singing in italian. we start this week in one of europe s most breathtakingly beautiful destinations, venice, in north east italy. this city on water is made up of over 100 islets, interconnected by a labyrinth of picture perfect canals and elegant bridges. life around here has remained the same for hundreds of years and steadfast through that time have been the gondoliers of venice. they see themselves as custodians of the city. today, there are only 400 gondoliers left and they are almost exclusively used by tourists. so it was in the family? with the local population of around 50,000 people dwarfed by 20 million visitors every year, the gondoliers aren t short of a customer or two. and while that is good for business, the numbers swelling the main tourist areas inevitably create a huge problem. increased pollution, including discarded junk clogging up the famous waterways. but now some of the gondoliers who ply their trade in the 276 canals are doing something about it. th
more than 5,000 athletes from 72 nations and territories will compete over the next 11 days. and the return of the tiger, why nepal kept its promise to double numbers in the last decade. it s 8am in singapore, and eight in the evening in washington, where presidentjoe biden has spent more than two hours on the phone with his chinese counterpart, xijinping. taiwan emerged once again as a key point of tension between the two leaders, this time sparked by a possible visit there by the us house speaker, nancy pelosi. although the visit hasn t yet been confirmed, mr biden told xijinping, that washington strongly opposed any unilateral moves that would change the island s status, or undermine stability across the taiwan straits. president xi said: those who play with fire will only get burnt. joe biden responded to that with on taiwan the us policy has not changed. so where does that leave diplomatic relations? well, with an assessment of that phone call, here s the bbc s barba
the 22nd commonwealth games are finally underway. the opening ceremony took place on thursday evening in birmingham. now on bbc news split at birth: twins divided. february of 2018, there was a 2020 episode about louise wise agency separating identical twins back in the mid 60s, and my older sister who s adopted, called me and said, can you imagine if either of us was a twin? and i said, well, that s ridiculous. and i remember getting a shiver all over my body thinking, wow, what if this was real? in the 1960s, an adoption agency in new york, the louise wise services, began a policy to deliberately split up identical and fraternal twins, and place the infants in different families. the adoptive parents were never told that their children had siblings. any louise wise adoptee from the 605 has every right to think perhaps they have a twin. the separated twins were placed in a controversial study to explore what makes us who we are, and how much is defined by nature versu
in the last decade. president biden has spent more than two hours on the phone with his chinese counterpart, xijinping. the two leaders both issued warnings about taiwan, which has once again emerged as a key point of tension, following reports of a possible visit there by the us house speaker nancy pelosi. although the visit hasn t been confirmed, mr biden told mr xi that washington strongly opposed any unilateral moves that would change the island s status, or undermine stability across the taiwan straits. president xi said: joe biden responded to that by saying, 0n taiwan, the us policy has not changed. so where does that leave us? with an assessment of that phone call, here s the bbc s barbara plett usher in washington. the chinese are pretty blunt about their position on taiwan and that readout said that xijinping had emphasised that position, which is that taiwan is part of china and there is no room for taiwanese independence, that he had told president biden that
to double its numbers in the last decade. welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. president biden has spent more than two hours on the phone with his chinese counterpart, xijinping. the two leaders both issued warnings about taiwan, which has once again emerged as a key point of tension, following reports of a possible visit there by the us house speaker nancy pelosi. although the visit hasn t been confirmed, mr biden told xi jinping, that washington strongly opposed any unilateral moves that would change the island s status, or undermine stability across the taiwan straits. president xi said: those who play with fire will only get burned. joe biden responded to that with on taiwan, the us policy has not changed. let s speak now to craig singleton, a national security expert, and former us diplomat, who s a senior china fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracies. thank you forjoining here on bbc world news. it was something of a marat