in place after the 19th ofjuly when all covid restrictions time now for dateline london. hello and welcome to the programme which brings together some of the country's leading columnists, bbc specialists, and the foreign correspondents writing, blogging and broadcasting to audiences back home from the dateline london. this week: a valedictory visit from angela merkel. species decline and why it's worth trying to stop it. and how do you live with a centenarian planning to be around for another hundred years? joining us this week: yasmin alabhai brown is an award

winning newspaper columnist in the uk. thomas kielinger has been reporting and explaining the british to audiences in his native germany for decades. he's also an historian. and with me in the studio is the bbc�*s chief environment correspondent, justin rowlatt. a warm welcome to all of you. good to have you with us. like all political leaders who pre announce their departure, angela merkel�*s influence has been in decline ever since. two recent rebuffs within the european union: her proposal for an eu—russia summit, seen off by poland and the baltic states, and her suggestion that british visitors, vaccinated or not, should be quarantined. the german chancellor was in the uk, friday. instead of quarantine, there was tea with the queen. thomas, chancellor merkel suggested that vaccinating brits after she had her meeting with borisjohnson it might get us a warmer welcome that she received in britain. has her influence been declining for some time and is that simply because she preannounced

that she was going or is her cautious, deliberative style of politics just going a bit out of fashion in germany? of course anybody who announces the day of their departure and power is automatically converting himself or herself into a lame duck as we call it. you don't expect too much influence from somebody like that. angela merkel after 16 years, has relinquished power and will leave the state in september. leave the stage in september. you would describe her as cautious and slow moving policies but when you look at her record, the two most important decisions she took in her time in office were really like lightning overnight, opening the borders for refugees, millions of them into germany, and moving off atomic energy. she decided on the solutions without much consultation or advice from anyone. that is why i'm so sorry that today when she met borisjohnson,

the two of them didn't have the guts to seize the mettle and come up with a joint declaration to say briton�*s who are doubly vaccinated can travel without the hassle in europe and johnson could've said those who come from other amber countries and have been doubly vaccinated have to be tested, but they will not have to go back into quarantine. they missed this opportunity. she talks about a new resetting of relations with germany and britain. but the one moment of glory, like a footballer missing a great shot, to the score the goal, they missed it. she cannot get herself to even announce such a step. she was willing overnight to allow millions of people to come to germany and she failed to come with a statement to say, yes, as from next week, britons can travel without worry from quarantine when they are twice vaccinated. this is her language, she is contradictory in her words, and the jury is out.

i wonder whether there will be favourable but forget she had to rely on the coalition partners from the social democrats to govern for 16 years come on her own she would have been able to do it. it is a mixed bag when you look at her record. that she would not have been able to do it. yasmin, how damaging do you think longer term to the eu was it, her sticking with the orthodoxy of german tradition and saying back during that financial crisis, we are not going to share debt across the eurozone, individual countries will have to deal with the problem themselves? because it seemed to be not her, but in the end mario draghi at the central bank, who saved the euro and meantime, you had countries like spain and greece who had to deal with some pretty austere difficult times. i'm sorry shaun and thomas, i'm not going to go with you on this. i'm appalled, two men slagging off the first female german chancellor

who is as christine legarde said, a unique and special woman who combined, yes, meticulous thought and consideration with some pretty daring policies. of course, in greece, there is this feeling that it is because of her they went through this terrible crisis but the eu isn'tjust angela merkel. and i think what she has achieved in these years, a young woman from eastern germany, who came over and has kept germany steady through it all, in the 2008 crisis, germany did not suffer as so many of the did. because the eu isn't one nation. each nation has its own capacities and distinction. i have just been talking to 32 british people who have taken out german citizenship. there's been a 2000% increase in those. in a way, the equivalent of thomas, they love germany.

they love merkel. i wanted to say that because i'm not going to, you know, go on this fairly destructive train of thought you have taken up. now for your question, yes, i think germany and italy during that crisis maybe, the entire eu, should've been more to, i don't know kind or considerate. the taking in the refugees was an astonishingly brave move, and on the whole it has worked. so i totally admire her, and that will not be shaken. justin, on the question we talked about fukushima, thomas mentioned it, that with a dramatic decision. the nuclear explosion, the consequences and the fears of what might come. she immediately announced shutting down the civilian programme in germany. that had consequences.

