live from washington, this is bbc news. ukraine's president rejects russia's claim it controls the embattled city of bakhmut. translation: bakhmut | is not occupied by russian federation as of today. there are no two or three interpretations of those words. with the clock ticking to avoid default, president biden and house speaker mccarthy say they'll resume debt negotiations tomorrow. and learning lessons from covid — at its annual meeting, the world health organization looks for ways to better prepare for future pandemics. hello, i'm carl nasman,

thanks forjoining us. it's been an eventful weekend at the g7 summit injapan. ukraine's president volodymyr zelensky returns home after securing a pledge of "unwavering support" — as well as more military equipment — from his allies. at the summit, dominated by talks of russia's invasion, us presidentjoe biden confirmed that the us and its allies will help train ukrainian pilots to fly western fighterjets, like the f—16, which zelensky had long asked for. biden also promised to support ukraine with more ammunition and armoured vehicles, partly as a demonstration of western resolve. we will not waver. putin will not break our resolve as he thought he could two years ago, almost three years ago. we're going to continue to provide economic, humanitarian and security assistance to ukraine so it can stand strong as long as it needs it. meanwhile, president zelensky thanked world leaders for their enduring support

at the end of the summit and said russia's defeat would result in lasting world peace. he also insisted that russia does not occupy the embattled city of bakhmut, after conflicting claims over who is now in control. yesterday, russian president vladimir putin congratulated the wagner mercenary group for capturing the eastern city — something ukraine swiftly rejected. our diplomatic correspondent james landale has more. for more than eight months in what is now the longest battle of this war, ukrainian forces have defended bakhmut. the density is now largely in ruins and largely in russian hands. in particular, in the hands of fighters like these in the wagner mercenary group, whose leader, yevgeny prigozhin, claimed to have full control here. translation:

claimed to have full control here. tuna/mom- claimed to have full control here. translation: from house to house, we took the whole city. something that leaders denied. translation:— translation: bakhmut is not occu - ied translation: bakhmut is not occur>ied by — translation: bakhmut is not occupied by the _ translation: bakhmut is not occupied by the russian - occupied by the russian federation as of today. there are not too are three ways of interpreting those words. what is clear is that tens of thousands of russians have died here. a , ., thousands of russians have died here. , ., ., , here. many more have been diverted from _ here. many more have been diverted from other- here. many more have been diverted from other areas i here. many more have been i diverted from other areas and ultimately, that may be more important than who holds at the ruins. for more, i spoke to michael bociurkiw, a nonresident seniorfellow at the atlantic council's eurasia center. well, we're hearing this conflicting news, conflicting reports coming out of the city of bakhmut regarding which side controls that city. what's your sense? do we know who actually controls it? it's difficult to tell. it's almost like a pr war as well on who controls it. but you know what,

at the end of the day this is a city completely destroyed by the russians. many are making the comparison of bakhmut to aleppo. scorched earth russian tactics have levelled what used to be arguably one of the most beautiful cities in that part of ukraine. so it's like in the past more than a year, the russians have been bombing museums, libraries, churches. they've now bombed the heck out of bakhmut. does that represent a battlefield victory, all of that? i don't think so. why was russia willing to lose so much in terms of supplies in terms of human lives in this battle? is it that strategic or is this about messaging? well, there are a couple of reasons there. one is russia from the start has been deploying basically a meat grinder approach to this war, sending wave upon wave of human beings to fight, many of them unprepared, many of them unequipped. and then secondly, mr putin and his circle of elites needed some kind of win to show to the russian public.

they've been, in the past weeks, harshly criticised by military bloggers, so they really needed something to show. on the other hand, the ukrainians, when they see things are not going their way, they do have compassion. they pull their forces away, unlike the russian meat grinder approach to fighting. is there a strategic value still to this city? i mean, they've been fighting for so long, but we're also anticipating that ukraine might launch a counteroffensive and that may be nowhere near bakhmut. yeah, i don't think it's that important. i mean, it isn't, for example, a port city, where the russians could leave the city as it is and perhaps use the port and do things like illegally ship out grain. but i think the ukrainians are getting ready for a counter—offensive. it could actually be into summer, and i think it isn't something that's going to be shocking awe. you know, listening to the defence minister speak, i think it's going to be in bits and pieces.

