elsewhere, there are explosions in the strategic southern port city of odesa on the black sea coast. ukrainian officials say missiles have hit critical infrastructure but there were no casualties. voters in hungary head to the polls as its leader, viktor orban, looks to extend his 12—year—rule. the opposition accuse mr orban of undermining democracy and the rule of law. the biggest cooking oil bottler for uk shops says it only has a few weeks supply of sunflower oil left, as supplies are disrupted because of the war in ukraine. sunflower oil can be found in many products, including ready meals and mayonnaise. we will have a full round up of the day's news at the top of the hour. first on bbc news, it's dateline london...

hello. i'm shaun ley. welcome to the programme which brings together newspaper columnists from the uk with foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast to audiences in their home countries from the dateline: london. here in the studio are: stefanie bolzen, uk and ireland correspondent for germany's die welt media group. polly toynbee, who writes a weekly column for the british newspaper, the guardian. henry chu, deputy news editor at the la times in the united states. welcome to all of you. lovely to have you back for round the table again with us for this programme. on the home front during world war ii, posters admonished civilians, "careless talk costs lives." could it in this war, too? us presidentjoe biden�*s howl of anger in warsaw last weekend — "for god's sake, this man cannot remain in power!"

— was greeted with horror by america's allies. they fear that if vladimir putin thinks regime change is nato�*s ambition, the chance of a negotiated peace will be lost. on the russian side this week, careful, deliberate calibrated talk — talk of "a decision to radically, by a large margin, reduce military activity in the kyiv area." more of that in a minute. let us start with the news that has bubbled around affecting germany, but other european countries as well over the last couple of days. was there or wasn't there a threat by putin to switch off the gas if he did not get paid in rubles? for the time being, it does not look like he will switch off the gas, but it's really important to understand it's not only germany, it's pretty much the whole of europe — especially central europe, eastern europe and some countries that are almost 100% dependent on russian gas deliveries. for germany, of course, being the economic powerhouse in europe, it's very important

to get the gas to power manufacturing, so in many senses it's a big challenge. putin then demanded that from now on his customers had to pay in rubles, which helped him a bit because the ruble went up and energy prices soared even more, but he found in the case of the german government and the chancellor being very strict, saying "no, we are going to continue paying in euros, these are the contracts" and actually now there has been a radical change because they now have they have to pay on gazprombank, not in the euro. it is not a sanctioned bank. no one really understands why putin did this. to pay gas and they can still pay in euros. it's not a sanctioned bank. no one really understands why putin did this, even the german government said, "we have to take time to look into these new instructions we are getting." it's important to say i think it was tuesday this week

that the german government triggered the first level of emergencies, so germany is getting ready for the worst case that gas is not coming from russia. the economy minister was quoted on thursday saying, "we're not going to be blackmailed by russia." polly, there is a bigger issue here, regardless of whether or not there is a deal and other western countries said "we are going to wean ourselves off russian energy." is there a risk that that's not a peace incentive for putin? why would he settle early if we will abandon his cash cow anyway? it's a self—defeating policy for him. it's quite difficult for him to technically turn it off — the ft has been writing about this, that if he switches it off, it becomes very expensive and very difficult to turn it back on again. but certainly, europe needs to learn the lesson — and fast — that we have got to get off gas, wherever it comes from. wherever it comes from in the world, it's mostly from unpleasant governments who will blackmail us in one form or another.

it's got to be sustainable energy and i think the germans probably made a mistake in deciding they were going to go no nuclear. this goes back to merkel. she said no, which would be ok if it had been other sustainable things instead, but the idea of substituting that with extra dependency on russia looked like a bad mistake. what about this winter? is there worry in, whether it's in berlin or in brussels or elsewhere, that actually regardless of what happens in ukraine, president putin... president putin could up the ante? there is a worry and that's the reality. germany does not have enough fuel to heat households, especially when it comes to industry and actually the german industry, of course, while they are supporting the government by saying there is much more at stake than the german economy, but they are saying it could take at least four or five years until we could manufacture

