The ukrainian first lady, waters said extreme nationalists have set their country on the path to a disastrous war. Now on bbc news, our world. Stephen mcdonell travels across china and meets people struggling to stay afloat, with their country showing no signs of abandoning zero covid policy. When it comes to the fight against the coronavirus, one country stands alone. Elsewhere, vaccines have meant learning to live with the virus. Not in china. No income. This is my lowest point and, you know, as a man i cant do anything. Each outbreak is still being met with strict measures to return an area to no new infections. It has held back the death rates and stopped hospitals from being swamped. But its also exhausting the population and hammering the economy. With no clear exit strategy, how long can china keep this up . This is the outskirts of beijing, and when you cross that river you are actually crossing into neighbouring Hubei Province and the town of yanzhou. Now, yanzhou is a popular place to live for people with more modest incomes, because they can afford to pay the rent here and commute into the capital. It all seemed like a great idea until these zero covid measures really started kicking in and they found themselves stuck, unable to get from the place where they live to the place where they work. Injune, anger from the workers of Yanzhou Burst onto the streets. They were blocked from entering beijing because of clusters of new cases. These restrictions have now been eased, but the threat of sudden lockouts can make yanzhous long commute workers unattractive for employers. The buses fill up, but they are often delayed, and people run late for work, following time consuming id and health code checks. For some, losing a job in beijing means returning to your home town. But travel poses its own risks. Chinas high speed trains are normally incredibly efficient, leaving and arriving bang on time. But with zero covid, nothing is certain. This is us. Transport spreads the coronavirus. However, in china, this is more thanjust a health risk. Injune, a train was suddenly stopped mid journey after a person who had tested positive was accidentally allowed on board. They are all ordered into immediate quarantine. Officials can no longer count on automatic cooperation from travellers burnt out by zero covid. The thing you have to be aware of when you are travelling in china at the moment is that when you visit a place, cases can suddenly emerge and your Phone App Health Code will change colour. You cant leave again until its green. Who knows how long that will take . Weve arrived in xian, lets hope that doesnt happen. So on arrival we have to scan a new local health code, and then do a pcr test before we can even leave the station. Xian is one of the most famous places in china. Since the days of the silk road, it has been an engine for inland chinas economy. This ancient capital is a popular place for tourists because you dont have to look far to see the remnants of its former glory. It has also had several stay at home covid lockdowns, one keeping 13 Million People indoors for a month. Other cities, like if you went to. Addison sun used his english Language Skills to become a tour guide here, specialising in the international market. Here we are. Then came the coronavirus. Just generally speaking, how damaging for the Tourism Industry in xian has the pandemic been . Well, for the International Tourism, 100 . Killed it . Yes, yes. Because no one could come to china, come to china, come to xian. Ancient sites, once packed with travellers, became only sparsely covered with local tourists. At times, theyve been empty. And there has been no work for addison sun. No income. This is my lowest point, and as a man, i cant do anything. You had no money coming in at all . So you are feeling bad because you had to fully rely on your wife, is that right, and not contribute . It is hard, at the very beginning it is hard to ask my wife, hey darling, give me 100, 200, i want to buy something. Because before that time, i give my wife, i give my family, my daughter, money. How did you overcome that . What change did you make to make yourself feel good . When i see my daughter, at that time she just was eight years old. Ithink, 0k, my daughter, shes little, so i have to do something. I could not, i have to stand up, you know. Because i am the model, i am the hero for my daughter. Im happy. Do you know why . Because my summer holidays. She is following in her dads footsteps, learning english. Look at this. Wow watermelon. Thanks for watching, see you without the busyness of his normal job, taking his daughter to dancing has become a highlight of addison suns daily routine. He remembers at one point being stuck at home and sleeping through the day, before he decided to make a change so he could inspire his daughter again. In a strange way, though, it was she who has inspired him. Hello, im addison guess, my friend, where i am . Im in xian. Using social media, he is back as a tour guide for all those who cant travel here. I am very happy today, i am on the city wall. In this way, he keeps his hand in and makes a little bit of money. Wow, its really amazing 0ther tour guides seem to have given up altogether and decided to do something else. Why have you not given up . Because i have a very good, very strong faith that International Tourism can recover and we will have a very bright future. So this is my faith. This is why i dont change my mind. Xian� s Muslim Quarter is said to date back to the tang dynasty. A place where traders gathered after traversing the silk road. In normal times it is much more crowded with tourists. But these days you can see near empty restaurants and businesses closed because of a lack of customers. Zhang min says it takes nearly a month to make some of the bags in her shop and that people like them because they are original. But following covid restrictions, she says she has lost so much money she can barely pay the rent. Many Small Businesses in china are onlyjust hanging in there. And there are a lot which couldnt make it through the crisis. The greater the exposure to the international economy, the worse it can be. For decades, chinas economic miracle was built on being the worlds factory, but this countrys Zero Covid Strategy has made this country unreliable suppliers in the eyes of overseas buyers. This place is known as a hub for the clothing industry, but here many warehouses are now empty. This factory, for example, lost a whole season of production because of the covid lockdown. They said they had no way of making this money back. The managers are aware of plenty of other businesses in this town which closed for good this year. They