welcome to bbc news i m rich preston. our top stories: hospitals overwhelmed in sierra leone after 100 people are killed in a fuel tanker explosion. many more are injured. us police are investigating reports that someone at a houston music festival was injecting people with drugs before the crowd stampeded. the death of a pregnant woman sparks protests in poland against the country s near total ban on abortion. she s said to be the first woman to die as a result of the law. and demonstrations around the world demanding urgent action to combat climate change as the cop26 summit continues.
welcome to bbc news i m rich preston. our top stories: hospitals overwhelmed in sierra leone after 100 people are killed in a fuel tanker explosion. many more are injured. us police are investigating reports that someone at a houston music festival was injecting people with drugs before the crowd stampeded. demonstrations around the world demanding urgent action to combat climate change as the cop26 summit continues. and the death of a pregnant woman sparks protests in poland against the country s near total ban on abortion. she s said to be the first woman to die as a result of the law.
summit in 2015, there were multiple visits by all kinds of world leaders to beijing. clearly, covid is a factor, but i think it illustrates how difficult it has been for the uk to have any influence and they can t really control. i think they are trying to look at other parties, like the eu, perhaps the americans, to bring some influence. there has been a phone call between boris johnson and president xi but there is limited influence and the hope must be that others can bring some influence to bear on china. who knows, maybe some of those countries that benefit from china s largess could have a quiet word in the ear. it was donald trump, who nicknamed his democrat rival for the presidency sleepyjoe . some in mr biden s own party may be wondering whether the president has been asleep on the job. as congressional democrats continued to squabble amongst themselves over how to pass the president s signature infrastructure reform, the results in governatorial elections in two states sugge
how are the british as the kind of chair of this event handling this? do you get a sense as you talk to officials off the record that they have a strategy for engaging china on this issue? it s a great question and it s very sensitive and very difficult. because however you look at it, relations between the uk and china are not exactly brilliant. you can pick from a long list of topics that cause tension. hong kong, for example. china s treatment of the uighurs. the fact that the royal navy has just sailed its new aircraft carrier through the south of china. these are all issues that create, if you like, a difficult atmosphere in the run up to this event, and the fact is that the man chairing cop26, the british minister alok sharma, only managed to get to beijing once in the run up to the summit. whereas, on previous occasions, for example, ahead of the paris