in its attempt to control what's said about china's role in the pandemic — we have a special report. hello and welcome. the trial has begun in the united states of the white policeman accused of killing george floyd — with lawyers and civil rights leaders claiming the case is a referendum onjustice and equality in america. mr floyd's death in minneapolis last may sparked �*black lives matter�* protests across the world — as public anger was fed by distressing footage showing him begging for air as derek chauvin knelt on his neck. mr chauvin denies charges of manslaughter and murder. aleem maqbool reports from minneapolis. (tx this marks the start of what will be an emotional and fraught few weeks for the family of george floyd. but the reminders have, of course, never gone away of the way he died. we need justice. i think throughout this whole trial, that's one word that you will hear me and my family say a lot — justice. somebody needs to be held accountable. do you swear or affirm... the outrage the case sparked became an examination of systemic racism in the us. but prosecution lawyers started by bringing back the focus to the man seen here on the right. this case is about mr derek chauvin and not about any of those men and women, it's not about all policing at all. this is when i started watching again. they showed jurors new cctv footage of the lead up to george floyd's death, as well as the full infamous video that caused such distress. and the most important numbers you will hear in this trial are nine two nine. what happened in those nine minutes and 29 seconds when mr derek chauvin was applying this excessive force to body of mr george floyd. in his opening statement, the lawyerfor the former police officer defended his tactics. derek chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19—year career. the use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing. but primarily, they are also questioning one fundamental aspect of the death of george floyd, as i heard from a lawyer for the city's police union. the defense�*s main arguments are going to focus around whether or not chauvin actually caused his death. that is an argument that he would've died anyway. right, right. yeah, and i think, well,... that, for a lot of people who saw the video, will sound ludicrous, frankly. um, well, the video isn't the whole story, it's a piece of the story, and that is what the jury will have to decide. these protests outside the courthouse are a reminder of the strength of feeling there was last summer, notjust here but all over the world. but in this case, one of the most important in us history, will come down to, of course, is the opinion of i2jurors. aleem maqbool, bbc news, minneapolis. don't forget you'll find lots more reaction and anaylsis on our website. including a piece — on the power of the police — and this summary of what happened during the first day. just go to bbc.com/news — or download the bbc news app. ghislaine maxwell, the longtime associate of convicted sex offender jeffrey epstein, has been charged with sex trafficking of a minor, in a new federal indictment filed in manhattan. prosecutors have identified a fourth alleged victim — a 14—year—old girl. let's get more from our north america corresondent, peter bowes. give us what more details you have. , ., ., , give us what more details you have. , . .,, ,., give us what more details you have. , . , have. yes, and as you say, this brinus have. yes, and as you say, this brings to _ have. yes, and as you say, this brings to the — have. yes, and as you say, this brings to the fore _ have. yes, and as you say, this brings to the fore now - have. yes, and as you say, this brings to the fore now the - brings to the fore now the number of alleged victims in this case and the two new charges related to a minor, a girl aged 14 according to prosecutors recruited by ghislaine maxwell to carry out massages with her former boyfriend jeffrey epstein. massages which turned into sexual encounters. these are from the time period much later than the earlier six charges that we already knew about. they are from a period of 2001-2004. they are from a period of 2001—2004. prosecutors were talking about alleged offences between 1994 and 1997 so it is a much wider window that we now know that investigators have been looking at. jeffrey epstein took his own life in 2019. he was awaiting trial on multiple sex trafficking charges at the time. but the investigation continued and it was within one year that ghislaine maxwell found herself being arrested at her home and taken into custody. the first charges set against her she appeared in court, she denied all of those charges and quite significantly, at the time, she was denied bail, which is why but now she is in a prison cell in new york. she was denied because prosecutors said she posed a flight risk, serious flight risk, and clearly that is something that the judge in the case agreed with. she is awaiting trial on those old charges on these two new charges on these two new charges and that will go ahead injust a few charges and that will go ahead in just a few months injuly. peter, thank you very much for that. peter, thank you very much for that. let's get some of the day's other news. the us has suspended a trade pact with myanmar — a response to the deadliest weekend of violence since february's military coup. more than 100 people, including several children, were killed on saturday. the biden administration has condemned an attack by islamist militants on a town in mozambique as �*horrific�*. the so—called islamic state group claims to be in control of palma, but the situation on the ground is unclear. workers at an amazon warehouse in the us state of alabama have been deciding whether to unionise in a closely—watched vote that could mark a first in the country. 