without russian gas. i share your point about that. europe needs to be independent of russian gas, but you have to guarantee certain social peace and it cannot have millions of people losing theirjobs and people sitting in cold houses. that's also a challenge. didn't they already say. they would perhaps start institution rationing because of what's l going to happen? that is the sense that - the taps can be turned off or at least turned down - and this could present a real problem for the governments both in germany and austria. i of course. that's the reality as well and that's why on the big international level it's now a question some countries who say we should actually bring this war to an end that putin really has to fail and others are saying we need peace faster in order to secure our peace back home. that raises the question, henry, about the peace negotiations that were on again in turkey on friday. how much risk is there

that this level of unity we have seen on the western side on this question begins to fracture on what level zelensky should be prepared to compromise, at what level and how quickly we should move to some kind of peace agreement and what kind of normally unacceptable compromises may have to be made on both sides and for the west to accept? i think the precept underlying all this is whether you accept| these peace negotiations i are for real and they are not just smoke and mirrors, - certainly by the russian side, to try to be a delaying tactic . of some kind so they can keep on with the military pressure and continue the _ offensive in ukraine. i think when you look - at what russia is demanding, it is still maximalist. there has been no real come. down in the kremlin's position and you've already. heard zelensky, the ukrainian president, talk about concessions - he would be willing to make, although even then those - would be subject to referendum,

perhaps in terms of giving upi nato membership and having guarantee of peace, which are the precise missions in nato l that russia already objects to. so this seems to be part i of the games being played. it's all inconclusive after five rounds. i only the ukrainians and zelensky can decide what they can tolerate and what they can bear. for those of us watching, it looks unbearable. look at what's happening. you look at the tens of thousands of people being bombed and trapped in mariupol and elsewhere and the horror is so dreadful that it's very difficult for us to decide at what point it's enough. only they can decide that and for as long as they want to go on fighting, we are morally bound to give them everything we possibly can to help them go on fighting. it's very important to us that putin should be clearly seen to have lost and seen by his own people. but it's no good us saying, "we will fight to the last ukrainian," it's not our blood, it's theirs. i hope he does not give away because putin will feel

that he could take crimea or take the donbas or take more and more places each time and coax a bit more. as...is to be have watched how putin now controls - all of the media in russia i and so to say he needs to be seen by his own people . as having lost that will be very difficult to get i that message through even if that's the case l because of the leverage he has now. picking up what you said about how we need to give ukraine everything we can to help them. he has complained most recently in an interview published this weekend that he needs more weapons in particular tanks and aeroplanes and the west is not giving it to him. i think emmanuel macron was quoted as saying the danger is if we give them these weapons we turn ukraine into co—belligerents, what do you make of that? this is one of the very difficult questions especially in the case of germany because germany was very reluctant for a very long time to give any weapons to ukraine.

they even stopped other countries to deliver weapons because of german history and rightly so, you may say, although you might ask for how long or how much longer? germany has a law that you cannot... even weapons that go through another country, if they go into a conflict they may not be delivered. in germany there was this legendary speech by the german chancellor on the sunday after the invasion and it was a complete turn around and germany is now starting to deliver and give more weapons but they don't have much. this is one thing and then of course it comes back to the question how long do you want the war to drag on. on the one hand yes you want this to stop, but the ukrainians they will need someone to guarantee their security as well, they'll not be able to guarantee security themselves. so it's very complex and everybody will be

dragged into it. guarantee is pretty much impossible unless putin has been beaten. we see it with the minsk agreement that he won't keep to any agreement. or else the other danger is a proxy arrangement ukraine actuallyjoins nato but we have to give them such guarantees, that it's the equivalent of them being in nato and then the terror is that we are then drawn into a third world war. so it's a very tricky and not clear to anybody what the ultimate negotiation should be like short of the only thing that would work would be putting actually being visibly beaten so that he was not in the strong negotiations. i assume none of you is terribly convinced by the statement from the defence ministry that they have to ease off on kyiv and their attention is in the south. that spark that, let's pick up on the question or wantjoe biden serve.

