Studios in singapore and london, this is bbc world news. Its newsday. Good morning. It is 7am in singapore, midnight in london, and seven in the evening in florida, where the leaders of the two economic superpowers have met for the first time. Chinas president xi jinping has been met via donald trump at his florida meeting place. There will be a Working Lunch on friday. Earlier, ispoke there will be a Working Lunch on friday. Earlier, i spoke to a former Us Ambassador to the Asian Development bank and i asked him if he anticipated a difficult meeting between the two leaders. Just a smooth meeting will be to the benefit of both. Washington. The Trump Administration is still finding its footing. Not all of the people are in place. There is a lot of talk of what is happening behind the scenes to make sure these discussions will go smoothly. When they go forward these are the things we asa they go forward these are the things we as a nation, the United States, and china, will focus on. Age
will focus on. we ll speak directly to the american people. you ll see the president doing that certainly this year. karine, good morning. happy new year. happy new year. how are you, jonathan? congress comes back next week with a lot on the to-do list. pushing for the supplemental, border deal connected to aid in ukraine, the border funding, and israel. we have the impeachment inquiry into the president. you know, the white house has made clear they don t believe there s any evidence there, but talk to us about how you are preparing for what is coming, you know, in the weeks and months ahead, which, if nothing else, will be a drain on staff, time, pernell, and resources. look, the white house counsel is dealing with this issue, so i ll leave that to them. that is something in their purview. but you said it, jonathan, there is no evidence. it is not just coming from democrats. it is coming from republicans, as well. there is no there there.
access to quality public education and also let s not forget what we are celebrating today, 60 years, or commemorating today. that s what the president will focus on. later this week focus on lowering healthcare costs, response to maui wildfire, you just ask me about his conversation with the governor of florida and what they are dealing with, very devastating shooting that we saw in the city of jacksonville and this hurricane. that s about to hit potentially hit florida. those are the things the president is going to focus on and you ask me how the president is going to work with speaker mccarthy, look, this is a president who wants to work in a bipartisan way and he has been able to do that as it relates to historical pieces of legislation. he wants to continue to do that. and he hopes congressional republicans would continue to join him or join him on doing that, and that s going to be that s going to be his focus, instead of, you know, more baseless political stunts.
they dominated this. really surprised if they were up for discussion at all. the uk has signed up discussion at all. the uk has signed up to an international convention that says we will not use cluster bombs, we will not manufacture them, and we will discourage others from using them. a number of european countries have signed up as well. neither russia nor the united states will want ukraine signed up to this end for a number of reasons, i think the americans agonised for quite a long time about whether to provide these weapons to the ukrainians. i think what they are doing is filling a gap because of the shortage of supplies of shells and ammunition to the ukrainians to enable them to continue to prosecute this counteroffensive against these russian lines on ukrainian territory. i think what the prime minister and president will focus on
a good bit over the last month. at least one more interest rate rise is predicted in the us and uk. smaller banks could face more strain. how relaxed the market is over this rescue deal will become clear in the next few hours. marc ashdown, bbc news. let s turn to the situation in afghanistan. the head of the un, antonio guterres, is meeting international envoys to explore ways to engage with the taliban rulers in afghanistan. the two day gathering in the qatari capital, doha, will focus on issues such as the rights of afghan women and girls. the taliban have not been invited to the meeting. ahead of the talks, a small group of women staged a protest in kabul on saturday opposing any international recognition of the taliban run administration.