this is bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories? the russian and french presidents say their talks in moscow on defusing the military crisis surrounding ukraine have been constructive. protestors in london harass opposition leader sir keir starmer as the prime minister borisjohnson faces more calls to withdraw a false accusation he made against him in parliament. hundreds of moroccans attend the funeral of the five—year—old boy who died after being trapped inside a well for five days. israeli police face allegations of using spyware against public figures, including aides of the former prime minister benjamin netanyahu. we are going to the pictures. he is taking us to titty titty bang bang. what in the name of god is that? and the nominations are about to roll in.

hollywood waits to hear which films are in the running for this year's oscars. welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe �*there is no security for europeans if there's no security for russia' — that was the tack taken by president macron of france as he spent five hours in the company of president putin in moscow. his search for a diplomatic breakthrough in the tensions between russia, ukraine and the west pointed to an appreciation on both sides of the need to compromise. but still there was no indication of an imminent the efforts by the french president come after russia amassed more than 100,000 troops on the border

with ukraine. mr macron said he hoped the talks would help reduce �*the risk of conflict�*. moscow has been clear that it won't allow any more expansion of nato — as it seeks to minimise what it perceives as threats to its borders. at the same time, president biden has been hosting the new german chancellor, olaf scholz inside the white house. our moscow correspondent, steve rosenberg has the latest. from one president to another, warm words. how are you? fine, just fine. how are you? but there'd be no cosy chat. socially—distanced summits is how the kremlin likes it. "emmanuel, i'm so pleased to see you," said vladimir putin. behind the smiles, though, serious concerns. what worries the west is moscow's muscle flexing near ukraine — like these war games involving russia and belarus, and the russian troops massed near ukraine's border. what worries moscow is nato.

it's demanding an end to nato enlargement to the east. signs of de—escalation? not yet, but vladimir putin said he would keep talking to president macron. a number of his ideas and proposals, which are probably still early to talk about, i think it is quite possible to make these the basis of our furtherjoint steps. we are aware today, both of us, of the gravity of the situation and of the urgent and imperative necessity in the interests of everyone to find a path of peace and stability in europe. just having the french president in town is being seen as a diplomatic success for the kremlin. there's a very long

but very colourful russian word, "nyeroka pazatny". it means quite literally, "no one wants to shake your hand." you're like a pariah. after russia's annexation of crimea eight years ago, vladimir putin was nyerokapazatny. world leaders avoided him like the plague. now, they're queuing up to meet him — today, it was president macron, in a week or so, it'll be the german chancellor — and the west is willing to discuss russia's security concerns. that's why moscow believes that coercive diplomacy is working. but what if diplomacy fails? america has sent these troops to poland to protect nato's eastern flank in case of a russian military escalation in ukraine. and to signal transatlantic solidarity, german chancellor olaf scholz flew to washington for talks on the crisis with president biden. if russia makes a choice i to further invade ukraine, we are jointly ready-

and all of nato is ready. moscow insists that it is the victim here, that russia is a besieged fortress, threatened by america, by nato, by a ukraine hostile to moscow. what the west is struggling to work out is if diplomacy ends, what will russia do next? steve rosenberg, bbc news, moscow. britain's prime minister borisjohnson has condemned the harassment on monday of the labour leader sir keir starmer, near the houses of parliament. he was escorted to safety by police after shouts of �*traitor�* hurled at him, and someone can be heard shouting �*jimmy savile�* — taken to be a reference to the false accusation made by borisjohnson — that sir keir had failed to prosecute the late tv personality savile for child sex offences when he was director of public prosecutions.

in his statement mrjohnson made no reference to the accusation despite calls from senior aides and party colleagues for him to withdraw it in full. our political editor laura kuenssberg reports. this is not normal rough—and—tumble, but abuse and untrue accusations being hurled at the leader of the accusation — one false claim that he protected the paedophile jimmy savile. all shouting. keir starmer bundled to a police car. two arrests were made. it happened outside parliament, where, seven days ago, the prime minister made a false link between the two. look, i�*m sure there were some people out there who already had conspiracy theories in their head, but the prime minister�*s given them a platform and permission, and that is tantamount to inciting them to these kind of horrific mobster activities. the prime minister wrongly suggested the labour leader had been involved in the decisions

