this is bbc news, the headlines: around 100 people have died after a massive explosion when a fuel tanker collided with a lorry in sierra leone's capital, freetown. fuel spilled before igniting and the resulting fire engulfed crowds of people and vehicles at a busyjunction. the vice—president has called it a national disaster. police investigating a deadly crush at a music festival in the us state of texas say they're looking into reports that someone in the crowd was injecting others with drugs. eight people died in the stampede at the music festival in houston, when fans pushed towards the stage, causing panic. and marches have been taking place in more than 200 cities around the world as part of what's been described as the global day of action for climate justice. tens of thousands of people took to the streets of glasgow where the un's cop26 climate talks are taking place. now on bbc news, it's time

for dateline london, with shaun ley. hello and welcome to the programme, which brings together bbc specialists and the foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast for audiences in their own countries from the dateline: london. this week, is china putting power before the planet? a fishy end to the british—french stand—off, and sleepyjoejust biding his time? to discuss that, we're joined by the american journalist ned temko who writes for the christian science monitor. david shukman, the bbc�*s science editorjoins us from, where else this week, but glasgow. here in the studio, stefanie bolzen, uk and ireland

correspondent for the german news site welt. welcome to you. let's begin with china. we knew that president xijinping wouldn't attend cop26, the climate change conference in glasgow. what we didn't know was that his country would absent itself from many of the key agreements, too. a pledge to cut methane by 2030? not there. a pledge to phase out coal? not there. as for agreeing that global temperatures should be allowed to rise no more than 1.5 degrees above pre—industrial levels, forget it. david, you're in the heart of things up in glasgow. tell us what china has and has not signed up to. and why it matters. china's the biggest polluter. something like 28% of global emissions come from chinese soil. so any effort to tackle climate change pretty well has to involve the chinese.

so far, they have actually stuck to their guns in terms of existing policy. there were high hopes, especially from the uk presidency of this process, that in the run—up to it, there might be some new breakthrough chinese initiative. but that didn't happen. there were some minor concessions. for example, president xi said they would no longer fund coal power stations outside china. they didn't say what would happen inside china. they planned to be carbon neutral by 2060, later than many western countries. there were hopes that they would do more. they've continue with the line, which they've always have had, to be honest, which was other countries industrialised first, notably the united states. they've been chucking carbon emissions into the atmosphere

point out not so much current emissions, of which they're number one, but historical cumulative emissions and, under that reckoning, the us is the number one with about a quarter of all emissions in the air at the moment coming from us soil. so, with that in mind, they say the richest nations, they've got to move first when it comes to climate change. ned, china as we heard made this argument. i can imagine it's quite a seductive argument. it's shared presumably by a lot of countries in the global south. that in the end, the west caused this problem, or industrialised countries caused this problem and, by historical reasons, they are mostly western countries, many western european. your country as well. it is their problem

first to solve. how would you rebut that argument if you were face to face with a chinese diplomat tonight? well, i think the gist of the argument is absolutely true and i think one of the ironies is that it is increasingly acknowledged by the united states, certainly post the trump administration again and by the west, who have redoubled their efforts in the last six years, since paris, to try and cut emissions, try and develop new technologies. as climate scientists will tell you, however, far too slowly and far too little. but for instance, recently, there has been a new focus on making good on a commitment of several years vintage now, to pour something like $100 billion a year into developing economies, precisely as a way of subsidising a greener transition there without forcing developing economies to sacrifice economic growth. but the chinese line here is essentially political,

and, as i think david alluded to, it's from an old playbook. what i would say is that that playbook has become gradually less credible in the last 10—15 years. that is to say, back then it could be argued that china was a big economy, yes, but it was essentially a developing economy. now it is the second—largest economy in the world. it's a modern economy, it's a fully industrialised economy and, as david says, it's responsible for more than a quarter of all global emissions and i think more than half of coal emissions, and it's pretty clear that, without active chinese participation, even tighter western targets are not going to be sufficient to meet the aspirations of the paris conference. stefanie, the eu delegation is united on the challenge. even countries like poland, for example, are signing up to things that are difficult forthem, not least

because poland is so dependent on coal still. but on china, there isn't one voice in the eu. it's a dilemma how best to influence china. when countries like germany are reluctant to challenge it on human rights and other countries have been jumping up and down on issues like that. this is, not only when itl comes to climate change but on many other issues, that's a challenge - for the european union, - simply because of the influence of china, investment that china has in europa _ generally, the eu is leading in the fight against - climate change and rightly so because it's a very- powerful continent and also, actually, the europeans- understood that the pandemic can be a unique opportunity, i so, when they adopted this massive recovery package. plus the budget until 2026, which is 1.8 trillion euros, i

a third of this is earmarked. for investment into the fight against climate change, so there is a big will- to do this on paper but, - as you say, poland, hungary... poland might have pledged now to the phasing out of coal - but actually, in brussels there are a lot of rows l about this because these countries are saying, - we depend on coal, we have massive economic problemsj now because of the pandemic, we cannot spend more - money on this. and on top of it — phase out. coal, which we urgently need. david, you outlined some of the things that president xi has said. i mean, you could argue that quite a lot of this, we talked about the old playbook, it's exactly that, it's almost part of the official chinese institutional pathological view of the west as the humiliator of china on many occasions, most notably during the opium wars.

