us presidentjoe biden met chinese president xi jinping on saturday — the final meeting between the two leaders before mr biden leaves the white house. they met on the sidelines of the apec summit in lima, peru. mr xi described the relationship between china and the us as having "ups and downs" but that it plays a key role in shaping global stability. he said that china is willing to support a smooth transition when us president—elect donald trump takes office in january. the comments follow mr trump's pledge to introduce significant tariff hikes on chinese goods as well as take a tougher diplomatic stance towards beijing. during the meeting, president biden reflected on his relationship with mr xi while in office. we haven't always agreed but our conversations have always been candid and always been frank. we have never kidded one another, we have been level with one another and i think that is vital.

these conversations prevent miscalculations and ensure the competition between our two countries will not veer into conflict. the competition, not conflict. that's our responsibility to our people and as you indicated, to the people around the world, we're the most important alliance and the most important relationship in the entire world. for more analysis on the biden—xi meeting and the potential policy change under trump, i spoke with ho—fung hung, a professor of political economy atjohns hopkins university. we heard president xi telling biden he is ready to work with donald trump to try to improve the relationship between the two countries. how do you see a potential relationship between those two leaders, xi and trump, shaping

up over the next four years? in the next four years, i guess xijinping may be missing joe biden, because as a rival from the perspective of xijinping, the biden administration is easier to deal with because the biden administration always communicates the bottom line, their intentions and all the considerations very transparently. so xijinping can gain an upper hand but for the trump administration, besides having china hawks in the policy team, he has a characteristic of being unpredictable and in such cases it will be a tougher time at the negotiation table. speaking of unpredictability, you don't know how this will play out in terms of the donald trump tariffs mentioned during the campaigns, up to 60%, most economists say that would have a catastrophic impact on economic relations between the countries.

are we at risk of an escalating trade war here between china and donald trump and the united states? it depends on if the tariffs are selectively applied to china or if they are also applied to many other countries from french cheese to british cars and many other products. so it depends. and from a chinese enterprise perspective, they observe carefully to see how the tariff will be applied to different parts of the world because many chinese enterprises since the first trump administration and under the biden administration have been moving to vietnam and mexico to avoid tariffs, so if tariffs are escalated against china i think foreign investors in chinese manufacturing in china will look to other places to move to and that would not be good for the chinese economic growth but for chinese enterprise they already find

a way to cope with it. you mention mexico and we don't talk much about latin america palestinian health officials say at least 10 people have been killed in an israeli attack on a un run school that was sheltering displaced families in gaza. rescuers have been searching for survivors in the abu assi school in the al shati refugee camp. it's thought some people remain trapped beneath the rubble. joe inwood reports from jerusalem. siren wails. in the chaotic aftermath of the strike, they searched for anyone who might have survived. this was once a un—run school, abu assi, but had been providing shelterfor displaced families. israel has told everyone to leave the north of gaza. it is clear tens of thousands have not. that was not the only attack in gaza today. local health officials say 30 people were killed across the strip. this man witnessed another airstrike, reportedly on a barber shop in gaza city.

translation: i saw people flying. - i brought my horse and carried them here. three people, they were torn to pieces. the missile suddenly fell on a barber shop. that's where we've been living since the start of the war. the israeli defence forces have confirmed they carried out the strike on the school, but said it was being used by hamas as a command and control centre, and that they tried to avoid civilian casualties by using what they call "precise munitions." tonight in tel aviv, there were renewed calls from the families of the israeli hostages for a deal to be done. i call on you, leaders of the world, president biden and president—elect trump, don't give up on the hostages. two children, their parents and 97 other hostages are waiting to be saved. it's more than 400 days since the friends and families of many of these people were taken.

400 days that have brought nothing but death and misery to the people of gaza. joe inwood, bbc news, jerusalem. further north, israeli forces have continued to exchange fire with hezbollah in lebanon. lebanon's health ministry says an israeli attack killed at least six people, while israel says a rocket attack damaged a synagogue in the city of haifa. also in israel, protesters again took to the streets of tel aviv, as part of a string of weekly anti—government protests demanding a hostage release deal in gaza. police say two flares landed in the grounds of benjamin netanyahu's home about 50 kilometres — or 30 miles — away. no damage was caused and the prime minister was not in the building at the time. but security officials described the incident as "serious". it isn't clear who fired the flares. joanne held cummings is a former us diplomat and the current director of middle east studies at baylor university in texas and she told me more about the situation in the region. the israeli military says