not to prosecute jimmy savile when he was the boss of public prosecutions. boris johnson clarified after an outcry, but he did not say sorry. a lot of people have got hot under the collar and i understand why. let's be absolutely clear, i'm talking not about the leader of the opposition's personal record when he was dpp and i totally understand he had nothing to do personally with those decisions. the prime minister wrote online... but others in his own party want him to say much more. the former tory cabinet member julian smith said... there�*s no sign of that. borisjohnson�*s failure to apologise has already cost him one of his closest

political confidants. munira mirza, who worked for the pm for more than a decade, quit last week in disgust. protests around here are nothing new — for or against brexit, anti—lockdown, pro—public anger. but the prime minister may find himself accused of stirring up unacceptable behaviour, just when number ten hoped to calm things down. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, westminster. in morocco, the funeral has taken place of rayan, a five—year—old boy who spent five days trapped down a well. the boy had fallen down a narrow, 32—metre dry well last tuesday, sparking a complex digging operation to try to reach him, which gripped the world. aru na iyengar reports. the final journey for

five—year—old rayan, whose plight touched a nation and reverberated around the arab world. hundreds of mourners came to the village in morocco�*s rural northern province to pay tribute. among them, rayan�*s father. the community coming together to give support. social media across the arab world has been flooded with messages of support for the community. grief, and praise for rescue workers. we will neverforget ourson, rayan. he will always be in our hearts. little rayan is not only the son of this village, but the child of the whole world. rescue crews using bulldozers mounted a huge operation to get rayan out stop crowds came to watch and thousands more are followed on social media. the opening to the well was just 45 centimetres wide, too narrow for rescuers to enter, so they dug a slope into the hill before carefully tunnelling towards rayan

to avoid causing a landslide. on saturday night, crowds cheered as rescue workers finally reached rayan and pulled him out, but the joy turned to grief when it was announced that the boy was dead. king mohammed vi called rayan�*s to give condolences. pope francis and the french president, emmanuel macron, have also sent messages with the pope praising the beautiful sight of people gathered together to try to save a child. the boy�*s death has left moroccans in shock but there is thanks as well. thank you to the journalists, to the excavator drivers, to the people who helped us, to the people who came from all over morocco from the arab world and every person he reached out to us. the area excavated is now being filled back. many here take strength

from the good will showed by different faiths towards a defenceless boy in danger. let�*s get some of the day�*s other news. truckers in the canadian capital ottawa have been ordered to stop sounding their horns in an ongoing protest that has snarled up the city. the loud constant blare of truck horns has become one of the defining features of the movement — pushing back against covid restrictions. a state of emergency has been declared in the city. campaigning for presidential elections in the philippines is officially getting under way. the country�*s millions of voters will have three months to ponder which candidates to go for when election day finally arrives on the 9th of may. among the main candidates are the daughter of the country�*s notorious outgoing president, the son of a former dictator and a world—famous boxer. the us have offered a reward of up to 10 million dollars for information leading to the identification or location of the leader of the islamic state militant group in afghanistan —

sanullah gafari. washington believes he was behind the bomb attack on kabul airport last august. the israeli government has anounced an independent inquiry into reports that police illicitly used spyware against its own citizens, including aides of the former prime minister benjamin netanyahu. the reporting by israeli newspaper calcalist alleges that police had used the controversial pegasus spyware made by israel�*s nso group. pegasus has been sold to numerous authoritarian regimes and has been linked to numerous acts of repression, including the assassination of saudi dissidentjamal khashoggi. following the report judges have cancelled a scheduled hearing in mr netanyahu�*s corruption trial to allow israel�*s state prosecutor to respond to the phone spying allegations. john scott—railton is a senior researcher at the university of toronto�*s citizen labs —

whose team has exposed numerous uses of the pegasus spyware by autocratic regimes around the world. i asked him about the implications of its use by a democratic government. i think from our experience of eight years of tracking pegasus it�*s mostly used in autocratic regimes and i think this is the tip of an iceberg and in the first weeks of the scandal we saw a lot of pushback from the israeli government in terms of minimising the revelations and more recently today these scandals have taken a strong turn toward something every israeli wants to know about carabao we saw it with the language coming out but i have to point out a remarkable thing about that language. i feel like an advocate could have written the language years ago talking about pegasus abuses more than any other countries in the world and it�*s just interesting that the medicine has not been tasted at home. is there a suggestion it�*s directed in one political direction or another or is it pretty much across the board? this is an interesting question

