leaders from around the world gather to pay their respects. i m outside where the event will be taking place this afternoon but there was growing opposition from protesters citing the legitimacy and the cost. and work begins to remove the tens of thousands of floral tributes left to honour the queen in central london. welcome to the programme. it sounds like a hollywood film, but in under 15 minutes time, the american space agency, nasa, is going to crash a rocket into an asteroid. it is the agency s first planetary defence mission and scientists there are about to try diverting the path of an asteroid by crashing a spacecraft the size of a small car into it. it s a test to see if something similar could be done if an asteroid was heading towards earth in the future. our science editor rebecca morelle has the details. it s a cataclysmic scenario. an asteroid headed for our planet, with the potential for mass devastation. it s happened before. a space rock wiped out the din
declared a state of emergency. in cuba the hurricane knocked out the electricity grid leaving the entire country without power. now on bbc news. hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. vladimir putin did not intend to be in the place he s in right now. he didn t want his ukraine invasion to become a protracted war in which his army is losing ground. he didn t plan to forcibly mobilise military age men across russia, and he didn t want to see internal protests spread. but this is where he is seemingly in trouble. my guest is putin loyalist, russian mp and influential state media commentator evgeny popov. if putin is growing desperate,
he didn t plan to forcibly mobilise military age men across russia, and he didn t want to see internal protests spread. but this is where he is seemingly in trouble. my guest is putin loyalist, russian mp and influential state media commentator evgeny popov. if putin is growing desperate, what does that mean for russia? evgeny popov in moscow, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, stephen, for giving me that floor. oh, it s a pleasure to have you on the show. if i may, i want to begin with words from the kremlin chief spokesman dmitry peskov,