hezbollah fired around 80 projectiles at israel saturday. does it seem either side is ready to lay down arms and sign a ceasefire deal? i don't think that it's likely right now. each side has its own reasons for keeping this fight going right now. unfortunately, when we look at the motivations on the israeli side, netanyahu wants to be able to say that he wants to bring this to an end, he wants to bring civilians back to their homes in northern israel. he wants to have security across the border in lebanon. but much of this is dedicated to him positioning himself in terms of the incoming trump administration. hezbollah is having its own

considerations with regard to the united states with her i think much more so is being driven by domestic considerations within lebanon as well as of course increasing anger and frustration with the level of destruction within lebanon. just a few days ago, israel's new defence minister, israel katz, said israel has defeated hezbollah. is he right and if so, why are we still seeing continued fighting? we have to remember that i spent many years in iraq and afghanistan. i'm a little bit cautious about claims the missions accomplished. there is a lot of frustration within israel. notjust about the judicial coup which is been reactivated but also because the fighting in gaza has done absolutely nothing, from the point of view

of the families of hostages, to bring people home. which they consider to be the most important thing. and the only reason for israel to be engaged in the war and putting israeli soldiers at risk. the fighting in lebanon is not something that they see as being a factor that is going to lead to the release of hostages. there is a mismatch and i think that netanyahu to an extent is using opportunities to expand the war and to take the greatest amount he can so that when there is in agreement he can afford to give up the things he cares about and still keep significant territorial gains. can we zoom in on israel politics briefly? as mr biden wraps up his presidency, we're getting a clearer picture here in washington of what donald trump's second term in the white house might look like. on saturday the

president—elect picked oil executive chris wright to head the department of energy and to serve on the newly—created council of national energy. as secretary of energy, chris wright will shape policy towards nuclear security, scientific research, and renewable energy. the fracking boss is a staunch defender of fossil fuels and has denied the existence of a climate crisis. he willjoin interior secretary nominee doug burgum on the energy council, which is tasked with "cutting red tape". mr wrightjoins a growing list of trump cabinet nominees, several of whom are facing intense scrutiny. i've been speaking with puck news political reporter abby livingston. i asked her what more we know about donald trump's pick for energy secretary chris wright. what i can say is on the spectrum of appointments that have come out, at this point, he is relatively normal. while that claim could be extremely objectionable to many of these viewers, it pales in comparison to a handful of other nominees that are raising much larger questions and many more alarms.

i think you have a question of how much the senate is willing to challenge donald trump. i think in that context he is a relatively normal nominee who will probably get through the senate pretty easily. there are other names that are less normal, maybe we will see a bit more controversy, for matt gaetz for attorney general, pete hegseth for secretary of defense to name a couple. what is the sense that you are hearing among republicans about some of these names are the chances that they might be approved by the senate? the key thing to understand about what's going on in the senate right now is we have a change of guard on the republican side which will control the senate next year. we're in very unsteady times. the new senate majority leader elect isjohn thune and we don't have a sense of how he's going to approach things compared to mitch mcconnell. we can say there's going to be a majority.

republicans will have a four or five seat majority in the senate. there are possibly a handful of senators who can make up that margin and stop a nomination. i think itjust depends on how much pressure they feel, whether or not they will run for re—election and how much incoming they're willing to take from donald trump and his allies. when you look at some of these names that may not be exactly the way others would nominate, maybe not establishment choices, what does that show especially what we see some of the baggage coming along with some of these candidates, an ethics investigation for matt gaetz, we know there are allegations in the past for pete hegseth as well. what does this show about the vetting of donald trump and his team when it comes to some of these nominees? it appears either there is not much vetting going on or vetting was disregarded. under any other president or political environment these would be immediately questionable whether or not they will last a day, let alone into january. the other thing about this is, some of these allegations and concerns are so serious

and the nominations are sometimes made later to inauguration day. they drop them so early that i think we will have two months of drip, drip, drip of allegations and relitigating of these records. it does seem like the trump team is moving quickly, definitely quicker than in 2016 in terms of naming people to the cabinet. some may think it was moving too fast. you put a name out there and you have a long time it moves so fast that some of these, the matt gaetz one in particular went off like a bomb at the capitol. it wasn't held until the holiday or weekend to get senators a chance to get that composure and think about things, with them having to answer questions live as they found out about in front of reporters. generally these are moot. you can name them earlier but that doesn't change inauguration day. things cannot get moving

untiljanuary 20. that's the proper kick—off. and the president—elect himself has turned up in new york for a ufc fighting match. donald trump walked out to the arena flanked by close allies like elon musk and speaker of the house mikejohnson as well as dana white, the ceo of the mixed martial arts league. in attendance at the match are also who would be key players in trump's new administration —— robert f kenneder, vivek ramaswamy and tulsi gabbard appear to be sitting behind the president—elect. the match is taking place at madison square garden.

