live from washington, this is bbc news. ukraine's most senior security official tells the bbc the country is ready to launch its long—expected counter—offensive against russian forces. turkey prepares to go to the polls — in one of the country's most divisive presidential elections. still no deal on the us debt talks, but reports say president biden and epublican house and republican house leader kevin mccarthy will speak by phone. hello, i'm carl nasman, thanks for being with us. we start in ukraine, and an exclusive report. the country's most senior

security official tells the bbc that ukrainian forces are now ready to launch a long—awaited counter—offensive. the comments come after russian attacks on dnipro and the wagner group's recent claims it has fully captured the city of bakhmut. the head of russia's wagner mercenary group has announced that his forces have started to withdraw from bakhmut. ukraine denies this. the battle for that city has been the longest and bloodiest of the war. now, oleksiy danilov — the secretary of ukraine's national security and defence council — says an assult to retake territory from russian forces is ready to launch. he's been speaking exclusively to our diplomatic correspondent, james landale. this is what's left of bakhmut, in eastern ukraine. images filmed by russian forces of the ruins they now largely control. mercenaries from the wagner group claim they're withdrawing, being replaced by regular russian troops. but ukraine insists its forces are still engaged on the ground

and the outskirts, as the country's most senior security official told us. translation: we control “ust a small part of the city, i and we admit that. but you have to keep in mind that bakhmut has played a big role in this war. are the wagner mercenary group withdrawing, as their leader, prigozhin, says? yes, that is happening. but it doesn't mean that they will stop fighting us. they're going to concentrate more on other fronts. our intelligence is following that. we understand where they will appear next. they are regrouping to other free locations and we're following that. voiceover and all the while, ukraine is preparing a counter—offensive. this propaganda video broadcast

by military commanders to raise morale and encourage what they called "a decisive offensive". but when might it begin? translation: we will figure out when that will start, _ so that we can have the best result at that point of war. it could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week. it would be strange if i were to name dates, or the start of that or another event. that cannot be done. but you're ready? we're always ready. the same as we were ready to defend our country at any time. and it is not a question of time. we have to understand that that historical opportunity that is given to us by god, to our country, we cannot lose. so we can truly become an independent, big european country. but until that happens, ukraine will remain vulnerable to attacks like this.

a hospital in dnipro destroyed by a russian missile that air defences this time failed to stop. james landale, bbc news, kyiv. let's stay in the region, and a developing story from russia. the german foreign ministry says hundreds of germans working in education and cultural sectors in russia will be expelled next month. they include teachers at the german school in moscow, and staff at the goethe—institut cultural association. the move comes amid increasingly strained relations between the two countries, in the wake of russia's full—scale invasion of ukraine. this is a sense of what is going on between those two countries. last month, russia and germany each declared a0 employees of their respective embassies personae non gratae — or unwelcome — and expelled them. german newspaper suddeutsche zeitung reported that the latest move will affect a "low—to—mid three—digit number" of employees, including diplomats. it quoted the german foreign ministry as saying, "in view of this unilateral, unjustified and

incomprehensible decision, the federal government is now concerned with ensuring a minimum presence of intermediaries in russia, while also maintaining a diplomatic presence." to turkey now, where the first ever presidential election runoff will be held on sunday. it's a two—way race between the current president, recep tayyip erdogan — who has been in powerfor two decades — and his main rival, the secular opposition leader kemal kilicdaroglu. in the first round of the election earlier this month, president erdogan won 49.5% of the vote — about 4% more than his rival. both candidates are now chasing support from nationalist voters. our middle east correspondent anna foster is in istanbul. well, both of these contenders have really squeezed every last drop out of their campaigning. they've been out in public — kemal kilicdaroglu in the capital, ankara,