who'd have thought that most people... why the horror, why the fits of the vapours by the world leaders, onejoe biden presumably said what everybody else is thinking, i can this man possibly stay in power and we would really rather you didn't? it came from the heart. it was spontaneous at the end of the speech and itjust came out of the man because you felt... you know, the grief and horror of what is happening there, the butchery is so disgusting and of course putin's hold game plan is that he can take more butchery than we can and ukrainians can, that he is willing to bomb any number of civilians and ukrainians can, that he is willing to bomb any number of civilians until we can't take it any more, until it is unbearable and for that outpouring, i thought, from the but good god, is it all about diplomacy? well, i think diplomacy

and statecraft are a - big part of it, though, let's. remember this wasn't his first statement. at the end of the state i of union address it said, go get him, which a lot of- people were not sure what that meant, but it could have - sounded like, somebody go in and take putin out, so if you are sittingj at the head of that huge table where nobody else _ someone you once, shame - on them, if you threaten them twice shame on you if you if. you don't use it for propaganda purposes, which is. is the danger there. he does say to his people, look, they are bent - on getting rid of me, coming and humiliating entertainingl rush as a power and we can't have that. i so from a presidency - and administration whose supporters certainly criticised president trump for his - intemperate remarks, - i felt these were a little bit | unfortunate, although they wait| may be, as you say, what plenty of people are thinking around i the world, but we don't always say what we think when it comes to statecraft. - in the end, putin needs to fail and somehow

be taken away from power by his own people. the question is how the sanctions can work? i mean, there is no ideology in russia, except for prosperity and wealth and living a western life and the question is, will people get to the point and say, we can't go on a holiday in turkey any more, we cannot buy the goods we were to. is the what we called in germany the... in nazi time, i really compare it to that, that people have the same propaganda, they believe the same thing, but now they are missing the life they were having before. is that enough? i have been reading just as a side bar german book that was published in germany just after the war in berlin and that is crying out for adaptation, an extraordinary story of people compromising and not seeing things because they are just trying to hold onto what gives them security. it is really valuable to remember that, that very rarely

are dictators over the phone, we keep looking at the outside, we keep having this optimism bias, surely the people will wise up and get rid of this monster, but no, it doesn't happen. in fact, the more they feel attacked, the more they defend their strong leader, so don't think we should put an awful lot of hope in the idea that putin is going to go. i think in the end if they have a loss and they feel humiliated, they're not going to rise up tomorrow about what he's doing. but then i think the polls have been showing, to the extent l there are independent polls in russia, that indeed his. approval ratings have gone up, | or you would have thought they would have fallen because... they haven't been good for quite awhile. yes, there is that l rally round the flag mentality and again when you control all levels of media - expression, then it| is easier to control. can ijust pick up on what is happening in the united states? present biden has published a new spending plan after his failure to get the last run—through. partly it was predicated on saying, well,

well, big defence spending and also strengthen our own armed forces and support ukraine. mitch mcconnell, the leader of the senate minority group for the republicans, has said, we're not going to support it, it is not enough money for the bypasses on position in ukraine and military matters. how come it has vanished so quickly? so much for even the partisan. position because actually biden is having trouble within his own party, amongst the i democrats, there are hawks who are absolutely siding with the - republicans who say it needs to be a larger increase, evenj though it is a record peacetime military budget that is being i proposed, over $800 billion and yet they still say it is not - enough. there are others in the - democratic party on the left side who are more progressive, saying, look we pulled out of. afghanistan last year and now you want is to keep spendingl militarily, so it is notjust - republicans with whom biden needs to content, it is within his own ranks and so that isl going to be a hard

circle to square. l you have got a government in germany that is multiparty, traffic light coalition, greens, the liberals and the social democrats. and they hold together in this? that is a very good question, especially with the greens pacifist party very much renewables and now you are actually thinking about even bringing back nuclear power. i mean, it is a discussion and certainly now having more fuel than coal and so on used for manufacturing, but i think public opinion is so strongly to be now bold about russia that this is carrying them for now and as long as the war drags on, i think that hopefully we will stay like that. here in the uk? i think our government has been caught on the hop because they are cutting the army by another 10,000 to the smallest it has been in living memory and now it looks like a bad mistake. and i think labour has been in rather a strong position,