and we are trying to figure out what the full political import of these revelations but it does show one thing clearly which is police forces around the world love to be be able to get deep into peoples lives and if you don�*t give them sufficient oversight and they think they are acting secretly, they will have an incredible temptation to abuse the technology and i think what we see in these revelations is that police forces clearly appease the technology among the list of targets that we saw from reporting on israel which is a disability rights group. not exactly a state threat. good point. the nso group would look on pegasus as a great commercial success story and they�*ve done extremely well, but what are they saying? anything about the allegations? like so many big tech

success stories it�*s risen high and then comes crashing down and is wrecking democracy along the way. i think we�*ve seen it before and so for years this has pitched itself as selling stuff to combat terrorists or go after paedophiles but in truth what we�*ve learned year after year is the technology gets used for human rights abuses and what�*s been interesting is for years it�*s been regarded if anything is a kind of a bit of a foreign policy complexity within israel but suddenly israelis are learning more and more about this technology and coming to terms with the fact that this is pointed at themselves and it�*s a terrifying thing. think about how breathtakingly invasive the spyware is. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: hollywood waits to hear which films are in the running for this year�*s oscars. kenneth branagh�*s �*belfast�* is expected to be among the nominations.

there�*s mr mandela, mr nelson mandela, a free man taking his first steps into a new south africa. iran�*s spiritual leader, ayatollah khamenei, has said he�*s passed a death sentence on salman rushdie, the british author of a book which many muslims say is blasphemous. the people of haiti have flocked to church to give thanks for the ousting of their former president, ba by doc duvalier. because of his considerable value as a stallion, - shergar was kept in a special secure box in the stud - farm's central block. shergar was driven away. in a horse box the thieves had brought with them. there stepped down from the plane a figure in mourning — elizabeth ii, queen of this realm and all her other realms and territories, head of the commonwealth, defender of the faith.

this is bbc world news. the latest headlines. the russian and french presidents say their talks in moscow on defusing the military crisis surrounding ukraine have been constructive. as the prospect of a potential russian invasion looms, many ukranians are re—assessing their cultural and linguistic ties to their neighbours. the bbc�*s eastern europe correspondent sarah rainsford went to the eastern city of dnipro to meet veterans who fought against the russian backed forces in 2015 despite coming from a predominantly russian speaking city. this is dnipro. it�*s 200 kilometres from ukraine�*s front line. it is a region sent more people to fight in the east than any outside kyiv and it�*s also treated thousands

of casualties. the flow of casualties has slowed right down since the ceasefire several years ago, but now russia has openly deployed thousands of troops to ukraine�*s border.

eight years of war have already left all sorts of scars here. this facility here was set up specifically to deal with war veterans, and they can do all sorts of rehabilitation procedures here — there�*s massages, sports therapy, psychologists, too. just in this region of ukraine alone, there are 27,000 war veterans in this region alone, so this place is reallyjust a drop in the ocean.

that sense of betrayal seems more acute in this region, where people felt closer to russia before the war. the city has even changed its name now to be more ukrainian. one of the consequences of all of the years of conflict with russia is actually a far stronger sense of ukrainian national identity in this country. we�*ve been invited to meet a band who�*ve made a conscious decision to stop singing in russian, to focus only on ukrainian. that�*s quite a curious choice in a city like this, where, actually, russian is the main language. questions of families, my bandmates also, it�*s quite normal, but when we speak about the self—identification of a person who lives in ukraine and this person

creates lyrics for songs, language, ukrainian language, is an instrument and a weapon at the same time. fighting for what? the right to be yourself and your own country. but that isn�*t a battle everyone�*s ready to fight. people have more pressing worries here. and their feelings about russia are complex, even now.

sarah rainsford, bbc news, dnipro. the australian prime minister scott morrison has made a formal apology in parliament to brittany higgins — a former staffer who alleges she was raped in parliament house in 2019. ms higgins�* allegations and complaints about the way she was treated afterwards, sparked an independent review into the workplace culture in parliament offices. i am sorry. we are sorry. i am sorry to miss higgins for the terrible things that took place here, in the place that should have been a place of safety and contribution which turned out to be a nightmare.