how are the british as the kind of chair of this event handling this? do you get a sense as you talk to officials off the record that they have a strategy for engaging china on this issue? it's a great question and it's very sensitive and very difficult. because however you look at it, relations between the uk and china are not exactly brilliant. you can pick from a long list of topics that cause tension. hong kong, for example. china's treatment of the uighurs. the fact that the royal navy has just sailed its new aircraft carrier through the south of china. these are all issues that create, if you like, a difficult atmosphere in the run—up to this event, and the fact is that the man chairing cop26, the british minister alok sharma, only managed to get to beijing once in the run—up to the summit. whereas, on previous occasions, for example, ahead of the paris

summit in 2015, there were multiple visits by all kinds of world leaders to beijing. clearly, covid is a factor, but i think it illustrates how difficult it has been for the uk to have any influence and they can't really control. i think they are trying to look at other parties, like the eu, perhaps the americans, to bring some influence. there has been a phone call between boris johnson and president xi but there is limited influence and the hope must be that others can bring some influence to bear on china. who knows, maybe some of those countries that benefit from china's largess could have a quiet word in the ear. it was donald trump, who nicknamed his democrat rival for the presidency "sleepyjoe". some in mr biden�*s own party may be wondering whether the president has been asleep on the job. as congressional democrats continued to squabble amongst themselves over how to pass the president's signature infrastructure reform, the results in governatorial elections in two states suggest voters may be losing patience. the democrats lost virginia

and came perilously close to defeat in newjersey. just on virginia, ned, i think i'm right in saying thatjoe biden won that state a year ago by ten percentage points. on wednesday night, they lost all three state offices. which is just after the election, why does it matter? why is it causing such jitters amongst the democrats? the first thing to say is that the two governatorial results probably matter less to a lot of people, including us in the press because they make good headlines. if you go back to the 1980s, since then, every new president, republican or democrat, has lost these two

state governor offices in their first year in office. so you could argue that democrats and biden didn't do well but they did less terribly than the historical barometer would suggest, but that doesn't mean it's good news, and the reason it matters is this... first, as you say, it wasn't just the governor's office, it was other offices around the state as well. the long—term, but for the next year, because this is all about the mid—term elections for both houses of congress, almost exactly a year from now, and the bad news in that context is the polling, and it seemed to suggest that, while the democratic base held up pretty well in both newjersey and virginia, two key constituencies that the democrats had peeled away during the four years of the trump administration because of the toxic antipathy that he generated

in these areas, and that is to say the suburbs of major cities and independent voters, in both those areas, it seems that the democrats are losing their appeal, and without being able to reinstate that connection and perhaps build on it, it's hard to see how things look good for the midterms for the democrats. not least because, again historically, the trend is that first—term presidents of either party almost always lose seats in the midterms. david, joe biden hoped to arrive in glasgow with the infrastucture legislation signed and sealed. it didn't turn out that way. and its pledge on an energy tax to clean up, and so on. how do the us green credentials look? the best the us green minister

could say was, well, the market is transitioning. presumably, all the scientists would say, yes, but not fast enough! i think that's true. there was a very neat narrative earlier this year. president trump gets elected, comes into office, very quickly reinstates america's membership of the paris agreement, which donald trump had taken american out of. very quickly announces a summit. on that day, in april, announces his own plan for america to halve its emissions by 2030 — extremely ambitious, absolutely in line with the latest climate science in terms of what's needed to avoid the worst of global warming — and then the hope was that yes, he would turn up here having got everything sorted out in congress and of course that hasn't happened. and i think it has raised a question here. people talk about this summit

as a delivery summit. it's a summit where people have made all kinds of promises to do all kinds of stuff, net zero by 2050, and all that kind of thing, but, actually, what everyone is looking for, what the science is looking for, is action very soon in the coming years and, until the building blocks are in place in washington, it's very hard to see how joe biden can deliver. i see read that are ways and mechanisms and so forth but, at the moment, i'm definitely picking up in the corridors here questions about how america can deliver. there's no question that it's serious about the agenda but can it implement what it's promised? stefanie, this must look strange. from the perspective of politicians in germany where they negotiate across party but have been governing and are trying to construct another governing coalition to look at a system where it seems impossible, almost treacherous, for people to work with one another. i was in glasgow at - the beginning of the week,