but having said all that, there is some sort of political pressure on the zelensky administration to prove that all of this expensive military kit, this billions of dollars in aid is going to good use. i have no doubt whatsoever in terms of the resolve of the ukrainian government to finish this off, to push the russians back to pre—crimea, pre—2014 donetsk lines. speaking of those new weapons commitments, we heard yet more commitments coming out of the g7 summit this weekend. does ukraine now have what it needs to begin this counteroffensive? it has the promises, the pledges, but it doesn't have all of the equipment it needs. there are two critical things there. one is a more robust air defence system. just in the past hours, missiles and drones have been targeting odessa, kharkiv and kherson, so the ukrainians have been spending a lot of weaponry to shoot those things down and there's a limit

to how much can go in the air on that effort. and then the other thing here is that with the f—i6s, of course, ukraine will have a more robust capability to shoot down russian aircraft, perhaps even to strike legitimate military targets within russia, although that's something that causes a bit of nervousness in washington. but it's basically those two things. but again, i have to really point out that it will take time for these f—i6s to be delivered. we don't even know which countries are going to give them. and then the training. different countries have different platforms on the f—i6s, different software, so the best scenario would be if, for example, the netherlands delivered 12 on one batch and then it would only require one set of training. president zelensky was there at the g7. he was meeting with g7 leaders. he also met with the leaders of countries like india and brazil that have remained more neutral. if this conflict drags on, will those countries eventually have to pick a side? well, i think they should have

picked the right side by now and dropped their neutrality. it was an interesting guest list at the g7 — india, vietnam, indonesia. also, we would have expected south africa there. these are countries that have been sitting on the fence. but i think it's very, very important that they make the right choice. look, at the end of the day, what russia is also doing is weaponising food in this war. none of these countries are immune from that. in fact, when ijust left odesa the other day, i saw no ships whatsoever in the port, none on the horizon. russia is restricting the flow of ukrainian grain and that's going to reverberate across the world, including in these countries that are sitting on the fence. so they should drop their neutrality, go help ukraine to win this war, and then there won't be this food crisis that was being manufactured by russia. i want to ask you, because you mentioned you've been back and forth to odesa and this beefed up air

defence system that's in place not only there, but in kyiv. how much of a game changer has that been for daily life in cities across ukraine? well, it's been huge. you know, a few days ago, i was there in the middle of the night in odesa when rockets were raining down and the air defence system were very robust and shot all of the missiles down. but i think what is happening to from the russian side is they're playing psychological warfare. these strikes typically happen in the middle of the night. people are at their most vulnerable. a lot of us are not getting proper sleep, especially those who are in kyiv. the anxiety is very high. it boggles the mind the capability of russia to still have that many missiles, that many drones. and one other thing, if i may, on that point, i just spoke to ukraine's ambassador to the un and asked him about israel, for example, playing a more robust role targeting targets in iran where these drones are being manufactured. i think israel can do more, should do more in that regard. interesting.

michael bociurkiw, a nonresident seniorfellow at the atlantic council's eurasia centre, thank you so much for your insights. my pleasure. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. on her own, she isn't much of a problem, but this prussian carp is part of a much larger issue hiding beneath the surface. they're non—native species, and these hardy fish are a real threat to our own carp. scientists in this lab are trying to work out how the fish got here. what they do know is that the female's eggs can be fertilised by other species, meaning they spread rapidly. what that effectively produces is clones of the female. so exact clones of that fish? indeed, yes. according to the research carried out by the fisheries laboratory, the prussian carp arrived here in england at some point in the last ten years. now, since 2020, they've been found in seven different

locations in england. we're still learning about the impact they're having on fisheries in the uk and that is why the work being done at the lab here is so important. you're live with bbc news. a stark warning has been issued by the head of the world health organization. dr tedros opened the world health assembly saying, "we cannot simply carry on as we did before". global health leaders are gathering in switzerland for the annual meeting. it comes just weeks after the who declared that covid is no longer a global health emergency. the un's health agency has launched a new worldwide network aimed at quickly detecting the spread of infectious diseases in an effort to be better prepared for future pandemics. for more on how that network might work and other global health challenges, i spoke to dr tom frieden, the former head

