantic treaty organisation so i dare say people would see it as logical and right now, day after day, vladimir putin and his ambitions for his own region, his only assertiveness, beyond his own borders, surely that remains your number one threat, as a regional collective security organisation?

we do not rank the threats. we face much more complex and many different threats at the same time. and we need to be prepared for them at the same time. the only time we evoked article 5 without after terrorist attacks in the united states, organised from afghanistan. so i think it reminds us that we face many different threats and we have to be prepared for all of them. yes, nato remains the alliance of north america and europe, but this region faces global threats. from a more aggressive russia but also from cyber and many other directions. we need to identify one specific threat being the number one, is wrong, we are prepared for many surprises are many different threats and we need to be prepared for unforeseen and that is exactly what nato is, and what we did on monday is we agreed on a forward looking and ambitious agenda for nato to adapt and modernise nato in a more

competitive world. still, you put it in terms of a global perspective, not just regional. let's now look at what is right at the heart of today's challenge, and it is russia, and we speak asjoe biden is preparing for a face—to—face meeting in geneva with vladimir putin. you have been top dog at nato, secretary general, for the last seven years. you took overjust after vladimir putin and his forces had annexed crimea and moved into east ukraine to back the separatists there. would you acknowledge that, over seven years, you have done nothing to actually change vladimir putin's approach to his region? no. i would not agree to that.

nato has actually triggered by the legal annexation by crimea implemented the biggest reinforcement of collective defence in a generation. for the first time in our history, we are backing groups in the eastern part of the alliance, we are bringing in the readiness fourth and we have allies investing since the end of the cold war. this is important changes of how nato is responding to the aggressive actions of russia against ukraine, georgia and other countries. but look at your record over the last seven years, mr secretary general. vladimir putin's forces still in ukraine, vladimir putin is backing the belarusian campaign despite all the pressures that the west is trying to bring to bear on that situation,

vladimir putin is ramping up military deployments in the arctic. nothing that nato has done in terms of deterrence have changed vladimir putin's strategy. well, the main purpose of nato is to make sure that no nato ally suffers the same kind of aggressive actions that we have seen against the ukraine and georgia. we have been unable to protect, preserve and protect peace and since 2014, when we saw the legal annexation of crimea. that is the success of nato. we prevent anything similar happening to a nato country as we seen happening to other countries in the neighbourhood of russia. surely that is the minimum threshold of what you at nato hope to achieve over the last seven years?

for example, even before you took over as secretary general, nato had committed, long—term, to seeing ukraine become a member of your organisation. over the seven years you have been in charge, nothing has been done to progress ukrainian membership, and when president zelensky of ukraine on the eve of this latest summit, he tweeted and he was hoping to put pressure on you, saying that in effect, we have now got the green light for membership action plan and that was quickly dismissed by all of the nato members, and yourself! ukraine does not have a membership action plan and there is no sign that you want ukraine to be a member of nato. first of all, it is not a small thing to prevent any allies from being attacked by russia or any other potential adverse areas. that is not a small minimum, this is actually extremely

important to preserve peace for all nato allies. secondly, we do also support ukraine, we give them political support for territorial integrity and sovereignty, and allies are providing practical support for ukraine with different types of training capacity building, i spoke for several hours during the summit so we are ready to step up and support ukraine because we, the ukraine is a close partner, and we help them implement reforms because the way to move towards nato membership is to organise and mobilise reform defence and security institutions so they can meet nato standards one day. the point is, mr stoltenberg, those members of nato who are arguably most vulnerable to russian aggression, for example, poland and the baltic states, they all say that ukraine should be given the roadmap to membership now. in fact, it is a vital signal

