hello this is bbc news, the headlines. finland says russia has cut off supplies of natural gas — days after finland announced it was applying to join nato. meanwhile in ukraine, russia intensifies its attacks in the donbas region as its forces capture more territory in the south and east. the senior civil servant, sue gray, met with the prime minister to discuss publishing photos as part of her inquiry into downing

street lockdown parties. joe biden discusses security and north korea's nuclear programme with south korea's president in seoul. as monkeypox spreads worldwide, uk doctors say it could have a "massive impact" on access to sexual health services. polls close in parts of australia as two political veterans battle it out for the country's top job. now on bbc news...dateline london with shaun ley hello and welcome to the programme that brings together leading uk columnists, bbc specialists and the foreign correspondents who write,

blog and broadcast to audiences back home from the dateline — london. it's been a week either of sequels — or of re—runs. in the uk, we're waiting for sue grey — again — and her reporting on partying in government whilst the country was in covid lockdown. borisjohnson and the european commission are wrestling over northern ireland post—brest — again. post—brexit — again. covid surges and an authoritarian government in asia locks down — again — and polling made australia's politicians nervous about the outcome of this weekend's election — yes, you guessed it — again. in the studio are janet daley — american by birth, british by choice — whose weekly column appears in the sunday telegraph, the irishjournalist suzanne lynch, who writes for the politicos brussels playbook and newly returned from filming in cambodia, the bbc�*s asia—pacific editor, celia hatton. welcome to all of you. thanks for coming in. let's begin with party gate. the fines are in and they're over, they won't be any more now.

is borisjohnson�*s leadership secure, do you think for the moment yes, but that's heavily caveated. i don't agree with the people who say this is all about 0k, why are we talking about cake when there's a war on and an injury crisis at all that. i don't think that's very convincing. there are people who will never, ever forget this incident because they had life—changing bereavement, peoples parents died without being able to visit them. grandparents who died before they seen newborn grandchildren those people will never forget. there's a wider sense in which there's a impression of shambolic irresponsibility in downing street. that's going to lie there quietly until it revives again. i think they are going to have to be very careful to see to it that impression ofjocularity and irresponsibility, of having laid down rules which were...

i dislike most of those rules anyway, they were incomprehensible, contradictory, incoherent but a lot of people obeyed them. and they didn't, apparently. and it's notjust about the birthday incident either. there is talk, we know that borisjohnson and his wife held social gatherings at their apartment. but the idea that the people that made those rules were cheerfully perhaps in a jocular mood disobeying them, that can easily come back to bite him again. could that be the big thing out of the sue grey report? not the parties and the names, warning people whose they have to respond before the end of this weekend or she's going to name them or give a reason why they should not be. could it be that that's more damaging if this report paints a picture of a kind of dysfunctional number ten? a place with chaos, lack of organisation and ultimately a lack of leadership. it is showing up a lot

of the characteristics that critics of borisjohnson have been saying for years. that's why i think it's politically difficult. i think some of the heat has been taken out of the situation. this is going on for so long, in a sense, voters have already banked the fact that this is happening. ultimately, the way the political wind seems to be blowing is that within his own party borisjohnson looks like he's going to survive this. there is not to be that push again soon. i think the timing of this has been very interesting and it's been very fortuitous for boris johnson, we need to see this report is coming during next week. lots of speculation about who will be named, how damning will it be be or will it be dull? i think that might also have an impact on how this ultimately plays out. keir starmer has his own problems and he has made this perhaps a ratherfoolish unforced error of saying he will resign if he gets a fine. now he either gets a fine

and he doesn't resign or he gets a fine and does resign or there's a suspicion and police holding back because they don't want to be in the position of putting him out of hisjob by giving him a fine. it's not a very happy situation for him. no. the international residence, ireland had his problem in lockdowns? it did. exactly, the public felt this and it's politically difficult territory for politicians in ireland there is a controversy about politicians at a golf dinner and led to a resignation by a commissioner. it's very politically difficult. internationally, the story got a lot of legs but more back in february, march when it came on the scene. we have pictures on international media, old pictures of borisjohnson in unserious poses. it hasn't. .. are there many of those around?