and staying with news out of the world of sports, bela karolyi, the charismatic, if polarizing, gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the united states into an international power, has died. he was 82. usa gymnastics said karolyi died friday. no cause of death was given. karolyi and wife martha trained multiple olympic gold medalists and world champions in the us and romania, including nadia comaneci and mary lou retton. let's turn to some other news around the world. eight people have been killed and 17 others injured in a mass stabbing at a college campus in eastern china. police said a 21—year—old man who'd studied at the wuxi technical college was arrested. they said he admitted the attack because the institute had refused to issue his diploma. health officials in the united states have reported their first case of a new form of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. the patient, who was treated in northern california, had travelled to east africa.

19 african nations have now reported cases of mpox. in the uk, four cases of the disease have been confirmed, all in people within the same household. us officials warn the viral disease is very infectious but that the overall risk to the public remains low. georgia's election commission has confirmed that the governing party won last month's parliamentary poll, an announcement that has sparked angry scenes. as the election commission chief prepared to rubber stamp the results, an opposition member of parliament threw black paint over him. 0fficial election results gave a 54% majority to the governing georgian dream party. the g7 group of countries have reasserted what they call their �*unwavering commitment�* to ukraine, 1000 days since russia's invasion. in a joint statement to mark the 1000—day anniversary, the leaders of the us, canada, the uk, france, germany, italy and japan wrote:

us presidentjoe biden signed that letter, but he will soon hand the reins to donald trump, and his choices could decide ukraine's fate over the next four years. for his part, ukraine's president, volodymyr zelensky, says mr trump's election victory means the war is likely to end sooner because the president—elect promised voters a quick end to the war. at least 10 newborn babies died after a fire broke out in the children's ward of a government hospital in northern india. 16 other babies are being treated for their injuries and some are in a critical condition. officials say the blaze in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital injhansi was possibly caused by an electrical fault in an oxygen concentrator. doctors and medical staff broke the windows of the smoke—filled ward to rescue the children, before fire crews arrived.

indian prime minister narendra modi has posted on x calling the deaths "heart—wrenching" and saying his deepest condolences are with those who have lost their children. the deputy chief minister of the state of uttar pradesh, where the hospital is, has also been addressing media. translation: according to the latest information, _ translation: according to the latest information, the - translation: according to the latest information, the fire - latest information, the fire broke out due to a short circuit. many newborn children died. the government has ordered a high—level enquiry. after the report comes in, those found guilty will be treated harshly. the prime minister has also offered condolences to the bereaved families. distressed parents have spoken to local media saying they have been asked to identify their children from photographs. translation: the authorities| showed us bodies of the babies with burns and asked us to identify our children, but how are we supposed to do it? can someone make me understand?

how can i identify my child out of burnt bodies? there is no way. i want my child back, that's all. translation: when the fire broke out last night i saved l many children but i wasn't able to look for mine. i have still not been able to identify my child and i don't know what to do. i'm not able to find my child. about a0 of the world's top professional sailors are competing in the vendee globe, one of ocean sailing's toughest tests. the solo race around the world is so extreme it's been dubbed �*the everest of the seas'. of the 200 sailors who have embarked on the race route, only 114 have completed it. the race covers 16,000 kilometres — about 2a,300 nautical miles — and starts and finishes on the coast of france. but many sailors are notjust racing. their vessels are also gathering information in remote stretches

of the world's oceans for scientists studying climate change. in just the last few hours, i spoke with one of the sailors competing in the vendee, boris hermann — who came in 5th place last year. hejoined me from the cabin of his boat and told me about the data he is collecting and the conditions he's facing along the way. thank you for taking the time to talk to us. i know you are actually sailing as you speak in this race around the world. give us a sense of where you are right now. good evening. we're south—west of the canary islands. about a week at sea now and we have another five days until we reach the equator, which is unusually slow. we are a bit slowed down by nonexistent trade winds at the moment. tell us a bit more about the race itself. i know some people call it the everest of this sea. how difficult is this racing around the globe?