of the us public health authority, the cdc. dr frieden, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. i want to start off by asking you about this announcement from the world health organization that it will be launching an international pathogen surveillance network. can you just begin by helping us understand exactly what that is and how that might help us prepare for a potential pandemic in the future? carl, we're seeing some encouraging developments, really a commitment to collaborate globally, to share information, to share resources, and even more importantly, to build capacity in countries around the world, because even the strongest network in the world will only be as strong as its weakest link. that's why it's so crucial that we build capacity in country. this particular network is looking at things such as genomic surveillance, tracking the genomes of different microbes, seeing, as we've all learned,

the different variants of covid, looking at waste water surveillance, looking at surveillance for pathogens that could cause death and devastation and that can be prevented if we find them earlier and act earlier. in terms of working together in this kind of global cooperation, china was criticised by many for perceived delay in warning the world about covid—i9 when it was first detected. how concerned are you that this new surveillance network could face similar challenges? there are certainly some complex issues, including the sharing of genomic information of different microbes and who benefits from any discoveries that are made in vaccines or medicines that are used. but timeliness is absolutely the single most important thing that we need to focus on. and that's why there is a suggested target called 7—1—7. every single outbreak would be identified within seven days of emergence, reported to public health

authorities within one day, and all essential control measures in place within seven days. now i know that the who is also working towards a new pandemic accord. i want to read you something that the head of the who, dr tedros, said today. he said, "we cannot simply carry on as we did before". what more do we need to be doing to better prepare for a potential pandemic in the future? there are lots of things that the world needs to do better. the fact is that there were successes in covid. we prevented millions of deaths around the world, but millions of people died who didn't have to die — if the public health response had been better, if timeliness of finding outbreaks had been faster, if vaccine equity had been better. so there's a whole range of things from finding outbreaks faster to having the ability to respond more effectively and more quickly to preventing them wherever possible, including through the use of vaccination. the covid vaccines have been remarkably effective and have

saved literally millions of lives around the world. but we may not be so lucky next time. and this time we didn't do well with fairness. we allocated vaccine based on who could pay for them rather than whose lives were most at risk. now, the who just recently declared an end to the covid—i9 global health emergency. was that the right move, in your opinion? the fact is that covid is here to stay for the foreseeable future. it's a new health threat in the horizon and part of our landscape. it's a new thing that we're going to have to deal with. we have to hone our vaccines, we have to hone our way of dealing with it. we've got influenza, we've got antimicrobial resistance, and all around the world we have outbreaks of cholera, measles and other diseases that can and should be controlled if we work better. it's not as if we should sit around hoping the next pandemic doesn't come. we know it will come. what we can do is use the outbreaks the world is facing today to become better prepared today

for tomorrow's threat. now, i have to ask you, because you were the director of the center for disease control back in 2016. at the time, you took action against an epidemic of prescription opioids. how would you compare that epidemic to what we are seeing now with fentanyl in the united states? we're seeing a huge problem with fentanyl and synthetic opiates more generally. and this is one reason we need to do better caring for people with pain so we can avoid use of opiates, which for chronic pain have very little role, and even for acute pain have limited role except for severe acute pain. and we have to do much better dealing with addiction. we have many people who are addicted to opiates and other substances and they need support — it's a medical disease — they need support so that they can be in recovery and have the maximum possibility of surviving.

threats like fentanyl, opiates, emerging infections, antimicrobial resistance — they remind us that public health can save lives and can save money. but governments need to invest and public health needs a renaissance, relying on more and stronger primary health care systems and more resilient populations more able to deal with the next health threat that comes. do you think the biden administration is giving the correct amount of attention to what's going on right now with the fenta nyl crisis? i think the challenge with fentanyl is a challenge of supply of very low—cost drugs in many different places, of a need to change our framework for how we deal with pain and how we deal with addiction. we've come a long way. many of the things that we were advocating for back in 2011 even are finally being enacted, such as easier access to effective treatments such as buprenorphine. but clearly, 100,000 americans dying from overdose