they can be found. feeding into a narrative, right or wrong about borisjohnson. so far there has not been a huge media interest over the last few weeks as this is drag on but again with these two great report, as this is drag on but again with the report, let's see, it may come back onto the headlines. has it played internationally in your region? is there an awareness of it? in some countries it is no countries would not comment on it. - chinese media have been playing a little bit more attention- to boris johnson and rules that have been broken. _ using that to point out, - we are enforcing our zero covid strategy which has made a lot. of people miserable but at least we're sticking with it. you not got any government officials breaking those rules. _ that's been politically useful. for some government officials. let's talk about brexit again.

it's been a while since we talked, the protocol. here we go again. there is so much noise and drama attached to this. trade agreements are renegotiated all the time, nothing new about that. the problem comes when one side is being uncooperative about those negotiations with britain would say that that's what the eu is doing. the whole thing has been so theatrical right from the off all those visits from eu officials, ireland was virtually ignored by the eu until that point except to be bullied into reducing its corporation tax because it was uncompetitive with the rest of the eu. suddenly varadker was the great star, he must�*ve been thrilled and now we are in this position where were having, sorry to be so partisan but the remaining camp in parliament thought they had found the magic bullet. this was the immovable object, the un—solvable problem for the eu, the business about the hard

border in ireland. it's perfectly true that you cannot create a hard border in ireland from the republic. in other words, you can't have customs checks between the ireland and the republic. we are talking about a tiny proportion of trade for most trade is with the uk and not the republic. the whole thing has become so overblown and so theatrical. now we have nancy pelosi marching in with her own theatrics saying congress won't approve of the trade deal with the us. but she won't be running congress. no, doesn't look like it at the a democratic you lose control of congress. to be fair he's not in congress, using the us state department and he said on friday we want to see this issue resolved and we want to see temperature lowered and we don't want unilateral actions or in other words, they don't want the british tearing up as they are threatening to do. they are threatening.

the idea that anybody at this point in time with the war going on in the ukraine and with dreadful cost of living emergency occurring all over the west, notjust here, the idea that anybody would tear up and agreement and provoke a trade war is insane. it could happen. it's like a prelude to the first world war. why is the british government doing that? it is not yet. i am not saying it will not at the moment it isn't this is all noise. i'm in brussels, i was in washington for the last two years and the number one mistake some members of the british government make they think the us doesn't know anything about this. those figures in congress are following it very much in detail. they know what's going on in terms of the northern ireland protocol. in terms of brussels, nobody in brussels wants to talk about brexit. they have moved on, ukraine more, try to get their own coherent position on that.

so the eu member states were happy to let the commission do the negotiations and then there was a truce before the northern island election now the last week this is completely changed. the eu commissioner, he briefed eu ambassadors on wednesday after the announcement by liz truss _ his announcement that the government will legislate unless it can get renegotiated. they didn't actually legislate yet. the big question is this buying time? that was it. officials are saying what he does get series is when that bill is tabled and if and when it is passed, which could take months. there is a window of opportunity for more negotiation. customs are the main issue and customs are the main issue for the community. liz truss spoke about the european court ofjustice and that at all these other bigger issues there's prosperity finish. if i think the two sides can keep it

on the customs issue, is a strong possibility that they'll. .. it has been already resolved on medicines, they will be no checks on medicine. it's perfectly possible and animals too. the importation of live animals. there's no reason why this can't be resolved, is become a vanity issue. the other issue is the dup, the unionist party in northern ireland are saying they won't go into powershare at a problem. i've heard people saying that the british government instead of trying to bring the dup along have kind of riled it up as an issue and that they are taking their side. that's one way of seeing that. the other issue about customs, it's only a few sausages, people say no big deal, the problem is in the longer term as britain, as years go on and britain diverges from eu standards and to sides with trade deals with america or australia then you can have completely different products. that's when they'll be in issue for the eu, that these will get them to northern ireland and then

