the mystery deepens around the current location of the wagner group's chief. and twitter threatens legal action over meta's threads app after millions sign on. i'm sumi somaskanda. welcome to the programme. us treasury secretary janet yellen is in china for the latest in a series of visits intended to stabilise relations between washington and beijing. ms yellen was given a low—key welcome as she arrived in the chinese capital, as both countries have placed modest expectations on the visit. she is spending her first day in beijing in meetings with chinese premier li qiang and liu he, a former economy tsar known to be a close confidant of china's president, xi jinping. as if to underline just how tense things are between china and the us, while ms yellen was still in the air on her way

to beijing, mr xi was inspecting people's liberation army troops near the taiwan strait. he told them they must "dare to fight" and added: "it is necessary to deepen war and combat planning, "focus on military training for actual combat, "and accelerate the improvement in our capacity to win." live now to bbc asia correspondent rupert wingfield—hayes in bangkok. what do you make of those comments, how significant are they as janet yellen was about to arrive? fist they as janet yellen was about to arrive?— to arrive? at the timing is interesting. _ to arrive? at the timing is interesting. we _ to arrive? at the timing is interesting. we don't - to arrive? at the timing is. interesting. we don't really know how much of a coincidence it is, or whether presidency is making a particularly pointed remark when he knows there is an important american visitor on the way. —— president she. taiwan is a big issue between china and the us, and china has been unhappy about how much

closer china and the —— taiwan and the us have become in the last few years. we think back to this time last year when nancy pelosi was heading to taiwan, then speaker of the house of representatives, highest visit by a us official in many years. there is also the fact that the us is now looking to sell a big new arms package to taiwan, there are many more high—level business between taiwan and the united states. to beijing this looks like the us has got a lot closer to sort of recognising taiwan's government as a legitimate independent government, rather than a rebel province as the chinese see it. so there is great concern about and that is why the chinese make these noises about the military. 50 make these noises about the milita . u, make these noises about the milita . _, . ~ make these noises about the milita . . ~ ., military. so coming back to janet yellen's _ military. so coming back to janet yellen's visitor, - military. so coming back to janet yellen's visitor, what | janet yellen's visitor, what did the us and china hope to get out of this? figs did the us and china hope to get out of this?— get out of this? as you said, the expectations _ get out of this? as you said, the expectations are - get out of this? as you said, the expectations are fairly i the expectations are fairly low. however ms yellen has been given a warm welcome in beijing and i think today's meetings

will go that way. the meeting with liu he, the vice premier this morning, is probably the most important and that will be the most detailed. she is then going on to meet li qiang, the chinese premier this afternoon, that will be more protocol and a formal welcome by the chinese government. janet yellen is seen by the chinese in fairly favourable light. she has talked about the need to keep engagement with china, she has talked of the need to lift tariffs that were imposed during the trump administration, she has been quite critical of those tariffs. and most importantly she has said that decoupling the two economies, the two biggest in the world, would be "a disaster for both countries". so she seems broadly favourable towards engaging with china and keeping the trading relationship healthy and open. in that respect i think this is a positive thing for both countries.—

positive thing for both countries. , ., ., countries. 0k rupert, great to seak to countries. 0k rupert, great to speak to you- _ earlier i spoke to bonnie glaser, managing director of the indo—pacific programme at the german marshall fund. bonnie, thank you forjoining us. how significant do you think this trip from janet yellen is, coming just weeks after the secretary of state antony blinken visited china? i think it is an important visit, it is a process of starting to re—establish channels of communication between the us and china. in the run—up to what could a meeting between our two presidents, joe biden and xi jinping at the apec leaders meeting in november. this is a very fragile relationship, there have been a lot of problems and friction, there has been suspension of some of the channels of communication for many months, and so this is a tenuous re—engagement. presumably janet yellen will be looking to open up those lines of communication on economic issues, and also