saying what have you been doing? because they were saying before ukraine, you shouldn't cut defence to that degree, so the old idea that labour is somehow not patriotic or weak on defence, i don't think you're going to find it from this labour party. one last thought, then. still in for the long haul with this war? i don't see it - ending anytime soon. it really has become a war of attrition, i think. - on the battlefield and round the - negotiating table. is there anything you think might change that? should have the change we were talking about, which is properly not going to happen, in the resume? yes, a regime change, but as you say, if you think it to the end, you say, it won't come from within. how can it come from outside? it is almost unbearable to think about, but yes, a war of attrition. it is not our blood and we are kind of saying, we will hold yourjacket or we

will give you a few weapons, but we are not sending our boys in. it is a very awkward position to be in, a morally awkward position, i think, for all of us. but, you know, ukrainians have been the heroes and the question is how long they can bear to be heroes for. we have a few minutes in hand, so let's talk about other things that have been happening because goodness knows there has been plenty of news happening over the last weeks and this is an opportunity to touch on some of the other things that maybe you think we should be paying more attention to. perhaps we already are, but you think it is worth restating, polly first? i think without doubt, it is the great recession. you know, the ukraine war hasjust come at the worst possible time, supply chain, everything broken, relations with china. for britain, particularly, after brexit, this could not come at a worse time and today, friday, is the day when the switch is turned for people's electricity prices and gas prices, which

will shoot through the roof. you know, people by the end of this year will be paying another £2000 for an ordinary household. you know, this has been for ordinary families no families, and for large numbers of families who are less than average pay, absolute poverty. interesting listening to lord tipton on the radio, who was once the artist forming owners john gummer, who was formerly under margaret thatcher in the cabinet, and has become a big champion of green issues save actually if the government as part of austerity hadn't cancelled the insulation programme britons would be paying about £50 less, maybe even £200 less eventually for their energy bills and they are otherwise paying, which is a reminder of the long—term, short—term thing. you talked about it with merkel,

use of power, but it is true in the uk as well. david cameron suddenly decided green policies were a bit expensive, he said cut the green clap and all of the programme, the massive programme for inflating people's houses, for onshore wind, which is the cheapest, and for solar energy fell apart overnight. it was catastrophic. we would be in quite a different place now if those programmes had followed on through from where they had been founded in 2010. given the way inflation is going and economic growth is not going, are you now worried about the possibility of stagflation, which was a horrible thing that was experienced in the nineteen seventies? i think it is very hard to see where new paternity is going to come from, unless you have a government that is government that is willing to borrow and invest in productive industries. i think we are in real trouble. we have got another austerity government making the same mistakes, that they cut into... to be fair, arguably, and you could have a debate about this time, not this week, but you could say the same of the labour government in the 1970s, that it found itself trapped in that thinking we have got to make cuts because if we don't make cuts is going to be even worse. well, it was imposed on it

by the imf, it had no truth at that point, but it was the wrong thing to do. one mp said, you borrow, you spend, even if you have to dig holes on the floor and fill them up again, you promote your economy and everywhere you can and you pull borrowing back when it begins to have a good effect. there are no doubt some people throwing things at the television even as you say that, but you have made your point. stephanie, what has been catching your eyesa bit of a lighter story and i must say, being a forest an foreign correspondent in uk, of course you have to royalfamil people might not like it here, but there i really enjoy it because they have given me a lot of good stories lately. and they were german originally expected they were german originally. but no, really, with harry and meghan, d green, of course, it is a mirror of our present a lot and i have to admit i was in front of westminster abbey on tuesday because i had hoped to see the queen at least from afar, but

to use the side entrance because she was very frail. this was for a memorial service for her late husband, who died one year ago. yes, and of course it one year ago she could not have guests because of the pandemic, but this time there were lots of royalty there the interesting thing about it is of course she chose her son, prince andrew, the duke of york, to bring her into the church and that was a very interesting... given his problems with his private life and having to settle a claim in a sexual assault court against him in the united states by virginia giuffre. exactly, it was seen as a very deliberate decision by the queen to show love for her son and bring them back into the family. if anybody could get away with that, i guess it is the queen because of their own personal popularity, an interesting point. it is a funny year as a republican, a jubilee year like this, isn't it? well, yes. we will take the holidays they give us, but, you know, it is going to be elizabeth the last. yes.