recep tayyip erdogan here in istanbul — bringing people around them, really both trying to win those crucial votes that they need for one of them to push over the 50% mark, because that is the key. it's now come down to a straight run—off between these two candidates. the expectation is that we will this time find out who turkey's next leader will be. so let's look in a little more detail at who the turkish people are choosing between. recep tayyip erdogan — in power here for 20 years, first as prime minister, then as president. he has been accused of becoming an increasingly authoritarian leader, changing the rules to keep himself in power. he brought in this executive presidency. also making this a much more deeply religious country, certainly in terms of civil society, the rule of law, than it was beforehand. he and his supporters say that he is a strong leadership candidate, that he is the sort of man that turkey needs

to really cement its position in the world and to deal with some of the problems in turkish society, like the economic crisis, for example. he has been calling just today on his supporters not to be complacent, i think, not to look back at the fact that he was so close last time round, to go out today and to keep voting. translation: are we running to the polls tomorrow? - cheering will we cast our votes from the early hours of the morning? we will not lose anyone who voted in the first round. do we agree on that? and for whatever reason, if anyone can't go to vote, we will encourage them as well. cheering that is what president recep tayyip erdogan has had to say. the challenger, kemal kilicdaroglu, is a very different character. he's a quietly spoken former civil servant. he spent a lot of his campaign talking about his vision of a more secular future for turkey, talking about

a more democratic country, saying that he would improve things like free speech. but his critics say that he would not be strong enough on the world stage. that he hasn't got the leadership experience to really provide a contrast to mr erdogan, to really push things forward in the way that he could. but kemal kilicdaroglu has been saying to his supporters and to some of these floating voters that he can solve some of the problems that turkey has been suffering. translation: the situation that our country is in right i now is not good, turkey needs to get out of this. to be able to do that, we need to put up a fight together. no matter how we look at the conditions we are in, a pessimistic atmosphere has been created for everyone. today, turkey has some serious economic problems. we will go to the polls and cast our votes, we will replace an authoritarian government through democratic means. so, how have voters right across the country responded to that?

what do they think about the issues that the contenders have really been talking about? the economy is certainly one of the biggest things that people have been considering. turkey's economic crisis has been long and it is deep, people are really feeling it in their pockets here. things like the country's response, and particularly the government's response, to those devastating earthquakes back in february. a lot of people were unhappy and saw that as slow and lacking. that did not seem to damage president erdogan�*s support in those southern areas, though. increasingly, issues around refugees, mainly syrian refugees, there are around 3 million in this country, and immigration has become a hot topic. both sides have been trying to outdo each other in terms of how many refugees they can remove from this country and how quickly. so, at 8am local time, the polls will open and turks will spend all day until 5pm

casting their votes. this one, unlike two weeks ago, where you had presidential and parliamentary elections, this one is simple. one ballot paper, two candidates, so that when the polls close at five o'clock, counting will start immediately. and we expect as people in turkey start to think about going to bed, a lot of counting will have been done and we will start to have a clearer idea of who turkey's next president will be. anna foster reporting from istanbul. here in washington — a deal has not yet been reached on raising the federal government's debt ceiling. but the latest — according to the reuters news agency — is that president biden, who's at camp david and the speaker kevin mccarthy are speaking by phone. and time is of the esenece as the us faces risk of default if an agreement is not made injust over a week. earlier today, speaker of the house kevin mccarthy struck an optimistic note when speaking with reporters on capitol hill, saying, "each

day i feel closer and better," though he said the two sides have not yet reached a deal. the treasury department said negotiators have untiljune 5th before the government would run short of funds to pay all its bills. here is the republican negotiator patrick mchenry. i've had days where i thought the deal was within grasp and within hours, so i don't... i'm just... i think we're all tired, but that doesn't mean that we're willing to just take something that we think is not acceptable. it's been a day of long delays and frustration for passengers arriving at major airports in the uk, because electronic passport gates broke down. officials say technical issues at uk border force were to blame, with the e—gates faling last night. as a result, staff had

to check passports manually, which takes more time. this evening, the home office says the problem has been fixed, and the gates are working again. graham satchell has more. this is the gatwick line. gatwick airport — just look at the queue. it was described by one passenger today as "an utter joke", and these scenes were repeated at airports across the uk. severe delays in manchester where, again, arriving passengers struggled to get through passport control. at heathrow, more misery, with some waiting more than three hours. there were people getting really frustrated. there were a couple of individuals that tried tojump queues, where the police had to get engaged. and we also had one of the passengers that fainted. so, it's now quarter to two and we've been told that l all the computers are down throughout the country. - this is wayne fenton at luton airport. already been in the queue now forabout 1.5 hours, _ in fact, nearly two hours. this is what arrivals looked like at luton.