to send you vladimir putin that the ukraine and georgia be given that green now. why won't you do it? because to make that decision we need 30 allies to agree that ukraine is ready for membership. we all agree that we should support ukraine efforts to move towards membership. we help them to mobilise, to train, to increase standards and not least we work with them to fight corruption. corruption is continuing to become a big problem in the ukraine and undermines the strength of their security and defence institutions. they agree with us that they need to focus on these reforms. these reforms have value in themselves and make ukraine less vulnerable for russian interference, aggression, but also helps to move ukraine towards nato membership. i will not give you a date and when that will happen but i will say that we will

continue to support them on that path quite would be regarded as a personal failure, on that path. would be regarded it as a personal failure, if, by the time you leave your post next year, that ukraine and georgia have not be given a membership action plan status. will that be a failure as far as you are concerned? that is not the way i work. that is not the way nato works. for us, it is a question of whether ukraine meets the nato standards and then we make the decision. this is not a specific day. i approve of my tenure as secretary general that nato�*s door is open. 0ver my time as secretary general, we have emerged with two new member states, montenegro and macedonia, so it proves that nato doors remain open but it is a decision by 30 allies to decide when a country is ready for membership. russia does not have a say.

russia does not have the right to try to veto membership of any country. it is a principle that all the other nations have the right to decide their own part, including what sort of security arrangement they want to be part of and that also applies for georgia. not long ago, president biden described vladimir putin as a killer. is that the way you see him as well? so, i worked with president putin over many years in my previous capacity as minister for norway. i know that, of course, russia is responsible for aggressive actions. we have seen how they poison people trying to oppose their regime in moscow, how they crack down on democratic protests, and how there is a response of aggressive actions on nato territory as there was in the sergei skripal case. the author agreements under russia with president putin

and therefore the decision to extend the new nuclear arms agreement, controlagreement, and i know it from my own experiences, areas of the barents sea and energy agreements, it is possible to sit and talk with president putin and with russia. we both realise the aggressive actions... deterrence and dialogue is the phrase you are often use. i wonder if you think vladimir putin takes nato and membership seriously because we talk about deterrence, joe biden uses words like killer, but at the same time we know that many important members states actually are looking to very strong economic ties with russia. germany for example, has just completed the first branch of its pipeline, the nord stream, bringing russian gas right into germany and say this notion that at the same time we can talk tough with vladimir putin and getting

away from any regional aggression but at the same time have a warm dialogue and economic ties with him, it really seems like an incoherent set of signals to moscow? no. all me, dialogue is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. as long as we are strong and united, and as we do exactly what we do now in nature, we reinforce collective defence, we can talk to russia. we need to talk to russia. russia is our neighbour. we need to strive for a better relationship but even without a better relationship in the foreseeable future, we need to manage a difficult relationship. in one way, it is even more important to help to them now when tensions are high, and with the more military presence around the borders, to prevent incidents and access. we need transparency and risk reduction to prevent dangerous accidents from happening and if they happen, prevent them from spiralling out of control and creating dangerous situations.

and then we need to talk with russia on issues like arms control, extension of the long—range weapons agreement, this is extremely important but this is just a first step. we need to include more weapons systems, new technologies in future arms control, and i'm absolutely confident that that will be one of the important conversations between president biden and president putin and all nato ally leaders will welcome the opportunity to sit down with president biden before the meeting with president putin to consult with these issues, which are important for all of us. let's now shift focus to some of those wider issues that we spoke about at the beginning. why did the nato summit�*s communique present china as, quote, "a systemic challenge to the rules based international order?" because we see that china does not share our values and we see

that there is a push back against the rules—based order by russia and china. so does turkey right now represent your values? does hungary represent your values? does nato have a coherent set of values? firstly it is meaningless to compare hungary, turkey and china when it comes to democratic values. second, there are concerns that have been raised, i raised them myself in meetings in ankara, and i think nato is an important platform to discuss these issues when there are concerns about to what extent all allies live up to the values enshrined in ourtreaty, democracy, rule of law and individual liberty. but that is a very different thing than to address the authoritarian regime in beijing where they are using violence in cracking down on democratic protest in hong kong, where they are persecuting ethnic and religious minorities, as we see against the uighurs and also the corrosive behaviour they have demonstrated in the south china sea or the way they treat countries such as canada or australia when they do not