across the border. that raises concerns for other countries that trade with europe around the world to get nervous about this kind of talk of divergence because they worry about if we doing trade with the uk, what are the implications for us in securing a trade relationship with europe? absolutely. it's really, were going to have to see how this unfolds. - as the uk starts to talk to more l countries and starts to try to hash deals with more countries, of course it's going - to be a big issue. i think the long—term, it is a conundrum of this border issue for the people have been telling me this week why they are particularly annoyed is because it's not like there's a new government in britain, it's who signed the deal. their view is that the prime minister was cynical, he wanted to deal, wanted brexit done and knew that these problems are there and he just put his head in the sand. the alternative was a no deal leaving without a deal.

that was the impossible choice that this kind of remainder eu alliance presented him with. so he took what he did regard as an unsatisfactory deal, hoping that it could be renegotiated afterwards with them and that may yet come to pass. teresa may had another proposal. there was another option but the people are saying we cannot sign an agreement if somebody says actually, in a few years we don't agree with us. who knows maybe it will be third time lucky. let's talk about covid. it's back with a vengeance in north korea. absolutely. this is only one of two countries in the world that has no - vaccination program. it's also the first country— in the world that closed its borders completely when china first - announced that it had had eight announced that it had had a mysterious flu virus - spreading across the country. so it went through this course . were trying to shut down almost all trade, shut its borders and then it relaxed. -

and a few weeks ago it had what is now thought to be. a super spreader event, - military parade, many people were not wearing masks. now we are seeing more - than 2 million cases of fever. what is heartbreaking - is that we really don't know how many of those cases are covid, how many are measles or typhoid, which is a massive - problem north korea right now because they're simply not - that many tests. why did kim decide - to announce after many theoretical outbreaks, and outbreaks of covid in the past? all of which were denied. why now, why is he . announcing this now? very publicly going on television attending emergency— meetings every day. it's really felt that this - is going to be a massive crisis. this is a country where around 40% of the population - is already malnourished. we knew that the koreans were reusing syringes. - apparently becoming rusty, they were used so often. i so think about covid ripping -

through that kind of population, it really is quite scary. they've had offers from china and south korea for help and they are saying no. what are people being advised to do? we think now they have accepted some help from china. _ we know of three flights that are going between china - and north korea just in the past couple of days, taking - medical supplies over. it's plane loads for a country of around 25 million people. | what does he do? does he allow ngos back into the country, allow. aid on massive bases, - allowed vaccines to come in? or does he allow covid to rip through the country? - think right now he's trying to take a shaky middle ground, _ is allowing china to get involved i a little bit with is a little bit l more politically palatable, - he is deflecting blame and placing a lot of on local officials and mid—level officials. | i think he is waiting and seeing and trying to prescribe - traditional medicines.

while joe biden is in the region. they say preparations j are completely ready. he'll try to deflect attention. how long he can continue on that- shaky middle ground before he really has to make a choice between opening the borders orjust_ letting covid rip through. doesn't have much time. meanwhile, what advice of people been given? they are being told... we don't know exactly what's happening in, i but we know they are being advised to gargle with salt _ water for example. or they being advised that - traditional medicines are best. frankly, that's because north korea doesn't have a lot of other- alternatives at the moment. what will happen when they decide that they really do need _ to vaccinate the country? is it too late, probably. that's really what's difficult - for kim jong—un has apparently repeatedly turned down offers -

from the who, the kovacs programme to come in because they wanted to dictate exactly where - the vaccines went for that - and the north koreansjust really didn't want that much intervention inside their own country. - they really shut their borders. it seems probably relaxed too much. there was a big debate in the start of the pandemic about which forms of government will work best. some say maybe authoritarian regimes will do a betterjob simply because they have control. actually as china has proved, it ain't necessarily so. no, authoritarianism gets wrapped up but it doesn't necessarily work. it is extraordinary, that resurgence in china. also with the authoritarian regimes you have a lack of information. you don't actually know it's happening in these places and that is part of this problem, when you're not getting the full facts it's very hard to gauge what's actually happening, how best to help people.