it resonates very well. it's our pinnacle challenge in the sport of ultra sailing. the longest possible route around the world nonstop and alone nonstop means if you were to stop at anywhere of the remote islands or anything to repair or resupply then you will get disqualified. it's a very challenging race. i know that this race also has a bit of a climate angle. you and some of the other boats are taking important environmental measurements. walk us through that. what are you measuring and what is the purpose? we have a machine on this boat which sucks sea water in and analyzes it with a pump and separates the c02 gas from the sea, it's pretty high—tech tech stuff

that is fully automated. also auto calibrates itself once a day so we can deliver scientific measurements about the state of the ocean related to climate change. at a level of quality that you could get on a big research vessel. thanks to this technology we can bring back very important data to better understand climate change. you're sailing in pretty remote oceans. is this water really somewhere where scientists aren't normally able to get to? that's exactly the point. the waters we sail through more than half of our passage is around the antarctic 0cean. there is no merchant routes, there are no ferries not normal traffic. we're almost the only

vessels ever going there. to get this precise data you need a vessel on the ground. you can get a lot of environmental data from satellites or drifting buoys but to get this specific c02 concentration in the ocean precisely measured, that is something we can add to science. i know some of that data has been used in the global carbon budget 2024 report as well. how did you become interested in climate change? i know you're also a friend of young swedish activist greta thunberg. exactly. i have spent the best part of my life on the ocean. that made me naturally want to learn about the connection between ocean and climate change, climate change being the big topic everywhere and of concern to myself. i also studied

environmental science. so then at sea i could learn about the connection. we met more scientists along our different races, science collaborations between institutes and our campaign in these races. over time, i understood that the oceans are a very essential part of the puzzle of climate change. basically the air—conditioning system of our planet. i got really excited over the years to be able to contribute to better understand this. boris, how many more days will you be in this boat and what is the biggest thing you're looking forward to doing when you back on land? approximately 70 more days alone in this small boat. the thing you miss is being around people. it's saturday night

and i'm alone out here. my family, that will be the biggest. stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. after what's been a pretty mild start to november, it looks like the second half of november is going to turn very much colder with our first real taste of wintry weather expected as we head into next week with the chance of some snow and ice, which could cause some disruption. now, for sunday, it looks like that cold air�*s already across northern scotland, bringing further wintry showers certainly to the hills here. but some brighter skies across northern and eastern england, too. but thicker cloud for northern ireland pushing across the irish sea into wales and the midlands will bring outbreaks of rain here. but again, we'll have quite a contrast in temperatures from north to south across the country. still some mild air looming here. now, that mild air stays in place across the south, cold air to the north and we'll start to see an area of low pressure slide in off

the atlantic and that'll bring increasingly wet and windy weather across the board. but as this rain bumps into the cold air across the north, then we're likely see a swathe of sleet and snow across some central and northern areas. now, this is how monday's shaping up now. bright with some sunshine across northern and eastern parts with further wintry showers across northern scotland. northern ireland, increasingly england and wales, will see the clouds build and outbreaks of rain will continue to push in from the west, turning heavier as we reach the second half of the day. again, quite a contrast in temperatures from north to south across the country. but as we move into monday evening, we'll start to see some sleet and snow develop across northern ireland and then in towards southern scotland and northern england as that rain bumps into the cold air and we'll also have further accumulations of snow across northern scotland with these snow showers. now, it could be that this area of rain could be a bit further southwards, in which case have to cater for a little bit of snow for north wales and perhaps even the north midlands. but as we head into the early part of tuesday, it looks

like that sleet and snow may continue to affect parts of northern england, so some tricky driving conditions across the higher routes of the pennines to start tuesday. and again, quite a contrast in temperatures from north to south across the country to begin tuesday. as we move through tuesday, though, eventually that low pressure pushes off into the near continent, opens the floodgates to an arctic northerly, and that'll send the cold air right across the country with frequent snow showers pushing into northern areas but draped around all coasts. so we'll continue to see very cold weather. quite a lot of sunshine further inland. cold nights as well with a significant risk of frost and ice. that's it from me. take care.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. this week, alasdair's looking to the skies for guidance. we're going to get some help

navigating from up there. lara's getting hangry with a robot hand. no pressure, but i am quite hungry. i'm not sure how appealing that lettuce is looking after having that done to it. and spencer leaps forward to the year 2125. i'm eye to eye with a cuttlefish. doesn't he need a snorkel for that?! mit's computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory is a world—leading facility, but today i've come to teach a thing or two — to the robots, that is, not the people — in a bid to help them behave as humanly as possible. especially with the tasks that we wouldn't give a second thought to. this reinforcement learning, where the machines mimic humans, is how the ai is trained. it aims to make the bots less, well, robotic and more multi—skilled.

this motion is actually independent of where we place