welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm arunoday mukharji. the headlines: fierce fighting in the battle for severodonetsk, as ukraine's grip on the strategic eastern city seems to weaken. we have a special report. this is a deliberate tactic — bomb, shell, burn and leave nothing but scorched earth. the uk government publishes plans to override part of the brexit agreement involving trade rules for northern ireland and insists it's not breaking international law. donald trump's former attorney general testifies that his boss became detached from reality as he made false claims of voter fraud.

scientists plan to sequence the genomes of all forms of life in britain, which could transform our understanding of the natural world. and a buzz lightyear annimated film featuring a same—sex kiss and a buzz lightyear animated film featuring a same—sex kiss is banned in m middle eastern and asian countries. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. welcome to the programme. russian forces are tightening their grip on the region of the donbas. president zelensky has called again for western allies to provide advanced missile defence systems for the ukrainian army — to stop the steady russian advance. the russians now control almost

all of the strategic city of severodonetsk. the final bridge to the city has been destroyed, trapping ukrainian troops and thousands of civilians. the russians are also bombarding the neighbouring city of lysychansk, where civilians are still trying to flee. our international correspondent orla guerin sent this report from the donbas. radio bleeps max speed. we're told to drive at maximum speed on the exposed road to lysychansk. a dark horizon greets us. munitions explode residents praying for salvation, as russia lays waste. man whistles and shouts ukrainian troops call for help... ..to take away one more victim of russian shelling. nearby, the rush to evacuate civilians...

..who have to duck for cover. a panicked departure in an armoured truck. people are taking this chance to get out while they can, but they know this could be a one—wayjourney. if the russians take this territory, and they're getting closer all the time, these people may never be able to come back to their city and their homes. "the situation is critical," a rescue worker says. "can't you hear the shelling?" so, another city empties out here in eastern ukraine. a few more wait anxiously fortheirturn, hoping to outrun moving frontlines. volodymyr is among them. he's sick and headed to hospital. he tells me that life

here was calm until the war broke everything apart. and it has left its terrible mark. this was the palace of culture. now standing as a grim testament to moscow's superior firepower. ukraine's president says lysychansk is already dead... ..along with neighbouring severodonetsk. ghost cities now. well, this is an example of the kind of devastation that russia has brought. it's notjust destroying apartment buildings and flats and homes, it's destroying history and the fabric of cities. and this is a deliberate tactic — bomb, shell, burn and leave nothing but scorched earth.

munitions explode those who remain make brief escapes from their basements to cook outdoors. the city has no power or running water. butjelena still clings to her home, despite the growing threat. do you think the russians will take the city soon? it seems like they're getting close. "i don't know," she says. "we're hoping it'll be ok." but the city is running out of time. this is now an artillery war. ukraine doesn't have enough big guns or ammunition. at the 11th hour, another plea for help. my message, and the message of the ukrainian people,

i think we need victory, we need peace, and we cannot get peace and victory without help from our partners, because without equipment for our artillery, i think we cannot get a victory in this terrible war. as we spoke, the war came closer. missile whizzes munitions explode that was a russian shell whistling over our heads. just a short distance away, neighbouring severodonetsk is burning and may soon fall. machine gun fires inside the city, the last pockets of resistance. guns fire ukrainian troops fight building to building and street to street. but all bridges to the city have now been destroyed.

ukraine is facing an enemy that has learned lessons and is imposing crushing losses in battle. troops fight on, but the handful of advanced weapons systems promised by britain and the us may be too little, too late. here in the donbas region right now... missile whizzes and explodes ..it looks like a losing battle. orla guerin, bbc news, eastern ukraine. the situation is fast developing in the donbas and we'll get you more updates as the goes on. —— as the story goes on. britain's government has

published controversial plans to cancel parts of the brexit deal it had agreed to with the eu. borisjohnson wants to change what's called the northern ireland protocol — to make it easierfor some goods to move between mainland britain and northern ireland. the european union says the plan is unacceptable, as it breaks international law. meanwhile, the white house calls on the uk and the eu to get back to the negotiating table. our political editor chris mason reports. brexit is about borders, about different rules either side of them, but borders usually separate one country from another. and yet here in belfast, there is a border, checks, when goods arrive here from the rest of the uk. those checks happen because of a deal the government signed up to. but now it doesn't like what this means for northern ireland. people can't access the goods they need to access, we're not able to implement the same tax benefits in northern ireland as we are for the people of great britain, so this is a very serious issue that we need to fix. we have sought a negotiated settlement for the last 18 months, but as yet, the eu have been unwilling to change the terms