try to convince the chinese that moves that president biden and his administration had taken on export controls for example are not meant to instigate an economic war. do you think that will work? the chinese are very suspicious of us intentions, they have claimed that there is really no difference between decoupling and de—risking. and i think secretary yellen will make an effort, just as our commerce secretary tried to explain this to her counterpart when he visited washington, dc about six weeks ago. we will see whether the chinese are convinced the us has talked about keeping small gardens with high fences, meaning there will be limited areas of technology that we don't want to send to china, because they could contribute to chinese military capability to threaten the united states and our allies. the question is whether it spills over into other areas of normal trade and investment. and secretary yellen has been

clear that she thinks that would be a bad idea. at the same time, we saw the chinese earlier this week move to export two key materials used in the manufacturing of semiconductors, as you know — how do you thinkjanet yellen will address this? the chinese will absolutely ask this question, of what the united states is planning to block and going into china — notjust areas of technology but this new executive order that is forthcoming, that could limit outbound investment from the united states into china, and require screening of that investment. and i think that the chinese are trying to lay down some markers of their own, they have taken some action in restricting the sale by micron for example into china. but this new action you mention which is imposing export restrictions on gallium and germanium, i think the chinese

are trying to threaten the us and other countries to try and get us to limit the kind of restrictions we impose on china. but frankly, i think this may backfire. it may convince european countries in particular that de—risking is necessary, that they have to accelerate it, because china is willing to use it access to raw materials as a political weapon. and that is too dangerous for countries to continue to be too dependent on china. do you think this measure will be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with janet yellen? i think the chinese are just trying to put something on the table and then yes, saying maybe both of us can step back and limit the damage to the other, but i doubt that is going to work, because i think the united states is doubling down on our approach to china, that is making the united states and our allies more resilient

and less vulnerable to chinese economic coercion, and limiting, as i said, china's military capability. janet yellen came out publicly in favour of easing tensions with china in an address she gave atjohns hopkins university in april, and she added the following: do you think that's in line — that message is in line with the actual measures we've seen the biden administration take? so far i believe it is in line with the measures the biden administration has taken. which go back to 7 october last year when the united states imposed some restrictions on the sale of semiconductors to china. so there's a lot of talk about applying it to other

areas such as quantum computing and cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. it remains to be seen how far this should go. but i want to highlight something that's interesting to me — the united states and china are both putting security before economics. they are both really highlighting and prioritising their security interests. the chinese are doing the exact same thing. so this really should come as no surprise. we just have to reassure each other that this isn't going to encompass normal trade. i think that's what we want to avoid. and i think that's what secretary yellen will convey to her chinese counterparts. bonnie, great to have your analysis. thank you forjoining us. thanks for having me. the mystery over the whereabouts of yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the wagner paramilitary group, took an unexpected turn today. prigozhin led the attempted mutiny against the russian defence ministry last month. it ended after the leader of belarus, alexander lukashenko, claimed he negotiated an end to the standoff with putin

by granting prigozhin exile in his country. we know prigozhin's privatejet had landed in minsk shortly after the rebellion — but we don't know whether he was on it. just over a week ago, lukashenko said prigozhin had arrived in belarus. on thursday, lukashenko said prigozhin is in russia. translation: as for prigozhin, he is in saint petersburg. - he may have gone to moscow this morning or somewhere else. he is not on the territory of belarus. lukashenko also said the question of whether the wagner units would relocate to belarus was still in the balance, and would depend on the decisions taken by moscow and by wagner. he made those comments to a very small gathering ofjournalists — including the bbc�*s steve rosenberg. well, less than two weeks ago we were told that alexander lukashenko, the leader of belarus, had brokered a deal under which the wagner mutiny

would end and yevgeny prigozhin would move from russia to belarus and any wagner fighters who wanted to could join him in belarus. today, mr lukashenko told us that, actually, yevgeny prigozhin is not in belarus, but he was in saint petersburg, he may be in moscow today — and the wagnerfighters are not in belarus. he indicated that they went back to their camps in russian occupied eastern ukraine. mr lukashenko also said he will be discussing the situation with wagner with vladimir putin in the near future, although the kremlin has not given any date for that discussion. so what is happening, what is actually going on? who knows. we also talked about nuclear weapons, because the kremlin has said that it is moving tactical nuclear weapons from russia to belarus and alexandr lukashenko said some have arrived and more would arrive by the end of the year. a short while ago he said that god forbid, he should actually have to take the decision to use those weapons. i said to him, "these are not your weapons