the home office say there was a failure of the whole uk border system. in particular, e—gates, where passengers scan their own passports, stopped working. well, this is one of the worst outages already facing the passport e—gates system. in the past, when we've seen the odd outage, it's generally been for two or three hours, it's been fixed fairly quickly. the timing of all this disruption couldn't have been worse — the start of a busy bank holiday weekend. the home office have been trying to fix this problem, they say, as a matter of urgency to minimise disruption. but when i asked them, exactly what is the problem that they're trying to fix? — they said it was "too sensitive" to say. e—gates also stopped working at the eurostar terminal in paris, causing more disruption. tonight, the home office says all the issues have been resolved and e—gates are again working normally, but it's been a miserable day for tens of thousands of passengers, stuck in endless queues. graham satchell, bbc news.

twitter has pulled out of the european union's voluntary code to fight disinformation, the eu has said. the eu's internal market commissioner, thierry breton, announced the news on the platform. breton tweeted: "obligations remain. you can run, but you can't hide". he added that fighting disinformation will remain a legal obligation under the digital services act, a law which obliges firms to do more to tackle illegal online content. dozens of tech firms are signed up to the eu's disinformation code, including meta, tiktok, google, microsoft and twitch. the code was launched last year, to prevent profiteering from disinformation and fake news. it also seeks to increase transparency and reduce the spread of bots and fake accounts. under the ownership of elon musk, moderation at twitter has reportedly been greatly reduced. and just last month, the bbc found hundreds of russian and chinese state propaganda accounts were highly active on twitter.

let's break this down now and bring in technologyjournalist takara smalljoining us from toronto. elon musk is taking twitter out of what is a voluntary eu disinformation code. why would he do that? i think it plays along with a lot of things that elon has done in recent months and the reason he did that is because he doesn't really feel the need to implement some of the rules that will become essentially legal under the digital services act. and he has allowed a lot of the things such as misinformation and disinformation to thrive. and he has played a key part in that as well. so, standing up to this voluntary legal framework, wouldn't really align with what he himself is doing. i want to play you a clip, the bbc spoke in this long interview with elon musk earlier in april. he talks about disinformation with our reporter, james clayton, this is a bit

of what he had to say. do you accept there is more misinformation on the platform if it's not being policed in the same way? i actually think there is lessl these days because we have eliminated so many of the bots which were pushing _ scams and spam. and previous management turned a blind eye to the bots _ because their bonuses were tied to user growth _ if it's tied to user growth, l you're not going to look too closely at some of the users. that's part of the problem. so i think we have less- disinformation because we don't have the bot problem that we used to. - and we also have given a lot of attention to community. notes, which corrects - with community itself, corrects misinformation, that has been very effective. - so what do you make of those statements from musk? first, for individuals who are not on twitter, i want to clarify communication notes — that relies on other users to help explain,

to help really clarify any information that's online. second, i think it is quite interesting that elon musk would have that opinion — of course he would, he owns twitter. it wouldn't be in his best interest to say there is any spam or bullying or disinformation which has increased, or we have seen a rise in it, which we have. and lastly, it is interesting he is saying this while choosing not to participate in this voluntary framework that would re—legitimise eradicating misinformation. i think again, this isjust another example of elon musk... but how committed do you think musk is to cracking down on disinformation on twitter? i think we've seen he's laid off so many members of staff including the communications department, i don't see how he can be fully committed