when the head of states - and government were there, and, as david says, there was a lot of tension around joe biden . because america is back, i that is what was promised, and now there is so little time left to deliver, _ especially - on climate change. if you follow the cop26 in glasgow, _ you know that every that every pledge makes a massive - difference but they also have to deliver it and, i by this time next year, maybe joe biden can't decide and legislate . for anything any more. he may not have the votes. yes, so, coming back to germany, - they are just negotiating another_ they are just negotiating another government. - they promised — the voters to come back before christmas with a new government as a christmas present but - things are not looking so rosy. two weeks ago, they were doing cool selfies of themselves - but now they are starting - to bicker and that's not a good thing but i hope by christmas l we will have a new government

in germany and i'm sure we are going to talk- about that quite a bit. it will all be over by christmas, where have i heard that before? it looks like angela merkel might become the second longest chancellor. until the 19th of december, if it's afterwards, _ she will be a historic record. that is some upside. on that negotiation, part of biden�*s pitch was, look, i've spent my life time in congress. i'm the man, i worked across the aisle all of my political life. i'm the man who can deliver. he hasn't been able to get unanimity on his own side. the idea of anyone crossing the aisle to vote with him. that seems for the birds. hearing stefanie talk, ijust wish from an american perspective that politicians could bicker. they barely talk to each other or look at each other these days. the short answer is, this isn't biden's old congress and certainly not the senate any more, but if i may come back to the significance...

..of these two elections. it isjust possible this is a wake—up call for the democratic party. the clock is ticking now. there is real fear. we will see whether this works among a critical mass of democrats in congress, if they can get anything done and they have broadly got a core agenda on which they agree, they had better do it now because, even with the majority, narrow though they are, in congress that they now possess, the current party republican is stalemate and if the republicans were to hold or take back control of congress, basically, biden should turn out the lights because in terms of modern or major infrastructure getting through congress, it's going to be a tough call.

and the nightmare scenario briefly is he finds himself in that position, he can't legislate, he tries to regulate but is blocked by the supreme court, which has a conservative majority, and then he is facing donald trump again in three and a half years' time. anything is possible. i am, for my sins, quite the optimist in the sense that the alternative is worse, and i like to think there is enough institutional fibre left in american democracy that we will get through this. it will be tested, i'm sure, over the next few years! i can't help thinking about that gershwin song, i'm biding my time. that's the kind of guy i am. let's move on. borisjohnson and emmanuel macron had what diplomats call a "brush past" at the g20 summit at the weekend. that's an informal meeting. perhaps brush—off would be more accurate. the two leaders were at

loggerheads over fishing. unless the uk issued licences to french boats which had been denied them post—brexit, declared president macron, from tuesday, british boats would be banned from landing their catch. the british government warned this would breach its trade and cooperation agreement with the eu. yet, on monday night, paris backed off. stefanie, i was in the studio monday night, when i suddenly saw that the elysee palace had announced it was suspending the deadline and there won't be any action on tuesday. what's the explanation that lies behind that, do you think? it's not quite clear. there have been briefings and counterbriefings. - but the french were threatening was a _ but the french were threatening was a pretty big thing. not only that they would ban british ships from french - waters, but also that they- might make trade between calais and dover, where most of- the trade goes between britain and ireland and -

towards the continent. they might not block it but . would make it more difficult. also you have to see not only from the british side - but also from the german, slovak, hungarian — - they all sell their stuff - to britain, and that was quite something that raised - some eyebrows out there. so, borisjohnson, he kind of had a word with ursula von der leyen. do you think he may have been pushing an open door to a certain extent? yes, to a certain extent, . but what i hear in brussels as well is that the europeans have shown their toolbox - because i think we will talk about it in a minute, - because of the northern ireland protocol, - so there was a kind i of thinking that maybe the french overdid it but, i in a way, the brits also need to know what could happen if they don't stick— to the agreements they have signed. i so there may be some

value in it. david, you have been diplomatic editor of the bbc. you're science editor now. the science of fishing and the politics of the fish industry are really complicated. why is it something that provokes such passions, given that it's a tiny industry in global terms and in european terms too? well, the first thing it provokes in me is a shiver down my spine because, when i was based in brussels, the worst thing any of us ever had to coverjust before christmas were the annual fish talks. they always went through the night, they were highly sensitive. highly professional. it's national congregation had its all of you. — — view.