of the protocol. and they've not changed their mind today, either. no workable alternative solution has been found to this delicate, long—negotiated balance. any renegotiations would simply bring further legal uncertainty for the people and businesses in northern ireland. for these reasons, the european union will not renegotiate the protocol. so, what impact does the protocol have on people in northern ireland? beth runs a garden centre in ballynahinch in county down. a lot of the growers don't want to get involved with the paperwork. i think it's made things harder. you're trying to get stock from different sources. but others, like the meat and dairy industries, who sell goods to the eu, say it's made trading easier. we would see the protocol as something to build on. we would be concerned about anything that damages trade, particularly into... obviously, the risk here

is trade into europe. it's worth remembering how we got here. the prime minister was on a farm in hayle in cornwall this morning and was asked... have you driven i any other tractors? i've driven a lot of tractors in my... yeah, i have. indeed, he has — this an election stunt not burdened with subtlety back in 2019. he won the election and did deliver brexit, but with the protocol attached, it's had profound political consequences in northern ireland. sinn fein regard overriding elements of it irresponsible. the democratic unionists won't go back into devolved government unless it changes. i believe that finally we are now seeing the kind of action that is required to begin the process of removing the barriers to trade within the united kingdom. it does nothing to serve the interests of the people here. it flies in the face of an international agreement which he himself negotiated.

it is in clear breach of international law. and, you know, the reality is here that the protocol is working. to be prime minister is to be a diplomat. are you breaking international law, prime minister? - borisjohnson met his portuguese counterpart this afternoon. shaking hands on a solution to his northern ireland brexit conundrum won't happen so easily. to our other developing story. the us congressional committee investigating the attack last year on the capitol has been told that donald trump repeatedly ignored pleas from his own team to stop making unfounded claims of voter fraud. mr trump's former campaign manager was meant to be the key witness on the second day of public hearing, but he wasn't able to attend because his wife went into labour. in a pre—recorded interview, bill stepien said he tried to convince mr trump not to declare victory prematurely. my belief, my recommendation

was to say that votes were still being counted, it's too early to tell, too early to call the race, but, you know, we're proud of the race we ran and we, you know, think we're in a good position and we will have more to say about this, you know, the next day or the next day, whenever we had something to say. and did anybody who was a part of that conversation disagree with your message? yes. who was that? the president disagreed with that. i don't recall the particular words. he thought i was wrong. he told me so, and, you know, that they were going to, you know... he was going to go in a different direction.

and more testimony is coming in. the former attorney general bill barr told the committee that president trump was "detached from reality" when it came to his baseless claims of election fraud. i did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff which i told the president was bleep. and, you know, i didn't want to be a part of it. our north america correspondent david willis says the hearing has presented more evidence of donald trump's efforts to remain in power. the committee's goal with this hearing, i think, was to persuade those watching that donald trump knew that he had failed to achieve victory in the 2020 presidential election but continued nonetheless to try to subvert democracy and remain in power. and the committee heard today from a variety of former aides, including campaign managers, members of the usjustice department, family members and, as you just heard there, from the former attorney general bill barr, all

of whom at one point or another tried to persuade donald trump into believing that he had actually lost the election, but he continued to persist with stories to the contrary nonetheless. we heard a little from bill barr, and in that taped testimony, he talked about having to fend off all sorts of different increasingly wild conspiracy theories. and he said that donald trump, at one stage, was detached from reality, as mr barr put it, and he was pursuing what bill barr called nonsense and crazy stuff rather than reality. and bill barr also said there was zero basis in fact for mr trump's contention at the time that certain voting machines were rigged against him and were rigged in order to give more votes to his rival, joe biden. the hearing was also told that

on election night in 2020, donald trump ignored the advice of members of his inner circle not to go out and declare victory. he instead decided to do so on the advice of his inebriated personal attorney rudy giuliani, the former mayor of new york. the vice chair of the committee, liz cheney, said today that donald trump falsely told the american people that the election was not legitimate and millions of americans believed him. david willis, and along with our other team of reporters, will be tracking the hearings very closely here on the bbc. you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme: why a buzz lightyear animated origin film has been banned in 14 middle eastern and asian countries. there was a bomb in the city centre. a code word known to be one