"to take the decision to use — they are russian weapons." he said, "well, if ukraine can fight "with other people's weapons" — meaning nato weapons — "then why can't i?" the new york times is reporting that president biden is leaning towards sending ukraine cluster munitions — which can be used to drop small bombs across land that can grievously hurt civilians. more than 100 countries signed a ban on them, some 15 years ago. ukraine is facing dwindling resources as it continues its counteroffensive against russia. meanwhile, in ukraine, russian missiles hit the western city of lviv,far from the front lines — killing at least six people and injuring dozens more. ukraine's air force says the missile strike deliberately targeted civilians, despite russia claiming they only go after military targets. the mayor says 35 buildings were damaged. earlier i spoke to ambassador bill taylor, former us ambassador to ukraine, and vice president for europe and russia at the us institute for peace. how significant is it

to see such a large strike on lviv, so far from the front lines? it makes exactly the point, that there is no military rationale for these strikes. it is not close to the front line, there were no military targets, it targeted apparently civilian apartment buildings, infrastructure. so this is just another war crime that the russians have committed against the ukrainians. do you think it tells us anything at all about russia's strategy? russia doesn't have a strategy. putin's strategy is to wait out the west, wait out ukraine. hope that somehow we will give up or the ukrainians will give up, people will get tired of supporting ukraine, and that is a failing bet, it's a failing bet. the united states is

strong, europe is strong, nato is strong, the ukrainians are strong. so putin is going to lose that bet, he doesn't have a strategy. at the same time, ukrainian counteroffensive does appear to be moving slowly. and in an interview with cnn yesterday presidents zelensky said he wanted to start the counteroffensive earlier and he had asked his allies, including the us for those weapons, that ammunition. do you think that might be an excuse for not making desired progress on the battlefield? not making desired progress on the battlefield is because it is tough going. there are minefields and then more minefields and then more. and going through minefields is very difficult, in particular if you are short of ammunition for your artillery. so president zelensky is right about the need for weapons and ammunition in order to accelerate that cou nteroffe nsive. but your reporter is also right, what the ukrainians are doing is slowly, methodically but steadily probing and finding weaknesses

on the russian line, and then the ukrainians have not committed their main forces. when they find the weakness they have their main forces ready to punch through. so that is what we will be looking for in terms of this counteroffensive. we mentioned the new york times is reporting tonight president biden is on the verge of giving cluster munitions to ukraine — so these are bombs that break apart into smaller explosive devices. they are very controversial as you know, many us allies have signed a treaty to ban them, should the usb giving these to ukraine? the question is, can we provide the ukrainians with what they need to win this war? ukrainians need to be able to push the russians out of the country. they are using artillery at a rapid rate, they are running out of shells, ammunition for their artillery, there are more artillery shells that are both cluster munitions and others. and in order to support the ukrainians as they push the russians out, we need

to provide this ammunition. but what about the fact as i said that other countries, including allies of the us, have banned these weapons, saying they indiscriminately cause the death of civilians? they cause the death of russian soldiers in the first instance, and we know that the ukrainians are going to have to clean up all of the unexploded ordnance, which this would be. after they have pushed the russians out. in order to push the russians out they need the weapons, and they can go in and clean up this battlefield. that is what they will have to do, that's what they have said they are prepared to do. are you concerned this might give russia an excuse to use even more severe weapons on the battlefield as well? i'm not, they have already used these weapons, the russians are at, their backside to the wall, they are being pushed out of the country. the russians don't have to do, they have already used these weapons and the other weapons, including their aircraft, which the ukrainians have many fewer, the russians have an advantage. this is what the ukrainians need to do to push the russians out of the country.