behave the way beijing likes. and then you have to understand... crosstalk you have raised so many issues there. let's just stop for a second to think about it. some in europe think that when you start to take a stand against china as you have just done with me, you are doing the bidding ofjoe biden because there is no question that for america, china is a long—term strategic threat, much more important than russia. and this is what emmanuel macron, the president of france, said after the summit. he said that nato is an organisation that concerns the north atlantic and china has little to do with the north atlantic. "it is very important," said president macron, "that we do not scatter ourselves and we do not

bias our future relationship with china." first of all, i reflect what all allies agreed and one of the important decisions we made at the summit was that we agreed on a unified clear position on china. all allies agreed to that. secondly, yes, nato is a north atlantic alliance but we are affected by global threats and challenges including china. crosstalk forgive me but macron�*s point is that we in nato have many serious challenges close to home, not least with vladimir putin and we must not, to quote macron, "distract ourselves" by getting involved on the level you have with china. firstly, we all agreed on the message from the summit and you just quoted from that statement, our communique. second, nato does not have the luxury of choosing one threat or another. we need to address russia's aggressive actions and we also need to address the security consequences of the rise of china. we cannot choose. we do not have that luxury.

secondly, this is not about moving nato to asia. this is about that in this region we are faced with the challenges that the rise of china poses to us. we see them coming closer to us at home, trying to control critical infrastructure such as the 5g networks and investing heavily in parts of critical infrastructure. we see them in africa and the arctic, we see them in cyberspace and we need to respond to that and the main message from the summit on monday is that we should do that together as an alliance because no country, no conflict can manage this alone. we need be together as nato because then you represent 50% of the world's military might and around 50% of the economic might and that makes

a big difference. do you not think it is possible, mr secretary general, that in beijing they are listening to you talk about nato�*s need to be truly global and then they look at the reality of nato. for example in afghanistan where you are now pulling out because of the american decision to get all us forces out by september this year. nato is following suit and basically leaving afghanistan in a terrible mess. surely that tells beijing that despite all of your words about globalised commitments and dealing with threats wherever they may be, you are not serious. you could not sustain a mission in afghanistan. nato was not going to be a global alliance but as a north atlantic alliance we had to deal with global threats and challenges. they are two very different things. you saw a specific threat in afghanistan tied to the taliban and tied

to the fear of it being a hotbed of international terror and you have been there off the back of the us intervention for the best part of two decades and now you are leaving because the americans are leaving but nobody in the world believes that the threat from both the taliban and possibly from international terror groups as well has gone away. in fact it may well get very much worse once you have gone. in afghanistan it is correct that we have decided to end our military mission after two decades. i have been open and clear about the risks that that decision entails. at the same time, the intention was to never be there for ever. over the last years we have reduced our presence from over 100,000 in combat operation to now ending the mission. but we are not ending our support for afghans. we will continue to provide funding for afghan security forces, which we have trained and built from almost nothing to now around 300,000 professional security forces. secondly, we will work on how we can provide out of country training for afghan forces and, thirdly, we are looking into how we can now maintain critical infrastructure such as airports and medical facilities and other ways to support the continued civilian presence in afghanistan. but there are risks. absolutely.

and there is a very difficult situation in afghanistan but to continue an open—ended mission in afghanistan, we have also had risks of fighting and casualty and even a need for increased nato presence. so after a broad consultation between all allies with three ministerial meetings, many meetings with ambassadors, we made a decision together, not an easy decision but there are no easy options in afghanistan. you are leaving your post in roughly one year from now. so after a broad consultation between all allies with three ministerial meetings, many meetings with ambassadors, we made a decision together, not an easy decision but there are no easy options in afghanistan. you are leaving your post in roughly one year from now. you have big ambitions for the strategic vision of nato, mentioning everything from taking on china