used by the ira was given. army bomb experts were examining a suspect van when there was a huge explosion. the south african parliament has destroyed the foundation of apartheid by abolishing the population registration act, which, for 40 years, forcibly classified each citizen according to race. just a day old, and the royal baby is tonight sleeping - in his cot at home. early this evening, - the new prince was taken by his mother and father to theirapartment- in kensington palace. germany's parliament, the bundestag, has voted by a narrow majority to move the seat of government from bonn to berlin. berliners celebrated into the night, but the decision was greeted with shock in bonn. the real focus of attention today was valentina tereshkova, the world's first woman cosmonaut. what do you think of - the russian woman in space? oh, i think it's a wonderful achievement. and i think we might be able to persuade the wife it's a good idea, if i could, to get her to go up

there for a little while! this is newsday on the bbc. i'm arunoday mukharji in singapore. our top stories: there's fierce fighting in the battle for severodonetsk, as ukraine's grip on the strategic eastern city seems to weaken. the uk government publishes plans to override part of the brexit agreement involving trade rules for northern ireland and insists it's not breaking international law. 0k, ok, let's get you some news developing out of singapore. it's battling a worsening outbreak of dengue fever and the authorities are warning that immediate action is needed. over 12,000 cases have already been reported this year, compared to just over 5,000 in the whole of 2021. dengue is spread by mosquitoes and is endemic in over 100 countries worldwide. severe cases can lead to hospitalisation and even death.

the asia dengue summit is under way here in singapore. we can talk now to one of the speakers, professor duane gubler, who's emeritus professor of infectious diseases at the duke—nus medical school. thank you very much, professor gubler, for your time here on newsday. what is causing this spike in the cases in singapore and how worrying is it? we really don't _ and how worrying is it? - really don't know what's causing the spike. it's a sequence of very complicated events, and the singapore government, for the better part of a0 years, has had a very good mosquito control programme, so the mosquito population is very low. but that hasn't has been the effective control of dengue over the years and that allowed the population of singapore to become more susceptible to infection with these viruses, so that has contributed. the

other can shifting factor that we don't fully understand is that singapore is an economic, shipping hub of south east asia —— contribute in factor. and they have millions of visitors that come in here, mostly from other asian countries, and those people, many of them are carrying the viruses, so we have a constant introduction of new viruses into singapore. that clearly has contributed as well. and with the dramatic economic development and building activity in singapore, there are a lot of construction sites that are very difficult to control the mosquitoes, and so all of these factors have contributed. my guess is that it mainly is due to a new strain of virus that has greater epidemic potential than the previous strains that were here. ., , ,.,

the previous strains that were here. ., , , here. professor gubler, ifi couldjust _ here. professor gubler, ifi could just come _ here. professor gubler, ifi could just come out - here. professor gubler, ifi could just come out of - could just come out of singapore and get a macro perspective the about other countries having similar outbreaks? what would your advice be to them?— advice be to them? develop better more _ advice be to them? develop better more effective - better more effective prevention control programmes. most of the countries surrounding singapore not have effective control programmes compared to singapore, and they have not thousands of cases like singapore, they have hundreds of thousands of cases. indonesia, for example, the philippines, thailand, all have 100,000 or more cases a year, so... and they do not have effective prevention and control programmes, so my advice to them is, emulate what singapore has done. it's taken singapore has done. it's taken singapore a0 years to build a city that is inhospitable, if you will, to these mosquitoes,

so that's what we are going to have to do if we have sustainable, long—term control. 0k, we will leave it there, professor duane gubler. thank you very much for your inputs on that developing story out of singapore. in what is probably the most ambitious project ever undertaken in the field of biology, a team of scientists is planning to sequence the genomes of all forms of life in the british isles, estimated to be 70,000 species. the project could transform how we understand the natural world, and there may be benefits for humans in search of medicines and materials inspired by nature. 0ur science editor rebecca morelle has more. a close—up look at our weird and wonderful natural world. from a delicate sea creature called a brittle star, to a hermit crab carrying a sea anemone on its back, and these bizarre animals known as mud owls.

all of these creatures were scooped up just off the coast of plymouth. so, you've got two worms here. this one, it's almost made these overlapping scales of sandy shell. they're being collected for an ambitious new project, to sequence the genomes of all life in the british isles. today, scientists are focusing on marine worms, known as polychaetes. it's a big task, with hundreds and hundreds of species. and we've got over 100 now, i think 120 odd species of polycha etes collected. it seems like a lot, but, really, it'sjust the beginning. the plan is to sequence the dna of every plant, animal and fungi in britain and ireland. that's about 70,000 species. and some are surprising. there is a type of microalgae has 200 billion letters of dna. that's more than 60 times bigger than the human genome. and the scientists plan to do this all by 2030. the dna extraction is being carried out at the wellcome sanger institute. the human genome was sequenced here two decades ago.