6,000 workers were eligible to cast their ballots by the end of monday. the retail giant has strongly opposed the effort. president biden has asked governors and mayors in the us to continue to require people to wearface masks in public. he said reckless behaviour was causing a rise in the number of coronavirus infections. latin america's largest country, brazil, has descended into covid—induced chaos, with more new case numbers, and deaths, than any other nation on earth. presidentjair bolsonaro has also lost two key cabinet ministers, as he comes under increasing pressure over his handling of the pandemic. mark lobel reports. throughout the pandemic governments around the world have tried to avoid hospital scenes like these. queues for intensive care units. this one filmed over the past week in south—east brazil where the local mayor has rallied against locking down. some covid patients have died in line, waiting. people have been talking for months about the risk of the public health system collapsing. sadly, that moment has come. the virus is spreading across the country as deaths are found here at an alarming rate. there are political casualties, too. the president, who has rallied against lockdown himself has lost two ministers in one day. his loyal foreign minister has been under pressure for weeks. after his trump—like attacks on china may have delayed his country's others to secure their vaccines. his defence minister's resignation, without giving a reason, came as more of a surprise. there has been a glimmer of good news. bolsonaro's newly installed foretells the health minister said brazil could receive vaccine supplies from the usa sooner than expected. but for some it is all too late. jose spent much of his life ferrying the sick and injured to hospital but earlier this month the retired ambulance driver took the familiar bit once more as a passenger gasping for breath. when the 63—year—old needed intensive care himself doctors in sao paulo explained there was no more room. translation: all his life he worked to save people and in the hour that he needed help there was nothing for him. his son recounted watching his father dying without being able to do anything about it. there is no doubt similarfears currently waiting for itu beds across the country. a french court has found drugmaker servier guilty of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated deceit over its weight—loss pill mediator. az—a—day moshiri reports. she has been waiting years for this moment. her mother died at the age of 51 and sheens is a weight loss pill was responsible. she is one of the thousands of plaintiffs in one of france's biggest health scandals. a pill for overweight diabetics pull forfear scandals. a pill for overweight diabetics pull for fear it could cause heart problems and believed to have killed anywhere between 502,000 people. and now the french courts have finally agreed. the french car company has been found guilty of aggravated deceit and involuntary manslaughter. the scandal was even made into a film centred along a doctor, french pulmonologist who exposed the scandal. your mother died 2004 and it was only years later that you understood that it was because of this medication. so what was the moment like for you? translation: it was quite a unique moment. a moment when the pulmonologist, the reason the pulmonologist, the reason the scandal surfaced, she wrote a book. my father read this book, made the connection with my mother's death. my mother taking this medicine. she had had a bit of hypertension and suddenly died brutally very, very young. the company denied any knowledge of the pill�*s side effect but the court has fined the drug maker 2.7 million euros. as former deputy chairman was handed a suspended prison sentence in france's medical regulator was fined more than 300,000 euros for what thejudge called more than 300,000 euros for what the judge called serious failings. translation: the only thing that we can tell you today is that we can tell you today is that we can tell you today is that we are going to look in detail at the decision that will have been handed down by the judges will have been handed down by thejudges and we will have been handed down by the judges and we will obviously provide our clients with our inside as the appropriate follow—up to this but this may not be the end of it. other plaintiffs are looking into pursuing a civil case for more damages and she helps otherfamilies can case for more damages and she helps other families can be spared the tragedy she and other victims have gone through. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: back afloat and on its way out of the suez canal — this is bbc news, the latest headlines. the trial has begun in the us city of minneapolis of the white police officer charged with the murder of george floyd. prosecutors in new york announce new charges against ghislaine maxwell — the british socialite accused of grooming young girls for herformer partner, jeffrey epstein. returning to our top story, a little earlier i spoke to minnesota defence attorney f clayton tyler, who also served as president of the state association of black lawyers. i asked him about the significance of the case. i have been around for 40 years practising private law and some public defence, and my office is about a block and a half from the court. you can't even get into the courthouse right now. it is quite unusual. how big a deal would you say this case is? i would say that this case is the biggest case that has happened in minnesota history but for all practical purposes in the world. this is a big case because of black lives matter, because most people don't get the opportunity to see someone die in front of them with the look on the officer's face that they saw. despite the video, though, despite all the reaction to that across the country and worldwide, it is quite possible, isn't it, that this case might not go the way that many people would like to see it go? historically it has been very difficult, hasn't it, to getjuries to convict police officers? i think it has been very, very difficult because most people give police the presumption of innocence, and saying they're going to