it is extraordinary how accountable governments were able to bring in very successful vaccination programmes like this country. that was quite startling. it means that the democratic societies on the whole seem to produce well behaved people, people who have social responsibilities and behaviours as they should in those circumstances. i suppose interesting as well as the french presidential result. a lot of people thought emmanuel macron would suffer for covid vaccination say no, he can't go into a theatre without this, it didn't appear to be the case that people punish them. i think maybe that choices were not good. macron or a fascist? also timing. he was quite lucky, by the time the election happened we had macron the statesman with a war in ukraine. even though people were critical

of dialogue with putin it seemed to play well in his own country. the news agenda had moved on and that point and it benefited him. other elections happening this weekend, apparently half of the votes already been cast because voting is compulsory in australia and a lot of people vote for the apparently they'll been allowed to vote by telephone if they have covid which is a new innovation. three years ago it was a tight race and everybody thought labour party going to depose the national coalition was because it is miracle election. is he hoping for another miracle? i think he is hopingl for another miracle. the polsters were wrong before, i it's unclear, we are really not sure what can happen now. i think what's fascinating - is the debate in this election. you would think that it i might have turned more towards climate change than it has. given everything that's happened.

some polls show that this - is the number one issue for voters that they really care . about climate change. but both of the major- leading parties don't seem to want to discuss it in any great... - or they haven't come up with that huge... i presumably they got punished on those policies example the mining states in australia. perhaps. what's really interesting - is the emergence of the so—called teal independence. around 20 women who are running i as independents who are fiscally. conservative but really are running on very strong climate _ change agendas. they have a huge amount of grassroots support, . a huge amount of financial backing. it will really be interesting to see if they want to turn the tide - in australian politics. the other issue is the geopolitical aspect of what's happening. scott morrison of these issues particular of china. i think is getting a lot of criticism and his

foreign minister as well for taking their eye off the ball when it comes to solomon islands. obviously china, there's now a pact between the solomon islands, they snuck in. even at the same time did this last autumn which really annoy europe. really annoyed france. that was great. really annoyed france but it was uk, us and australia and yet in their own backyard they took their eye off the ball. i think there are questions now about leadership they are in terms of the big geopolitical issues at a time where it's a very important issue for australia. it's really been interesting i to watch the chinese debate, watching the australian election. iwe've heard signals this week that| china has been saying this might be a time for us to turn the chapter. after the election and yeah, we're open to starting to... | i wonder if this has something to do |with the fact that china and austria |

are such key trading partners. the chinese economy- is really hurting right now. are they really starting to think... presume all those covid lockdowns, people can complain about supplies from china not getting through, at home it must�*ve been really painful. a new economics figures this week really showed retail sales, - experts way down to is really- a shocking time for chinese economy. exports way down to is really- a shocking time for chinese economy. the chinese social relations as well it's a communist state, they positively encourage the growth of a very wealthy bourgeoisie, what can happen if they are economy tanks? just on the question of a possible reset with australia. some criticism, i'm surprised on the political right but perhaps more broadly on people worry about china about the approach of jacinda that she's been a bit too reluctant to criticise china a bit