so you are confident that cluster munitions in particular could give ukraine the edge they need in this current counteroffensive? i am confident that the ukrainians need ammunition for their artillery, and if this is the only place that it can come, because we can't make it fast enough, so we're going to other sources, other stockpiles these weapons, ukrainians need to be able to fire artillery. ambassador bill taylor, thank you forjoining us on our programme tonight. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. 207 shipping containers with drugs recovered from more than half. the sheer size, 580 tons, is described as monumental quantities and police say the seizure is the largest in uk history. over two weeks, 100

officers were involved, back up by brand experts and counterfeit specialists. i think it will put a nail in the coffin of the counterfeit drugs trade. so the shocks are virtually gone.— trade. so the shocks are virtually gone. this area of manchester _ virtually gone. this area of manchester has _ virtually gone. this area of manchester has been - virtually gone. this area of. manchester has been known historically as the uk counterfeit couple. operation falcon is the largest in response. 33 criminal gangs are said to have targeted this area. a single premises can have flaws up to 18 shops. the containers themselves can also act as a trading point for on line businesses. you're live with bbc news. in other news: oceangate says it has suspended all exploration and commercial operations. the company operated the titan submersible that imploded

on a trip to the wreck of the titanic, killing five people. investigators are trying to establish exactly what caused the submersible to implode, with questions raised over the safety of the vessel. in the us, the food and drug administration has given full approval to a landmark drug to treat alzheimer's disease. it's called leqembi has shown promise in slowing the progression of the disease in the early stages. the drug is not a cure for alzheimer's. it's the first time in two decades that the fda has given an alzheimer's drug full approval. twitter is considering legal action against meta over its rival app threads, which launched just over 2a hours ago. in a letter to meta's owner, mark zukerberg, twitter�*s lawyers alleged his company had used trade secrets by hiring former twitter empolyees. for his part, twitter�*s owner, elon musk said — "competition is fine, cheating is not." earlier i spoke to vivian schiller — formerly head of news at twitter, now execuitve director at the aspen institute. vivian, great to you have on the programme.

i want to start with the fact that twitter is threatening to sue meta over threads. there's a letter sent saying the following," twitter has serious concerns that meta platforms has engaged in systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of twitter�*s trade secrets and other intellectual property." you worked at twitter, you have seen threads now, do you think there's something to this? first of all, i'm not a lawyer, let me be clear about it. it seems very odd, first of all, threads is only the latest in a long line of twitter clones, that includes bluesky, it includes mastodon and several others. i'm not exactly sure what it is about mark zuckerberg's project — though i have a supposition — that's lit them up. the fact is, that twitter as a platform is not particularly complicated. one of its strengths is in its simplicity. the complications is around content moderation and policy

decisions and building audience. the platform itself is pretty straightforward. what's your supposition as to why twitter is taking a look at threads and threatening a lawsuit? of all the twitter clones that have launched, this is probably the most viable in terms of being able to succeed. not because it's necessarily a better product than bluesky and others, but because it's built upon the back of the massive instagram list. so, as we can see, i mean, depending — i have seen various numbers, apparently ten million people have signed out to threads since yesterday, that doesn't mean necessarily it will be a long term success, but there's a built—in audience. take us behind

the scenes at twitter. how worried do you think elon musk really is? anyone who thinks they can get into musk�*s head is kidding themselves. he's pretty erratic as a ceo, let's face it. i think he has — it appears he has an animus towards mark zuckerberg, hence this whole thing about the cage match, maybe it's reciprocal. he's made a bunch of moves since he has taken ownership of twitter that really has destroyed a lot of value. especially, you know, including and especiallyjust in the last week when he limited the number of tweets that people could see unless they're signed on to be a paid blue check mark. that's sort of like the bbc saying we want to limit the number of programmes you can watch. it makes no sense. it defies both the mission and the business model of twitter. so, that and a number of very peculiar

decisions he has made about the integrity of the site, you know, has really degraded twitter, unfortunately. so, i guess he's threatened. so one of the big criticisms is that twitter under elon musk has eroded content moderation in the favour of what elon musk says is free speech. do we know if meta will be different? we don't know. look, meta has its own problems in terms of — particularly around facebook, less so with instagram, but instagram has a different set of issues in terms of academic research that shows the negative psychological impact, particularly on young people, and particularly on young women. facebook itself is a known vector of information that is not reliable, misinformation, you know, disinformation campaigns. so, it's not like meta is the creator of these pristine sites.