the details were incredibly complicated, as you say. which fish type, which species, which area. and it came down to high politics. every minister, every fishery minister, wanted to leave with victory. they wanted to be able to go on camera on their own national tv networks and say, i have won. i have secured us more fish. almost every year, with almost every species, the agreement amongst the politicians for the quotas was always greater than the marine conservationists would advise. there would be a number from the scientists about what we think is safe, and then the politicians during the fraught early hours of the morning would always grant each other as it were more fish to take. this is a perennial problem. i think you have just got a number of proud fishing nations. it has become a political touchstone in the uk. it was a key issue in the brexit referendum. it remains an issue now. i think it's very easy for politicians on either side of the channel to light the blue touch paper over it, rightly or wrongly, and get some good headlines and i wonder if that's

what we're seeing now? ned, the british government were very sensitive not to appear triumphant on this and the temperature has lowered accordingly. what do you think the best way forward is now quite? one could almost argue, let's give licences to the boats... it's a finite number, is there a way through this, do you think? even the french were saying, can you let us know what the criteria used were, please? as if this was all an administrative misunderstanding. your suggestion is fantastic. the problem is it makes much too much sense for it to happen. this is essentially a political row and on the british side we have a highly ideological government whose powering credo is brexit and making britain great again,

and we must not forget that emmanuel macron has an important re—election date early next year with the voters of france and he does not want to appear weak or basically taken advantage of. so there is relatively narrow scope for manoeuvre. neither side wanted a blow—up now. although i hope it is the case, i doubt we have seen the last of this. just in the last 45 seconds or so, this could almost be a warm—up act for the main event? yes, it'sjust to be continued. now they talk about fish - and next week they will talk about the northern ireland| protocol, where the british side wants the european court ofjustice to be taken- completely out of the picture, and that is impossible, - also legally for the europeans. the court ofjustice decides -

on matters of the single market and northern ireland is part of the single market, - so the suspicion is the brits put it in there because they know that you can't solve it and it's a political game - for the domestic audiences. watch this space. i'm glad you mentioned next week. that could well be a subject on next week's programme. we never decide until the week of the transmission. so do come back for next week. we're back and we will know what we are talking about. from everyone, have a lovely week. bye— bye. hello.

saturday's cloud and rain moving south was only one part of the weather picture. the other was the strengthening wind, and close to this low pressure, northern scotland will get off to a stormy start on sunday morning. there could be some travel disruption, as severe gales move through, and still some outbreaks of rain, whereas much of the rest of the uk, although it is still breezy, will get off to a dry start. cloudy skies in the west, and it's mild, temperatures around 6—11 degrees celsius. just focus on the winds, though, on sunday morning, particularly across 0rkney and northeast scotland, here some gusts 60—70mph here, maybe a little bit more exposed coasts and hills with some large waves on some of the coasts as well. so some disruptive strong winds to begin the day. slowly easing as the day goes on. still a few showers moving through here. maybe one or two showers with the cloud across the western side of the uk, but most places, as high pressure begins to move in, will have a dry sunday. the best of any sunny spells in the east.

these temperatures are a little down on saturday's readings, but still on the mild side of average. now, as we go on through sunday evening and night, we will find some clear spells through eastern parts of scotland and down the eastern side of england. and this will allow for a touch of frost in the coldest spots, as temperatures drop close to freezing. we will keep the cloud in the west. the temperatures hold up here, and it is a mainly dry night to come. we have another weather system coming our way. this area of low pressure, the weather fronts around it, and it will gradually take this weather front southwards across the uk. it will take a lot of the week to do so. it will slowly bring in some outbreaks of rain across northern ireland on monday, into scotland, especially the north and west. could see some reaching into parts of northwest england and wales as well. whereas the rest of wales and england will stay mainly dry. some sunny spells in eastern england, around 11 celsius here, feeling rather chilly. whereas in belfast, up to 1a celsius. the breeze freshening again across northwestern areas. here comes the weather front slowly moving southwards as the week goes on.

but we will maintain a west or south—westerly flow into the uk. so for the week ahead, things are looking mild. you will notice that on the temperatures here. a lot of cloud around, a few sunny spells, and again, some outbreaks of rain very gradually spreading southwards as the week goes on.

welcome to bbc news — i'm rich preston. our top stories: hospitals overwhelmed in sierra leone after 100 people are killed in a fuel tanker explosion. many more are injured. us police are investigating reports that someone at a houston music festival was injecting people with drugs before the crowd stampeded. the death of a pregnant woman sparks protests in poland against the country's near—total ban on abortion. she's said to be the first woman to die as a result of the law. and demonstrations around the world demanding urgent action to combat climate change as the cop26 summit continues.