to it, while also not sticking to this voluntary framework. and i must say it will be interesting to see how long twitter can remain in the european market if he decides to act in this manner. do you think there is a chance that twitter might actually have to pull out of the eu? that would take away a lot of the company's users. it would, and i think it is a question that many journalists like myself are asking ourselves. i do see that happening potentially. it is a huge market. but certain rules exist there that do not exist in america. well, look, twitter is an american company and so is facebook. many of the other ones we just mentioned. why does it seem the european union is leading the way in terms of these kinds of social media and tech regulations and not the united states? so, i'm in canada. as you mentioned earlier, i'm based in toronto. and both canada and the us aren't really leading in this space. and i think it's because

regulation comes with responsibility, and the eu has taken on this responsibility in a space that is constantly changing. the technology sector, not even talking about al, but social media is always adapting. because of that, it requires a lot of money and financial support and a lot of oversight, and that is a lot of responsibility for any government to take on. before i let you go, i want to ask you about what happened earlier. we saw florida governor ron desantis launching his presidential campaign on twitter spaces, it didn't go according to plan and there were all these glitches, but what do you think that kind of political announcement says about the way the company and musk himself might be getting into politics? twitter has always been a political space. if you look at barack obama when he was the president, he used twitter as an incredibly important space to communicate with constituents. but i think the fact that there was a republican

contender who decided to not only announce his candidacy on twitter, but also do that in conversation with the owner says a lot about if twitter is the space for people of all different ideologies and politics. i would say that many people are looking at twitter and thinking, if elon decided to do that with just one candidate, perhaps that reflects his own personal politics as well. interesting stuff. ta ka ra takara small, a technology journalistsjoining us takara small, a technology journalists joining us from toronto, thank you very much. thanks for having me. staying in the uk, the post office has apologised, after revelations it categorised sub—postmasters by racial group, using highly offensive language. it happened during its own investigations into the computer scandal that saw hundreds of sub—post masters wrongly prosecuted, for false accounting. here's our business reporter, peter ruddick. the post office, already dealing with the reputational damage of hundreds of wrongful prosecutions of sub—postmasters, now finds itself embroiled in a scandal over the use of racist language. post office branch managers have been fighting forjustice

forjustice for years. this weekend, they discovered they had also been logged according to their racial profile. between 2008 and 2011, investigators were asked to classify potential suspects according to their racial profile. the category terms included chinese/japanese types, dark—skinned european types, and an offensive colonial word used to describe people of african descent. that's no way to identify someone, is it, really? that's disgusting. ijust feel sometimes that there is too much labelling going around. just say black or white. baljit sethi is of the post office victims who lost the business he ran with his wife. he now finds it too traumatic to discuss. his son said his family were not surprised to read the document. it was quite disturbing. and itjust goes to show

that the post office has had a rotten culture at its core for a number of years. and this information was not made available by the post office, this information came about because of the campaigners and people who are fighting forjustice from the post office, so this is how it came to light. otherwise, it would have stayed buried for a very long time. a spokesperson for the post office said it did not tolerate racism, but that the language was historic. well, i think describing the document as historic is really utter nonsense. these documents were put together between 2008 and 2011, and i think we're not talking about a time in the 19705 or the 19805, we're talking about only a decade ago. so really, that's not a good enough excuse. many sub—postmasters have had their convictions overturned and have been promised compensation. but for victims like baljit, this document is a traumatic reminder of the way they were treated. peter reddick, bbc news. british tv presenter holly willoughby has reacted to phillip schofield's admission about a relationship with a younger employee, saying she is hurt.

on friday, mr schofield resigned from itv saying he had lied to cover up the relationship, which he described as �*unwise, but not illegal�*. itv has said it investigated rumours of the relationship but both men repeatedly denied it. bbc news correspondent katherine da costa has been following the story. i spoke to her a little earlier. phillip schofield is a household name in the uk, he started out as a children's tv presenter and has hosted a string of high—profile programmes including dancing on ice, and is probably best known for presenting itv�*s this morning, a show he has presented for over 20 years, 1a years with his co—presenter, holly willoughby, and the audience really liked the chemistry between the pair. but there have been months of speculation online about his relationships. last week, he left the show following a rift with holly, which he says was unrelated to this latest revelation. on friday, he admitted