there was consequences and political ones because of that. it certainly has. it was very traumatic- forthe i'm sorry, yasmin, i will be a little bit critical of angela merkel. - all of these men. let's look at the statistics for nuclear power. - germany is second, the largest - nuclear plant and the well determine the world in terms of production, produced 11.5 terawatts _ of power and 2018. that is 1 trillion w, - huge amount of power. by comparison, all of denmark went to wind turbine, - they produce just a little bit more power. - what we are talking about is one plant is a huge supplier- of energy to germany. what does that mean? taking that out, it would now be closed next year. - it could've gone on for a few more decades. i people estimated to 2048. they are taking that component out of the power system. _ what does it mean? it means they are much morel dependent upon gas and more

dependent on coal, in fact, i germany is not going to phase out coal under current plans until 2038. - britain is getting rid of its last coal fired station in 2024. - it will be really hard for germany to meet its climate goals if it- sticks with this policy. of taking nuclear power. it makes it much more dependent on russia. i coming online, much less flexibility on the foreign policies. _ hard to argue from an environmental perspective that has _ been good for germany. thomas, on the question of relations with russia, is this a really worrying cleavage within the eu do you think? i dare not go on after

yasmin condemned me. laughter. i just want to get the record straight. no intentional sliding as a male chauvinist pig is aware. i have nothing against her except that i say there is mediocrity involved in some of the things, and the male heir apparent who will follow her will follow in her footsteps. it would not be much of a revolution going on. if she studied, germans like to do things traditionally come steady as he goes and she is the ultimate ideal representative of a very cautiously moving society. about russia, of course she was rather ill advised together with macron to launch this initiative, a new high—level dialogue with russia at this very moment. no wonder some countries, like poland objected to it. you should award russia for crimean occupation, which is still not been done properly, with the human rights violations and so forth, so that was an ill considered step which doesn't completely wipe her off as it were of the foreign policy and expertise,

but she is like so many other people full of ideas which sometimes work and sometimes don't work. and this one did not work. no, i don't think she is going to be a prominent voice in opening up a new dialogue with russia. that may have to wait rather longer. yasmin, on that question of what happens now in europe, thomas mentioned macron. he has, his reformed ideas for the eu didn't really get much traction among other eu members. he will now be distracted for the next few months trying to hold onto the palace. angela merkel will be gone in september. politics will change in germany, even if a lot of it will stay the same. another coalition possibly coming in. who is left to lead in europe?

one has to remember about the eu. it isn't one nation. that is the narrative that is dominated in britain for god knows how long. it isn't all germany or germany and france. this is a coalition of nations. the future will be different from the past. as thomas says, that is politics. that is how satiety changes. that is how society changes. what i feared though is that merkel's steadiness, there was a 2020 survey done of the eu countries and in 14 nations, 75% trusted her personally. now, the incoming person will have to work very hard to get to that level of trust. so it is always difficult when somebody has left behind quite a legacy. secondly, one doesn't know. i completely agree about the whole russia dialogue, with russia thing. a lot is happening, thanks

to putin and his ambitions and the eu will have to come up with the collective response. and they are good at that. so i have great faith in the eu. i will always be loyal to it even though i'm no longer a part of it. they do things in a reasonable way. they are not as shouty as we are. it will be fine. but if it will take work. thank you very much. "grandiose statements lacking teeth and devoid of effective delivery mechanisms". that's the verdict of a committee of mps examining the british government's plans to protect bio diversity. we think having lots of different species of insects, say, or plants matters; but in truth we're not sure why. still, the risk is clear: the uk, the environmental audit committee reports, is one of the most nature depleted countries on earth, 15% of its species are under threat. it is probably helpful, justin, wearing your environment hat, if we defined terms. what do we mean by biodiversity

in what does the committee mean by saying 15% of species in the uk are under threat? let's start with what biodiversity - let's start with - what biodiversity is. biodiversity refers - to the incredible variety of life on earth. biological diversity, - it represents all the different species on earth, animals, plants, fungi, insects, - the whole shebang. we are talking, this is the point, we don't actually know— the range of species on earth with that we know, we thinkl is about 1.7 million speciesl of animals, plants and fungi but we don't know for sure. some scientists say they could be as many as eight or 9— million different species. brilliant bacteria in the whole world of biodiversity a singlel spoonful of soil can have as many

as 10,000 different bacteria, - more and some estimates. we don't know what we are doing as we get rid of species. - let's have a look at the level of threat there is to species.| we know the rate of distinction is far higher than it— would be without humanity. we think that 25% of mammals are a threat of distinction, - 41% of amphibians and about 17% of birds. - a huge pressure to make sense of pressure. - we don't understand the subtle processes as you alluded - to in your introduction that, of how ecosystems work. i we do know that in some cases you take one species out, - the whole thing changes. the whole balance. of species changes. as we get rid of species can we don't know what consequences that will have. could be catastrophic. the increasing reduction in diversity could have . just like climate change, a catastrophic effect - on the ability of the earth - to support us, because let'sjust remember, these ecosystems are the source of fresh air, i the source of food, the source - of clean water, they are the bases. we set within this web of life - and we depend on these biodiversity to deliver us, which crudely