to cyberspace and even space as a new frontier for nato and yet nato is still not financing itself in terms of commitments from its member states. most member states are still not meeting the threshold that nato requires for defence spending. ambition is one thing, reality is another, isn't it? 0ur allies are delivering. we made the commitment in 2014 to increase defence spending and since then we have had seven consecutive years of increased defence spending across europe and canada and that has really changed the trend because before that we had a reduction in defence spending and that we have seven consecutive years of increased spending. two—thirds of your members are still not meeting the requirement and my point is your ambition seems to be

getting ever a wider. there is a disconnect there. my ambition is as it has always been for nato, that we need to protect our allies. but the threats are changing, so we need to do that in a different way than we did 20 years ago. that is obvious. so it is exactly the same but the environment and threats we are faced with are different. secondly, europe and canada have added 260 billion extra us dollars and for me that demonstrates a commitment to not only transatlantic unity it is also in deeds, notjust words or rhetoric. $260 billion is very concrete. it enables us to invest in new military capability. yes, you are right, not all allies are at 2%, but when we made the decision in 2014, there was only three. now there are ten allies at 2%. and those who are not there yet, the majority have plans to be there in 202a. that was the aim we agreed in 2014. we are on a good track and the summit this week demonstrated unity and opens

a new chapter now in the transatlantic alliance. jens stoltenberg, we are out of time. i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you, stephen. hello there. over the next few days, bouts of thunderstorms will be affecting parts of england, bringing a risk of some localised flooding. now, wednesday was another very hot day in the capital.

29 degrees celsius, that was the highest temperature recorded in the whole of the uk. it was also very muggy. but we had some thunderstorms that started to break out as well across northern france, and these have been tracking across the english channel into southern and eastern areas of england. really anywhere from around about dorset, somerset north—eastwards at risk of a storm overnight, but really it's a more general area of rain with some thunderstorms mixed in. that's kind of what we'll have over the next few hours. now, across the north—west, it should become largely dry here. a fresh night, ten degrees, comfortable for sleeping, but very muggy in eastern england. 18 degrees as we start the day on thursday. now, through thursday, a wet start, i think, across the south—east of england, east anglia, a good part of the midlands as well, with outbreaks of rain. still a risk of a few thunderstorms mixed in. most of that rain will clear

off into the north sea with the weather becoming drier and brighterfrom the south—east, but still with a lot of cloud around. best of the sunshine, scotland, northern ireland and north—west fringes of both england and wales probably having some bright and reasonably fresh weather as well. but it will still be very humid in the east. thursday night, well, it should become dry at least for a time before the next batch of storms begin to make inroads from the south. and then through friday, again, we're looking at another pulse of thundery rain kind of affecting the same sort of areas really. southern england, the midlands, east anglia, parts of lincolnshire and yorkshire. and within this area of rain, there will be some hefty downpours bringing a risk of some localised flooding. still relatively fresh weather across the north—west, with some bright or sunny spells coming through. now, friday night, the rain slowly pushes its way northwards and eastwards with the thunderstorms as well. saturday does look a little bit drier generally. there'll be a few bright or sunny spells around, perhaps one or two showers here and there as well. and then through saturday night, more storms work up from europe. but this time, the rain's going to be more widespread,

and it will push right across into northern ireland and scotland as well, still with the risk of some thunderstorms embedded in that area of rain. so, all in all, very unsettled for the next few days. the biggest storms capable of bringing a lot of rain in a short space of time, which could bring the risk of some localised flooding. that's your latest weather.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. blast—off for the first astronauts to china's new space station and the country's longest crewed mission. police in hong kong say 500 officers took part in a dawn raid to arrest five executives from the pro—democracy apple daily newspaper. the nightmare goes on — hundreds of thousands of rohingya children who fled myanmar�*s military now facing sexual abuse, trafficking and detention. and as president biden arrives back in the us, after his summit with the russian leader.