are getting ready to talk to us about this on camera when a man comes in and starts filming us. He then goes and speaks to the boss. There will be no interview. After leaving, we are followed by five cars. Local governments have become paranoid that foreign Media Reports will make their towns look bad in beijings eyes. Elsewhere in the world, questions relating to the coronavirus and the economy wouldnt be so sensitive. Certainly not so sensitive as to warrant shutting down interviews with reporters. Not so in this part of china. Here, the government knows that these zero covid strategies are smashing peoples livelihoods, and it seems doesnt want people speaking about this to the media. Despite being tailed, we have another go at talking to locals about the impact of coronavirus measures on their businesses. For example, how have they survived lockdown . The women we meet are much more frank about the extent of their losses. China once routinely recorded Economic Growth over 10 . Its most recent figure was 0. 4 . Youth unemployment is now at 20 . Pressure is building on the Chinese Government over its handling of this crisis, with a twice a decade communist Party Congress starting on october 16. Many people feel that zero covid has become much about politics as it is about science, and that this stems from xi jinping becoming chinas most powerful leader since chairman mao. Here at the great hall of the people, a big meeting will soon usher in a historic third term in office for xijinping, and the hope was to have china in a stable and tiptop shape when this occurs. However, the coronavirus is not playing nicely. Yet scientists are more likely to be open about the pandemic than politicians, as a key government adviser, this professor is one of the architects of the policy which has stopped chinas hospitals being overloaded. 0nly locally developed vaccines have been approved for use in china, and the government has enforced a strict testing and vaccination policies, it hasnt pushed forced vaccinations. Officially, 80 of Chinese People have been vaccinated, but some have questioned whether the real rate is quite low, especially amongst vulnerable groups. Every night, Chinas Office towers empty, and commuters start the trek back home. In one way, people can be thankful that the virus has been minimised in this vast and densely populated country. If it reopened tomorrow, the disease would spread like wildfire. Yet remaining cut off from the outside world is also coming at a cost. There are no easy options. China cant go on like this forever. The weather over the week ahead dominated mobile or pressure, and in windows that to be because well, following the swell from here sweep and do understand to be because well, following this weather from here sweeping wind southwards, we will have a northerly wind, a strong northerly wind on monday. That will bring cold air down from iceland. And it will bring a mixture of sunshine and showers, the showers will be heavy and more frequent across Northern Scotland and down some of those north sea coasts, but showers elsewhere and some sunshine, too. But the winds will be strong and gusty, perhaps touching gale force in the northern parts of scotland, where temperatures will struggle to make double figures in the afternoon. 16 at best in the far south, but generally 13 or 1a celsius for all of us feeling cold only when does well. We winds continue into the evening, perhaps even down overnight, but further showers and longer spells of rain coming down to scotland. Chilly, though, when we have that colder air in place, so quite a cold night ahead on monday night into tuesday morning. Sing quite cold at night for the next few nights, actually. Some sunshine and showers by day, they were in for while, then we have wet and windy weather for the end of the week. Things have changed a bit, though, for tuesday, we went from alderley reaching us, instead of the low pressure that was near scandinavia that is filling. That will be dominating the story on tuesday. With that low pressure around, we will fine showers and longer spells of rain, quite wet weather in places, windy out in the west, wind midis and across some eastern areas, but those stamp was only 13 or 1a celsius, not very warm at all on tuesday. Things tend to improve on in the middle part of the week, not as windy, on wednesday. More sunshine around, fewer showers, lighter showers, and temperatures just beginning to creep up a little bit, still around 1a or 15 celsius. Heading into thursday, the low pressure that was bringing the wet weather across the uk will be heading towards the southern part of scandinavia, and will start to see the weather changing out to the west, with cloud coming in from off the atlantic to northern ireland, threatening some rain later. Still some showers and eastern parts of scotland, and particularly something england, some sunshine between all the wet weather, temperatures continuing to creep up just a little. Fora will be quite light, not doing much wednesday and thursday, but then the pattern changes for the end of the week. A much strongerjet propagating across the atlantic, which will change the weather pattern. It will pick up an area of low pressure, looks like it will deepen its of the winds will be strengthening, and we will have some rain on friday as well. On the face of it, not a particularly nice day on friday, a lot of rain around, heavy at times, strong even Gale Force Winds pushing that rain in as well. And It Upjust Force Winds pushing that rain in as well. And it up just from 1a to 17 celsius to end the week. That area of low pressure, quite a deep one, will then push away with that strongerjet, and we may well fine another area of low pressure threatening to move in. But it looks like as we head into the following week, pressure will start to build as the jet stream becomes more undulating and buckling somewhat. Some wet and windy weather certainly by the end of the week and into the weekend, before things then it become a bit drier, particularly in the south east. Thats it, goodbye. Italy on the cusp of momentous political change. This is bbc news, im mark lowen, live in rome, where polls havejust closed in a potentially Game Changing election. Polls suggest the Brothers Of Italy Party will come out on top, which would make its leader Giorgia Meloni italys first female prime minister. She would also be the countrys first far right leader since benito mussolini. It all hangs on whether a coalition can be formed with the league, led by matteo salvini, and forza italia, headed by former premier silvio berlusconi. Well bring you all the results and analysis as they come in on this, the most crucial of election nights