in economic terms are - referred to as services. that is why it is so important. and that is why the uncertainty around it is also important. we cannot say, we don't know what will happen if we get ridl of certain bacteria for example - or even come mosquitoes for example, which everybody seems to, l we treat like they are vermin, they are the basis of, - they feed all sorts of animals which in turn are food and etc and etc. - it is complex and difficult and dangerous to play i with the balance of i species in the world. and the challenge then for politicians is to come up with effective ways of maintaining this biodiversity and the government, to be fair to it, some very ambitious targets were set, targets have been put into law which the committee wants but targets on things like child poverty and it turns out actually what happens when you have a targeted law when it is failed to meet it or broken? you don't drag departments off and stick them in jail. in a sense, it is a difficult thing between matching ambition with credibility.

grandiose statements, superficial strategies. completely counterproductive policies which are more grandiose statements, ,superficial strategies. superficial strategies. completely counterproductive policies which are more about exploiting nations, even now, a very 18th and 19th century, centred if you like view of the natural world. and it is still going on. anyway, i worry that all the right things are being said, but the kind of aggressive capitalism of our times is deeply uninterested in these very important things that have just been said, so evocatively by your correspondent, about the natural world, balance, biodiversity, all of our futures. those two are enemies, and i don't think i feel this government is taking any of this seriously, but they know what to say.

and they might tinker and they might make promises, but they are about as empty as the promises our prime minister has made to the whole world and to whoever. so i think we have to take it seriously. one of the challenges integrating this into all the policymakers, whether planning policy, how you subsidise agricultural fisheries, do you get a sense this is something that can be a lot of attention on climate change which is again big grand and dramatic, that this kind of quite detailed subtle, some might say even quite boring policymaking actually doesn't create enough attention to whether from the media or from politicians themselves or indeed from the voters to sustain the policy change? maybe the reason why it doesn't demand so much attention is we have left out one important factor and all of this debate so far,

that is population. the greed of ever—growing population development on the earth is tending towards notjust capitalism as yasmin said but the basic needs of feeding, eating, and using arable lands for our purposes irrespective of the damage they do to the ecological system. we have to find a consensus, also china in particular, in talking about when is the level, when is the breaking point reached in terms of world population, 9 billion we are already. we are looking down the trail and come into the moment of crisis if we go much beyond that, whatever we do politically the same individual species we have to attach ourselves to the need to 9 billion or more people to do damage to the natural habitat.

something has to give asjohnson rightfully said on the day of execution is near, you concentrate the mind. that is what we need to do. we need to concentrate the mind when more than nine billion people are likely to do with the earth if we continue to multiply within he thought about the future danger to the ecological surroundings. i think i would definitely bring the population issue into this whole debate. thank you very much, thomas. one wonders what would happen if we maintained species diversity for humans as well. for the last 12 of the 16 years that angela merkel has been in charge in germany, xijinping has been running china. having abolished term limits, there's every reason to think he'll be in powerfor many years more. the chinese do longevity, something demonstrated in thursday's choreographed display of popular euphoria, marking the centenary of the china's communist party. asked by an interviewer whether it will still exist in another 100 years, the exiled artist ai weiwei observed drily, chinese dynasties very often last two or 300 years. whether they do are not,

the reality is we have to live with and operate with china as a very real presence in the world. in terms of other countries looking at china and working with china, it was a belief 20 years ago that as china becomes more capitalist, its politics will change, that clearly has not happened. what do we do now? i don't. the powertrain is very quiet not only in terms of hong kong, which we get a lot of coverage of, i went to uganda, my old country a few years ago, and every single

infrastructure project is being ran by the chinese. uganda, tanzania, across southern africa, and they do sign these agreements with the leaders where in exchange for this influence and extraordinarily influence across africa, they will do this infrastructure work. they don't even use the local labour. as one of the people i met there, the local people, said, they don't even use us to clean. and so, it is happening, it is a world power, it is certainly economically controlling a huge amount of world space, but its values and its politics are deeply unappealing. to most people around the world. who are democrats. ijust don't know where it will take us. india has the capacity still to resist this chinese megalomaniac ambitions, but i don't know for how long. it is a very serious issue.