is a terrible tragedy and we need to do much better than we're doing. now, i know you're gathering there, you're in geneva, there are health leaders from all over the world gathered there for this assembly. what are you hearing from them? what do they say could be the next potential health threat that we are not paying enough attention to? i think the fundamental need is for us to strengthen the capacity of public health to find whatever that next threat is quickly, to communicate effectively to decision—makers and the public, to respond effectively, and then to implement control and prevention measures. and that means we need to not be ready for disease a or disease b, we need to be ready for whatever comes next. and that means strengthening our public health infrastructure, especially in countries, and also collaborating among countries and with international institutions such as the world health organization. dr tom frieden, former director of the cdc under president obama, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. thank you.

a look now at some other stories making headlines. president biden will speak with republican house speaker kevin mccarthy on monday after a phone conversation signalled progress on debt limit negotiations. mccarthy said the call has been productive but that the two sides were still apart. republicans want spending cuts to pass legislation on lifting the debt ceiling in congress. the us treasury has warned of a catastrophic default if there's no deal by the end of the month. the brazilian president, luiz inacio lula da silva, has urged the sports authorities in spain and other european countries to act decisively to prevent the spread of fascism and racism in football grounds. he was speaking after the brazil international, viniciusjunior was subjected to racist chants during real madrid's match at valencia. we turn now to our warming planet and a recent report from the world meteorological organisation showing things are likely to get even hotter.

according to its annual report released last week, global temperatures are likely to breach the key level of 1.5 degrees celsius of warming within the next five years. the report links temperature increases to recent extreme weather events — from flooding in pakistan, to heatwaves across europe and asia. nisha krishnan, the director for climate resilience, africa at the world resources institute, has been following that report closely. i think we're just getting more and more evidence to what we're already seeing in terms of impacts in terms of daily lives. i think the ipcc report earlier this year as well sort of showed that we were on not a great track, and i feel like the latest wmo report is reallyjust sending that message home to us that we do need to do a lot more to be ready for the impacts that are possibly coming our way. that same report also said that likely one of the next five years will be the hottest year on record in terms of

recent temperatures. how prepared are we, especially in the areas of the world that you study, for those kinds of temperatures? you know, ithink, unfortunately, we're probably woefully unprepared for the kind of impacts and the sort of heat we might be seeing, the type of floods we might be experiencing, in the nearfuture. i think there is a lot to be done in terms particularly in africa where i work and i mostly focus most of my time on. but i think we're seeing, for example, increasing urbanisation and communities within urban informal settlements totally unprepared for this sort of impacts in the coming years. i think we're already seeing that even in recent times, for example, in rwanda, where we've had landslides lately. but i think given that temperature is just one aspect of how we're going to feel the impacts of climate change, i think we still have quite a long way to go before we're ready for those sort of impacts. yeah, and you mentioned it — i mean, this this will mean

more extreme droughts, more extreme floods, more extreme storms hitting regions all over the world. what specifically would you like to see done to prepare countries, especially on the continent of africa, for those types of extreme weather events? in some ways, it's all hands on deck and all types of investment necessary. one is you really want countries — and they are trying to do this, national governments — trying to integrate how they might prepare for climate change into their national budgets, into their infrastructure investments. but you also want to see a fundamental shift in how we plan, how we might plan our cities, how we might even think about food production and having extra food productionjust to make sure that we're not caught out in terms of floods or droughts. i think we're looking at a need to really provide resources to communities themselves who really are on the front lines of these sort of issues. and they know what sort of adaptation investments

they'd like to make to really make their own lives better, and i think empowering them with the resources, whether that is extra technical assistance capacity or actually reallyjust money to be able to invest in their own futures, i think is one of the things that we really need to scale up in the next sort of five years. just to pick up off the back of that, according to one estimate, by the year 20110, the cost of loss and damage from extreme weatherjust in developing countries could reach $1 trillion. who should be paying that bill? you know, i think it's obviously a contentious topic right now, even within the un negotiations. i think, at the end of the day, it is a collective responsibility and i think we see that obviously there's a lot more willingness within developed countries to obviously support, to address loss and damage. but at the end of the day, it's also unfortunately falling to private citizens to bear that cost and i think the more we can do to actually adapt to those impacts in advance of losses and damages being experienced, i think the more prepared we would be and the less losses and damages we would see. having said that, i do think