that took years. but now a species can be completed in a few days. when the human genome was sequenced, it changed the way we do human biology forever. it really transformed how we see ourselves, and how we work with our health and illness. and we want to make that possible for all of biology. so we want everybody working on any species, or any group of species, anywhere in the world, able to have this ultimate foundation. 0ne genome that is now complete belongs to the badger. in 0xfordshire, as dusk falls, a family emerges from their sett. scientists say having their detailed genetic information is vital. getting the badger genome sequence is really important, because we can see how badgers adapt to diseases, how they adapt to their environment, and how they interact with other species in their ecosystem.

back onshore in plymouth, the rock pools are full of surprises. but their genetic code could also help us to find nature inspired medicines or materials. this immense endeavour could change our understanding of the diversity of life. rebecca morelle, bbc news, plymouth. a quick look at more stories before we go. temperatures in some areas of spain could reach up to a3 degrees celsius this week, as a heatwave which has been sweeping the country continues. the kind of heat much of spain is experiencing might be normalfor mid—summer, but it is extremely unusual for mid—june. the soaring temperatures have caused the authorities to put many areas of the country on alert due to the risk of wildfires. temperatures are expected to remain abnormally high until the end of the week. disney and pixar�*s latest animated movie, lightyear, has been banned from cinemas in the united arab emirates. the film contains a same—sex kiss, but the uae�*s

media regulators did not give a specific reason for its decision. the scene had been cut from the us version but was reinstated after complaints by pixar employees. lightyear�*s problems in the middle east are the latest in a string of difficulties faced by films containing lgbtq+ content in the region. we're hoping for a time when we don't even have to have this conversation, we can watch a movie and we don't even have to bat an eyelid. we don't even have to think, "oh, wow, weird!" you know? it's not weird, it's normal, and it should be normalised, and so whenever these small steps that studios are making... sometimes it may feel small, but also they are steps. and it's steps towards normalising humanity and love, and i really feel sorry for countries who don't want this film. because of a tiny, weird little thing like that? for more reactions on that story and other stories, you can always log onto our

website. that's all for now. do stay on with bbc world news. hello there. we're expecting a short spell of rather hot weather across much of the uk, but not all of it over the next few days or so — the heat and the humidity will be gradually building northwards. and that's because there's a heat wave across the iberian peninsula at the moment — temperatures in parts of spain have surpassed a0 celsius. that heat will be pushing northwards into france, and eventually into southern areas of the uk, so england and wales, by the time we get to friday when that heat is likely to peak. and that means that temperatures in london and in birmingham could get over 30 celsius on friday. but further north and west across much of northern ireland and scotland, they'll stick in the low 20s in celsius. at the moment, we do still have this area of low pressure giving us swathes of cloud, some outbreaks of rain — most of it quite light and patchy — across much of western scotland,

northern ireland. this will help to keep the temperatures mild here overnight tonight, but underneath the clear skies, temperatures will drop back into single figures, mid—single figures locally, perhaps, across england and wales. so a locally chilly start to the day here. but here, of course, we'll see lots of sunshine throughout the day on tuesday, some fair weather cloud building through the afternoon. further north and west with still all of this cloud around, some outbreaks of rain for western areas of scotland. eastern areas of scotland, though, should see some sunny spells emerge at times. temperatures peaking in the southeast of england at around 25 celsius. the pollen levels, of course, in all of that sunshine will be very high — a lot lower underneath the cloud and the rain towards the northwest. and that's where the cloud and the outbreaks of rain will tend to stay as we head through tuesday night. we'll start to see some warmer nights as we head through the rest of the week. temperatures across the board into wednesday morning should stay in double figures for the most part. still got some outbreaks of rain up towards the

northern isles as we head through the day on wednesday, lots of cloud here. again, cloudier towards the northwest. across england and wales, temperatures will start to rise into the high 20s in celsius — so 26—27 celsius for much of london. cooler the further north you go. and let's take a look at what happens for the rest of the week — so our high pressurejust gradually moves eastwards and the cold front will sink southwards, introducing that cooler—feeling air. but if we take a look at the temperatures, you can see that across northern ireland, 19—20 celsius, whereas across cambridge, 31 celsius by friday.

this is bbc news. we'll have all the main headlines as newsday continues at the top of the hour — straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. the rupture in relations between most of europe and russia since vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine has left european governments scrambling to end their dependence on moscow's oil and gas. it turns out there was another arena in which europe had become dangerously dependent on russia — space. without russian rockets

and other space know—how, europe's short—term space plans are now in disarray.