justin, you were a correspondent in india. india has a strong leader in mr modi but has a very noisy, messy but genuinely kind of plural political system. how does it respond to its neighbour, its big, potentially aggressive neighbour? i was there when there were a few cross—border skirmishes _ between the indians and the chinese. that geographical position of india and china is very in this debate. i they have a huge border- to the himalayas with china. it feels it's very close to china. china is a much bigger economy, | about five times the size of india. a very big and very strong neighbour. i and it has a long history of not playing a big role| in international affairs. india has with that, i one of the key players in the nonaligned movement. a great tradition of india not -

taking sides and not playing a game of setting up alliances. you can imagine with the huge long border, siding with america - against china it might be - a very uncountable position. but you are right india, _ feels very uncomfortable and circled by all those countries just . as yasmin saw in africa that they are all sorts of infrastructure projects being funded _ by china as part of it. it feels circled, - but has this version two building alliances, so it's an uncountablel position in the thing _ about ending it was to remember, it is an inward —looking . country by building a very strong and big economy. and if you check multi—part - of the well it looks very bipolar at the moment but in the future multipolar while india should be an important pole of that. india is waiting on long game . to build yourself up before it can

assert itself on an i international stage. i think, as yasmin said, what the chinese are of two in africa and how they help the development there, i am rather relaxed about. it is a country with a huge surplus of people, billions of people who have talents to play with and use them so they do in the world over, yes they are buying influence in china in a non—offensive way. my concern is when china would determine to use her influence and her power in her bigness to militarily make inroads in the balance of power in southeast asia. i've watched with interestjoe biden has not conducted this week maritime manoeuvres with japan and and around taiwan because obviously hong kong has virtually lost is freedom shamefully to the libertarian system, the next appetising victim is likely to be taiwan, taiwan five china, who had never recognised taiwan as a independent country. they have to be very careful.

one last thought. a brief thought, justin. all this involvement around the world has potential president xijinping has recognised the dangers and it might be possible to get him to harness that to reduce some of the damaging projects that are happening. they talk about building more - because they have invested really heavily in renewable energy. in fact, it is thanks - a china that solar and wind and batteries are so much cheaper than they were to put that - i into context, a tenth of the price | is what it costs by solar power now than it did a decade ago - that is largely thanks to china and that is revolutionary in terms of the world ability— to tackle climate change. thank you all very much forjoining us. that's it for dateline london for this week we're back next

week at the same time. goodbye. hello. there will be a few of you that there through this weekend largely dry, but overall, there is going to be plenty of showers around right across the country. some of those likely to be heavy and thundery, even torrential in places, but with the nature of showers, some will miss you and even then, if you do catch them, rainfall totals will vary widely. now the satellite picture earlier showed there is plenty of cloud around. one batch moving northwards, but sunny conditions developing across the south into this afternoon, but it is here we will start to see some localised, intense showers. some of the more persistent rain will be moving out to northern england and into southern scotland through the afternoon, a few showers in the north. but here where we need rain, there won't be much at all. we have to watch this afternoon for a potential of a convergence line, this is a zone of showers where the winds meet and they could form some persistent zone of rain

across parts of devon, cornwall, somerset, through towards the cotswolds, and there is a risk of some flooding. either side of that and away from our main wet areas, southern scotland and the far north of england later, there will be some sunshine, making it feel warm and humid. temperatures up to around 22 degrees. similar sort of value really at wimbledon, a lot more in the sunshine around this afternoon compared to what was around on offer this morning. a small chance of a shower but most of the time dry. this evening and overnight we will see a few showers dotted around, some of those still heavy and thundery and some heavier ones returning back to the south later on. but overall it will be quite a mild and actually quite a muggy night with temperatures in the mid—teens for most into sunday morning. but for sunday, a little bit more sunshine around then we saw this morning. but we will always see sunny spells widely, showers develop across the south initially and then developing elsewhere. some of those heavy with hail and thunder, but there will be some, especially around some of the coasts, who will avoid the showers altogether. through then into monday, it's the northern half of the country which will be

the main focus for showers, particularly across parts of scotland. fewer showers through ireland, england and wales, but later in the day, any sunshine turns hazy and persistent rain and strengthening winds push into the south—west. it will feel cooler though for all on monday. and we have to watch developments down towards the south—west through monday and into tuesday, a deep low could spread its way northwards bringing not only some persistent and heavy rain, especially for england, wales and eastern scotland, but some gale force winds, to across the southern half of the country. and the outlook, well it looked a bit grim there with outbreaks of rain, on and off for most of the days, but there will still be those dry moments, so enjoy as well. bye— bye.

good afternoon. tonight's the night for england football fans as the team take on ukraine in their quarter—final clash in the euros. the match takes place in rome. the bbc'sjohn watson and anna holligan are there for us this lunchtime. first tojohn. confidence high after defeating germany earlier this week? yes, good afternoon, it is a huge moment, a huge occasion but a very different atmosphere awaiting england later, this is the first time they played away from wembley,

less spectators, 16,000 in