awards season is upon us and in a matter of hours we�*ll find out which actors and filmmakers are nominated for this year�*s oscars. (00v) lady gaga could see a nomination in the best actress category for her role in �*house of gucci�*...while will smith is predicted to be in the lineup for the best actor award for �*king richard�*. this year, 10 films will be nominated for the academy�*s top category — best picture. sandro monetti is editor in chief of the hollywood international filmmaker magazine, he says the wider voting field this year makes for a more interesting contest. let me take the opportunity to applaud the academy. it was only a few years ago that the very future of the oscars was in doubt with the oscars so white controversy.

they�*ve moved swiftly and i always believe if you change the numbers, you change the game and so did the academy and five years ago there were 6000 voters for the oscars and now there are nearly 10,000 and the majority of those new members are women and minorities, so it�*s a much more diverse group voting for the oscars and this makes the oscar race much more wide open than before and it�*s not the usual predictable contest, so this is the 94th oscars but with a wider voting field and we could be seeing some surprises in a few hours. so do you think it does become a bit more popular and box office orientated than perhaps has been traditionally? this is the academy�*s next great challenge, the idea of having ten best picture nominees and it�*s normally five in the other categories is to give the opportunity for more of the crowd pleasing favourites to find their way in. and i think this really needs to happen if the academy awards

is to have a future. for example, spider—man: no way home is not just the biggest hit of the pandemic comments one of the biggest box office hits of all time but is a rank outsider in the oscars race. the favourites for the academy awards are belfast, liquorice pizza, the power of the dog but they did not set the box office alight so it will be interesting to see when the nominations come out if this larger membership has continued to reward just arthouse favourites or has been able to close the gap between the movies the critics like and the movies that the public alike. and jane hill will present a special programme — as the oscar nominations are announced — on the bbc news channel in the uk and bbc world news at 13:10 gmt on tuesday.

you can reach me on twitter — i�*m @bbcdavideades hello there. we�*ve got the battle of the air masses taking place this week, certainly for the next few days, we will have a north—south divide, much colder air across northern areas with some wintry showers. further south, it�*ll be very mild indeed for the time of year, and there will be some sunshine around. so, the dividing line between the cold air to the north and the mild air to the south is this weather front, which will be hanging around through central parts of the country throughout tuesday, so thicker cloud for northern ireland, southern scotland, northern england, outbreaks of rain on this weather front. to the north of it, it�*s brighter with sunshine and blustery showers. these are wintry on the hills of scotland, and it will be windy here. further south, also quite breezy, but dry with sunny spells, a bit more cloud for wales and southwest england. a blustery day, as you can see across the board, but gusts will be reaching

in excess of 50 mph across northern scotland into the northern isles. temperatures in single digits, to the north of the weather front, to the south of it, 11 to maybe 1a celsius, so very mild indeed, particularly where you get the sunny spells. through tuesday night, that weather front hangs around through central areas, outbreaks of rain on it, slowly pushing southwards into england and wales, to the north of it, again, further snow showers. and these will be blustery, accumulating snow on the hills of scotland. very windy here, breezy in the south where it�*ll stay mild. so, into wednesday, then, that weather front slowly pushing its way southwards across england and wales. again, the mild air to the south of it, but more areas will be in the colder air on wednesday. so, that�*ll be scotland, northern ireland, northern england, perhaps north wales later in the day, plenty of snow showers across scotland. significant accumulations across the scottish hills, and it�*ll be very windy, gusts of 60 mph in northern scotland. a breezy day to come for all, but our weather front will be bringing more cloud across southern england,

south wales, where it�*ll remain very mild. the mild air eventually gets pushed out of the way as that weather front slips into the near continent. keeping an eye on this feature, this little low pressure which could bring severe gales and some snow to northern scotland on thursday, but then for friday, there is a ridge of high pressure building in to settle things down. so, it is turning colder for all into thursday. you can see single figure values there. it�*s chilly on friday, but light winds with some sunny spells and the return of overnight frost.

this is bbc news, the headlines. president putin has said talks with france�*s president macron to de—escalate tensions surrounding ukraine have been useful and substantive. at a joint news conference in the kremlin, mr putin said some of mr macron�*s ideas for security in europe were realistic. the uk opposition labour leader, sir keir starmer has had to be escorted to safety by the police. he was targeted by a crowd near parliament — as the prime minister boris johnson faced more calls to withdraw a false accusation he made against him in parliament. israel�*s government will hold an independent inquiry into reports that police illicitly used spyware against aides of the former prime minister benjamin netanyahu and other public figures. now on bbc news,

it's hardtalk with stephen sackur.