do theirjob, and theirjob is to react in a split second to different variable sets of circumstances. unfortunately, most of their interactions are not videoed like this one, and in this particular case i think the video is quite telling, and it is going to be an insurmountable task for the defence to convince the jury that he did not do something wrong. and difficult to argue that they were split—second decisions when he was kneeling on george floyd's neck for so long. it's going to centre on the cause of death. the proximate cause. yeah, definitely the cause of death. the defence is going to argue that it was the fentanyl that caused death and he had a heart attack. the prosecution put on an excellent case this morning in terms of the opening argument and they are going to say it was excessive use of force and the knee on the back of his neck and on his body that caused his death and i think the medical experts in the case will support that theory. the defence, i think, as you have alluded to, had said that the video is just not the whole story. how do you think that will play? i don't think it will play very well because it is such a compelling video, first of all. for the defence to make the allegation that there were a bunch of people out there and they were afraid for their lives, ijust don't think thejury is going to buy that type of scenario. ships have started sailing through the suez canal again, after a giant container vessel blocking the way was freed. the ever given was trapped for nearly a week in one of the world's busiest trade routes. a team of tug boats succeeded in pulling herfree and she's been towed north for a safety inspection. dharshini david reports. for six days, it's gripped and confounded the world, but the bottleneck sealing one of the busiest shipping lanes has been uncorked. the ever given, owned by company evergreen, is finally on the move thanks to a fleet of tug boats, diggers and an exceptionally high tide. moving the ship was never going to be easy. the 150—year—old canal is less than 300 metres wide. by contrast, the mega ship is 400 metres long, and 20 times heavier than the eiffel tower. almost 30,000 cubic metres of mud have had to be shifted, also shifting the costs. carrying 20,000 containers, the ever given is the answer to our growing shopping list. a similar number of ships go down the canal as did 40 years ago, but now they're carrying more than three times as much. around 52 go through everyday, accounting for around 12%, or £7 billion, of global trade. now, behind the ever given, there have been more than 300 vessels queueing, their cargo everything from food to medicine to livestock and cars. they too may have more trouble on the horizon. there is a large backlog of vessels that are waiting to go through the canal from both sides, and i think even operating at full capacity, it's going to take probably several weeks to get back to normal. and in the meantime, of course, the vessels that are starting off that were due to travel through the canal at the moment will continue to be diverted. the ever given and its cargo was due to arrive in felixstowe next week, but its customers and many other still await an eta. we have six containers on the sea on the wrong side of the suez canal, and the reality, we're a fun gift business, which means our product isn't critical, but there's a lot of critical products and essentials on those vessels. but how to prevent a repeat of this disruption? analysts say the egyptian authorities will be looking closely. it's a major artery - for the world so none of us want to see this happening. again, so anything that can be done to create a safer - environment for this i think will be looked at and dealt with in due course. - a pandemic, changes due to brexit, rising shipping costs and now this. the trade that propels jobs and profits has faced fierce headwinds. it will be awhile before it gets back on course. dharshini david, bbc news. the united states has warned it could impose steep tariffs on british exports in retaliation for the uk's digital services tax, which has hit some of america's technology giants, including social media platforms and internet search engines. the british goverment says it wants to ensure that tech companies pay their fair share of tax, but washington has drawn up a long list of british goods it plans to target. a new study has found that spending very long periods of time in space and taking part in extreme endurance swimming, can cause the heart to shrink. the research compared the effects of astronaut scott kelly's year in space with a marathon swim across the pacific ocean by athlete benoit lecomte. the study was led by dr benjamin levine, professor of internal medicine at the university of texas southwestern medical center in dallas. he told me more. the heart has to pump a pill but in space of the water does not have to do that and depending on what your background physical activities that can unload the heart. the heart is like any other muscle. if you wait to build your heart muscle and skeletal muscle and then you stop lifting the muscle will shrink. we've done some studies on the ground where we put people to bed which is a grand base model, an analogue for space flight. the notion that if you can exercise hard enough and intense enough while you bed you can prevent that adaptation. and for scott kelly his heart certainly was fine. it did not get weaker but it did shrink with even the amount of exercise he did with amount of exercise he did with a year in space was insufficient. i did not surprise me as much as swimming. if we had to bed before the study i would have been nearly certain that his heart would have been protected and would not have shrunk and in fact i thought it would get biggerfrom all the in fact i thought it would get bigger from all the exercise he did but it turned out that swimming for eight hours a day in the pacific ocean is a low intensity effort and not enough to overcome the date of loss of gravity. a long awaited report