that said, there's a large audience of people who are pining — i include myself in this — pining for the pre—elon twitter. even though it was flawed, it was an incredibly useful and valuable product. particularly for news and information. do you think in this space meta can be a real alternative? we don't know. that's the key. again, the challenge is not building something that looks like twitter. from an engineering point of view, that's not particularly difficult. the difficulty is, now with all these clones, and twitter still alive, i mean, i'm still on twitter — can threads gather enough critical mass of the kinds of people that were on twitter, which includes world leaders, which includes, you know, business titans and ceos, influencers, movie stars, rock stars, all kinds of famous people that made it sort of a very rich platform for a lot of things. but particularly as a place where news happens and then because so many journalists are on twitter, it then sort of becomes amplified through other platforms. can, you know, meta's attempt at the twitter clone called threads achieve that? really, really too early to say. vivian, quick last question, we only have 30 seconds, how do you think beyond threatening this lawsuit we'll see twitter respond to threads's model?

i don't know. frankly i would love to see them pull back on some of the more nonsensical policies they have instilled. they have a very competent ceo now in linda yaccarino. vivian, quick last question, we only have 30 seconds, how do you think beyond threatening this lawsuit we'll see twitter respond to threads's model? i don't know. frankly i would love to see them pull back on some of the more nonsensical policies they have instilled. they have a very competent ceo now in linda yaccarino. let her do herjob. stay with us here on bbc news. that's all from us here in washington, and we leave you with these live pictures of london as we hand off to our colleageus there. thank you for watching bbc news.

thursday was a better day for play at wimbledon and for the start of the test at headingley. there was quite a lot of cloud generally, but we did see temperatures peaking at 23 degrees. however, into friday, we're tapping into some heat and humidity, and temperatures may well peak as high as 29 celsius, 84 fahrenheit. there was some cloud and rain around, though, and you can see quite clearly where i'm talking about on the satellite picture. this is a frontal system bringing some wet weather, fairly showery first thing friday morning across scotland and northern ireland. slowly brightening up into the afternoon. but with that southerly wind direction dragging in that warm, humid air as we go through the day, producing clear skies across england and wales, temperatures will respond. highs of 29 celsius in one or two areas by the middle of the afternoon. so that means for the tennis at wimbledon, we could see temperatures as high as 27. it has the potential to be the best or the hottest day of this season's championship. and it'll be similar story as well for the men's ashes.

highs of 29 celsius in one or two areas by the middle of the afternoon. so that means for the tennis at wimbledon, we could see temperatures as high as 27. thunderstorms perhaps threatening as we go through the weekend. as we go into friday evening, it will be a relatively quiet one. during the early hours of saturday, we've got this front pushing in from the south—west, but temperatures not falling very far. it's going to be a humid night, an uncomfortable nght for getting a good night's sleep, particularly in the south—east, as temperatures only as low as 18—19 celsius. and with that front continuing to move in from the south—west, bumping into that humid air, that has the potential to spark off some sharp, thundery downpours. they will drift their way steadily north and east, so saturday will not be a wash—out by any means. but if you do have outdoor plans, it's worth bearing in mind

that there could be some interruptions with some sharp showers. top temperatures as we go through saturday still on the warm side at 20—24 degrees, maybe 27 across parts of east anglia and the south—east. need to keep a close eye on sunday. there's a risk of some really sharp, thundery downpours moving up from france, butjust where they will appear is still subject to question so keep abreast of the forecast for the second half of the weekend. just to summarise then, our weekend is going to start off on a humid note. there will be some decent sunny spells around from time to time, but also the risk of some sharp, thundery downpours.

voiceover: 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. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the western liberal tradition prizes intellectual freedom,