too cosy with beijing. presumably beijing would quite like a relationship like that with an incoming government in australian labour but presumably for a sales, it's a bit more complicated. but presumably it's a bit more complicated. i should think so. yes. australia is in this pivotal position geographically, they can pivot to east as an about california. they are basically british in their mentality and they are very strongly democratic. how can they possibly come to terms with the close relationship with a state as a totalitarian country? it could be done but it would be very uncomfortable politically and culturally. i think that's one of the big themes of the last decade, change towards china. as you say, in australia, look at america, before the ukraine war the absolute foreign priority was china. he continued that after donald trump and said we need to get tough

on china in terms of trade. europe as well, it was a bit too close to beijing, certainly washington... divisions but people are beginning to question that they put economic growth or possibilities a concern about human rights abuses, etc. there has been a global western shift towards china and it's gone from being an economic place of opportunity to a threat geopolitically in terms of human rights. i think it's interesting _ when we think about china and yes, i think australia has been- criticised with the people i speak it do with just going too far. they unilaterally came out and said we need an inquiry into how- covid really came about. quite a confrontational approach | with that when you contrast that with singapore's relationship with china, evenjapan's - relationship with china is a little bit more nuanced and how- they deliver their messages. i think now that we are in - a position where a lot of countries are looking to china to think

they have a pivotal role - to play with china and how russia deals with ukraine. j a lot of countries are thinking actually, maybe we do need i to improve our relationship i with china in order to use that leverage with russia... and climate change. the idea that you need to work, i hearjohn kerry saying this, we need to work with china it is a global issue. that's one of the issues l you hear again and again. there are good relationships- between americans and chinese scientists , when it - comes to climate change, that usually the only issue that's pointed out - as being the thing that the two countries can agree on. some cause for optimism. thank you all very much. will be back next weekend with more dateline. bye— bye.

hello. rather mixed fare being served up by our weather for this weekend. to the north and west of the uk there will be more cloud around with outbreaks of rain at times. the further south and east you are, the greater your chances of staying dry and seeing some sunshine and that is because of the proximity to this area of high pressure across the continent. and the low pressure towards the north—west will feed in the thickening cloud and the rain through the afternoon for western scotland. sometimes across northern ireland, a few showers drifting east into scotland. the odd one i think for northern england and wales as well. southern counties of england and east anglia probably with the clearest skies will get the highest temperatures, up into the low 20s.

through the evening and overnight, more persistent rain pushes into western scotland and by the end of the night extending up towards the northern isles. we will see some showery outbreaks heading into the east as well, perhaps some drizzly rain for northern ireland and northern england as well. a mild night, temperatures widely in double figures. and then for sunday daytime, this area of low pressure getting closer to the north of the uk. this high retreating further towards the continent but still having an influence on the far south—east of the uk. east anglia and southern counties of england are looking at a dry day on sunday with some decent spells of sunshine and some warmth. elsewhere, more cloud around and still some rain, particularly targeting western scotland. temperatures widely across the northern half of uk, in the mid—teens, for east anglia and the south—east, 21, 22 or maybe even 23. for the south—east of england however, monday could bring the prospect of some heavy, even thundery showers

as a low pressure gets close by from the continent. and for the north, we've got a weather front ready to drift south across the uk. so one way or another it looks like rain for the majority of the uk at some stage on monday. likely to be in showery outbreaks. there will be some brighter and sunnier intervals in between times but temperatures edging down somewhat, just 17 in the south—east. we never quite recover those highs of the weekend as we go into the early days of the week ahead. high teens at best, and our weather picture stays pretty unsettled.

this is bbc news. these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world: finland says russia has cut off supplies of natural gas — days after finland announced it was applying to join nato. meanwhile in ukraine, russia intensifies its attacks in the donbas region as its forces capture more territory in the south and east. opposition parties demand an explaination from the prime minister after he met with the senior civil servant, sue gray, ahead of the publication of her report into lockdown parties at downing street. joe biden is attending a dinner with south korea's president in seoul. he's there to discuss security and north korea's nuclear programme. as monkeypox spreads worldwide, uk doctors say it could have a "massive impact" on access to sexual health services.