that he did have an affair with a younger male colleague on the show, but he said while the relationship was unwise, it was not illegal. he was still married at the time of the affair. he and his wife separated in 2020, after he came out as gay. now, phillip schofield said he was very sorry for being unfaithful to his wife and for lying to friends, colleagues and family. this evening, his former co—host holly willoughby posted on instagram. she said that when reports of the relationship first surfaced, she asked phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. she added that it has been very hurtful to now find out that she has been lied to. what have we heard so far from itv about all this? yes, itv has said that it did investigate the rumours that phillip schofield had an affair with an employee when they first started to circulate early in 2020. the broadcaster says that both men repeatedly denied the rumours. a number of employees

were also spoken to, but there was no evidence found about a relationship. the company has said it's deeply disappointed and that phillip�*s statement confirmed he lied to people at the company, both to senior management and to fellow presenters. before we go, let's bring you more on the debt talks in washington. afp is reporting that us presidentjoe biden and republican house speaker kevin mccarthy spoke on saturday. on phone. the us facing the risk of default if an agreement is not made injust over a week, that deadline being extended by the us treasury department tojune extended by the us treasury department to june the extended by the us treasury department tojune the 5th. afp says biden also spoke with the leader of the democratic minority in the house, hakeem jeffries, and the leader of the democratic majority in the senate, chuck schumer — that's according to the source. we'll have more on this

across the evening. tracking those debt limit negotiations. stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. it really was a gorgeous day today across england and wales, lots of sunshine around. temperatures in west yorkshire reached 24.3 celsius, making it the warmest day of the year so far. in northern ireland and scotland, we saw more cloud for a while, producing one or two spots of rain. that was mainly due to a very weak weather front — that's heading out into the north sea. following on from that, we've got some cooler air coming around our area of high pressure from the north, so temperatures for many of us a little bit lower on sunday. we start chilly where we've got the clearer skies in eastern areas of scotland. temperatures here could be close to freezing in one or two places. more cloud coming into

the north—west, that will be affecting eastern parts of england and into the north sea. sunshine at times in scotland and northern ireland, the cloud coming and going, particularly in the north—west, and with the north—easterly breeze across eastern england, it will push the cloud further west, although hanging on to the best of the sunshine in west wales, western england and along the south coast. but the highest temperatures will be pushed to the south—west this time. it will be cooler further north and east, and quite a significant drop in temperature on sunday for the north—east of england. but it's still dry, we've got high pressure in charge. the position of the high means that there are stronger winds on monday into shetland, blowing in more cloud, and there is also a stronger east to north—easterly wind affecting southern parts of england, which will make it feel a little bit cooler, probably. and we could blow in some cloud in the morning through the midlands and eastern england, that should break up in the afternoon. lots of sunshine around on bank holiday monday. there is cooler air in place across england and wales, highest temperatures will be further west. in northern ireland and scotland, it is turning a bit warmer on monday, temperatures back into the low 20s. high pressure remains in charge

on monday and into tuesday. the position is not really changing very much. light winds for many, but still those stronger winds through the english channel and southern parts of england. with the wind coming in off the north sea, we could see more cloud through much of the day on tuesday for eastern areas of england. always going to be warmer towards the west and the north, temperatures getting into the low 20s. and in scotland, we could see highs of 2a degrees or so on tuesday. and really, all week, we are dominated by high pressure, it is still dry, sunshine most days, and those temperatures reaching the mid 20s for the middle part of the week.

this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. hello, everybody. a very warm welcome to this special edition of talking business weekly with me, aaron heslehurst. let's go and take a look at what's on the show. i'm here in rabat — it's the capital of morocco — to look at this country's potential to solve europe's energy crisis. this north african country is making the most of its abundant sunshine and wind to lead the way in renewable energy. but the question is, can morocco turn itself around from being dependent on, well, this — imported fossil fuels — to being able to export clean energy to europe as we tackle climate change?