there is quite a lot more room for us to think about whether there are new innovative sources of finance, whether that is how we look at fossilfuel companies, how we might look at the shipping and aviation industry. but i think, at the end of the day, it is a collective responsibility to pay for this because we've caused these losses and damages ourselves. i want to ask you, we just saw today some interesting images coming out of rome, some climate protesters dyed a famous fountain there black. and of course, this comes after we've seen protesters throwing tomato soup at famous paintings, for example. what's your opinion about these types of protests? do they do more harm than good? it definitely captures the attention of people and sort of brings it to light and to bear that there are a lot of people, including youth these days, who have a lot of anxiety associated with what's happening and what is not happening in terms of our own inaction. i think in some ways

it is productive to have some level of of sort of acting out, i guess. but on the other side, i think we really want to see is political action, right? so you have a lot of energy and anxiety that could be channeled into political activism, whether that is actually running for office and sort of changing natural laws and finances that either result in climate change or could actually help us adapt to climate change. i think there are other productive ways of showing, i think, our anxiety and making sure that we're working through these things together. but i think those images were really striking and i think it is likely going to happen more and more going forward. nisha krishnan, director for climate resilience africa at the world resources institute, thank you so much for your time. thanks so much, carl. we wa nt we want to leave you with a giant leap in space history today. these are pictures from the kennedy space center in florida where the first saudi woman has voyaged into space. rayyanah barnawi,

a breast—cancer researcher blasted off along with fellow saudi fighter pilot ali al-qarni on what's being called a private chartered flight. thank you for watching, i will leave you with those images. hello. it's been a weekend of mixed fortunes, weather—wise. where we did see the sunshine come through, it's been pleasantly warm. in fact, sunday was the warmest day of the year so far in the uk at 23.3 degrees in the sunshine at porthmadog. but under the cloud across aberdeenshire, we only got to about 12 celsius. so where you see the sunshine coming through, where you see the cloud makes all the difference really this time of year. and through the week ahead, things are looking mostly dry. yes, some warm sunshine around, but variable amounts of clouds. so where you do get the cloudier spells of weather, it won't feel particularly warm through this week, but generally dry is the theme. high pressure building from the atlantic through this week, a couple of weather fronts just moving around the top of that high pressure at times so there'll be a bit more cloud coming and going,

particularly towards the north. now through monday, most places looking dry from the word go. we've got a bit more cloud drifting across parts of eastern england, northern england, too, but a brighter day to come for scotland and for northern for scotland and for northern ireland. most of us dry, just the chance perhaps of a shower towards the pennines. top temperatures between about 16 to 22 for most of us, but a little bit colder than that across the north of scotland where we've got the breeze coming in from the west here. now, heading through monday evening, overnight into tuesday, a bit of cloud again across parts of eastern england. should be frost free as we start the day on tuesday, but could just be temperatures down to about three or four degrees where we do see some of those clearer spells. so into tuesday, a slightly cooler, fresher day, probably the coolest day of the week, in fact, because just a bit of a change in those winds, just bringing the winds in from a bit more of a northerly direction so cool across some eastern areas where you've got a bit of cloud and that breeze from the north sea. but actually most of us, again, having a dry, quiet day, generally light winds, a little bit cloudier in the far north—west. so temperatures varying between about 11 there

in lerwick to around about 19 degrees or so further south across england and wales, probably the only day that we won't reach 20 degrees this week. into wednesday, a cold front just pushing into the north so introducing some colder air again across the far north of scotland, and a bit more cloud. could be the odd light shower here. much of the uk again having a dry, fine day. there'll be fairweather cloud bubbling up and you can see that cloud generating across parts of southern and eastern england through the day. top temperatures probably up to about 20, 21 degrees for most of us. we could just squeeze 22 there for the likes of north—east england. towards the end of the week, staying dry and settled. variable amounts of sunshine. stays dry into next weekend too. bye— bye.

hello. it's good to see you again at the start of a new season of unspun world. we've been off air since december and a lot has happened since then. the ukraine war first. back in december, the optimism of the ukrainian forces