i love the souvenirs, when they managed to misspell, but apparentlyjubilee is misspelt, so they have become a collectors item because they were printed wrong, which is a slightly ironic touch on royalty. henry, finally, you have got something that is even. . . that was light, yours is really euphoric? well, in the sense - that we have spent so much of this programme talking about the inhumanity of war, i whereas i think there was an i incredible achievement talking about our common humanity and that what makes us human that. was the announcement that the i human genome has been entirely sequenced, 100%. we had had an announcement over 20 years ago _ when they had the big - breakthrough of what they said was the sequencing, but there were still sections left that. were not actually fully done. explain what it means because when you get into the genome stuff, people go, oh that is very good, but i don't know what that really means. it is looking at - the building blocks of human dna that we have that

make us who we are and - different from chimpanzees, for example, and in fact this last i section they finally did - a breakthrough with that was about 8% may be, it was - considered junk dna or dark matter that didn't really have much significance, but they l have since discovered that actually part of those - sequences show how we evolved into human beings, it also- could tell us more about ageing, but neurological conditions, cancer, perhaps, so this is a real triumph ofjust- human ingenuity and scientific collaboration because it was a | collaborative effort and shows that when humans really pulll together, as opposed to try to kill each other on the - battlefield, amazing things can happen. i last fought from either your net? that is about good as you can get and it is... a scientific collaboration is the great hope for us in britain, the great tragedy is that we have pulled away from it with brexit and we no longer have the same level of scientific collaboration that we did have.

i just with the word sequencing, i always think of the pandemic and this country was very good sequencing and much better and many other countries. and got us to the vaccines. vaccines, . which is why we are back in the studio together after two years of not being in the studio. stefanie bolzen, polly toynbee, henry chu, thank you all very much. lovely to see you again and lovely to see you as well back home, whether you're throwing things at the television or not, the fact that you're watching or listening we really appreciate that. back same time next weekend, from dateline london. goodbye. after the frosty morning

most of us are in for a pretty decent afternoon. here is a reminder of how cold it got, at least in some spots. minus seven degrees last night in wales and sennybridge, making it the coldest april night in nine years. even in london, temperatures were well below freezing. how about the outlook? bright weather today, but rain is expected tomorrow. the rain will already reach parts of scotland and northern ireland later on this afternoon. this is the picture for the first part of the day, sunny spells and a few showers across england and wales but the rain spreading into scotland and just about nudging into northern ireland as well. around 10 degrees for most of us the high. tonight, a different picture compared to last night, you can see cloud and rain spreading across the country, increasing winds as well. as a result it is going to be a very mild night. temperatures in the lowlands of scotland 8 degrees, further south a little bit colder earlier in the night but no more than 5 degrees on monday morning. this is the low pressure

with its weather fronts crossing the country on monday. within it we have milder air from the north atlantic, so that means a very different feel to things on monday. right from the morning onwards it is cloudy across the uk, outbreaks of rain here and there and perhaps a bit of sunshine through the course of the afternoon. i mean glimmers around eastern parts of the country and may be further south. given that, temperatures could get up to 14 or 15 degrees but more typically it will be around 12 or so, particularly where it is cloudy and rainy all day long. through monday night into tuesday we will see more the weather front spreading into this next low pressure coming in off the north atlantic. it may bring a spell of snow tuesday and tuesday night across central and northern scotland, where it will remain cold. further south we still have very mild weather. look at the contrast in the temperatures on tuesday, 15 degrees in london, 12 in liverpool and then in aberdeen

it is only around 4 degrees and freezing or below in the highlands. the outlook for the week ahead will be unsettled, further south it will be relatively mild but further north, those temperatures will be just that little bit lower. bye— bye.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. our top stories: as ukrainian forces regain control of more areas around kyiv — there's international condemnation of what appears to be the systematic killing of ukrainian civilians by retreating russian forces. explosions in the southern port of odesa, ukrainian officials say missiles have hit critical infrastructure. pakistan's parliament is dissolved after prime minister imran khan survives a move to oust him — fresh elections could now be held within weeks. voters in hungary head to the polls as its leader, viktor orban, looks to extend his 12—year—rule. here in the uk, the conservative

party has suspended one of its mps