into the origins of the pandemic, from the world health organisation's mission to china, will be released on tuesday. china's response to the covid—19 outbreak has been scrutinised since the virus was first detected in wuhan. but beijing has been trying to take greater control of what is said about its role in the pandemic — using often questionable tactics. krassi twigg from bbc monitoring reports. the truth about the coronavirus pandemic according to china. over the past year, china has been trying to convince the world that it has handled the crisis well. in an effort to shift any blame for the outbreak, beijing launched an all—out information offensive, fighting the assumption it all started in wuhan and undermining western vaccines. state media and officials have been keen to highlight the death of people who have received pfizer shots, questioning the safety of western vaccines without basis. we have seen evidence that audiences internationally are engaging in content produced by chinese state media outlets surrounding vaccine hesitancy, surrounding concerns about the western vaccines. these messages are in some cases quite effective because it is reinforcing doubts that people may already be having. the fears are this kind of misinformation risks damaging public health. china's determination to push its counter narrative on the crisis goes back to the origins of covid—19. this report by the chinese state channel, cgtn suggest that the virus came not from china but from a military research base in the us. china endorsed the theory in response to us claims that the virus escaped from a lab in wuhan, as well as provocative remarks by donald trump. coronavirus, right? "kung—flu", yeah? this claim was amplified by a host of actors, state media outlets abroad in many languages. the so—called wolf warrior diplomats taking a fiery new brand of diplomacy to twitter and the huge network of bots. china really has a wide variety of tools at its disposal, and it's pulling all of these levers at different times to try and influence international narratives. and often times, this is to protect the chinese communist pa rty�*s genesee. beijing denies its involved in a misinformation campaign and insists that the world health organization should visit other countries to investigate where the virus came from. in the meantime, china continues to portray itself as a global force for good, helping others out of the crisis. and you can get in touch with me and most of hello. monday brought us the warmest day of the year so far, with temperatures in the southeast at 20.4 celsius, and things will get even warmer over the next few days. so a lot of warm, sunny weather, but not everywhere. some wet weather holding on across the northwest of scotland, really quite persistent rain there. and then later this week, from around thursday onwards, things are turning colderfor all of us with the return of some overnight frosts as well. for now, here's the weather front that's slow moving across the northwest of scotland. that's producing further outbreaks of rain, we could see some localised flooding for northern and western parts of the highlands, also for the western isles and the northern isles. elsewhere, a dry story, quite cloudy for parts of northern ireland, southern scotland and the far north of england. but the cloud should thin and break up through the day, long spells of warm sunshine further south and light winds. temperatures up to 23 degrees across the southeast of england. but above 20 for england and wales, up in the high teens for scotland and northern ireland. through this evening and overnight, we see that rain persisting again across the western half of scotland, but it will start to edge its way gradually a little bit further south. temperatures first thing wednesday morning won't be quite as chilly as first thing tuesday morning, so typically between 7—9 celsius. now as we head through tuesday night into wednesday, there is the weather front, which slowly during wednesday morning will start to filter its way a little further south. so the rain's continuing across parts of scotland through the day, very slowly, some of it nudging across northern ireland. really, england and wales staying dry once again on wednesday, and with those clear, blue skies, it will be another warm day. very warm in fact for march, between 19—23 degreese once again, but things starting to turn a little bit cooler across scotland and northern ireland too. 11 or 12 here, and single figures across the northern half of scotland. that's down to the fact that this weather front is introducing colder air from the north towards the end of the week. as that slips its way down towards the south, the blue colours are going to return to the map. so this colder air moving in from an arctic direction, and that is going to feel very different as we head towards good friday and into the easter weekend as well. so certainly turning colder later this week, some wintry showers possible, but the next few days looking warm for many of us. bye— bye. on s: this is bbc news, the headlines: lawyers in the us city of minneapolis have set out their opening arguments in the trial of a white former police officer accused of killing george floyd. the prosecutor replayed the full nine—minute video showing the former officer kneeling on mr floyd's neck as he struggled to breathe. prosecutors in new york have expanded their criminal case against ghislaine maxwell, the british socialite accused of grooming young girls for herformer partner, the sex offender jeffrey epstein. she denies all charges. the new count involves a fourth alleged victim — a 14—year—old girl. ships have started sailing through the suez canal after the giant container vessel that blocked the channel, for almost a week, was freed. tug boats that took part in the rescue honked their horns in celebration. egyptian officials say the backlog will be cleared in around three days. now on bbc news, the travel show. this week on the show, working in travel through