leader ferdinand marcos is the front runner ahead of next month's poll. the former bbc radio 1 dj tim westwood faces allegations of sexual misconduct by women who say he abused his position in the music industry. he kept putting his hand on my leg and stroking my leg and touching my face. running his hands in my hair, like, what are you doing? like, stop touching me. and working against the clock — the cafe where finishing the job is part of the service. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. hello and welcome to the programme. as the conflict in ukraine enters its third month, the united nations secretary—general has embarked on a diplomatic mission. antonio guterres took part in talks with president putin, after which the russian leader repeated his stated reasons for invading ukraine, while claiming that he still hoped for a diplomatic solution. the un says president putin has agreed "in principle" to the un and the red cross being involved in the evacuation of civilians from the azovstal steel plant in the besieged city of mariupol. in a major policy move, germany has now authorised the supply of dozens of tanks to ukraine. and the us has committed to supporting ukraine's resistance "for the long haul". our russia editor steve rosenberg reports from moscow. he was trying to show it was business as usual. in the kremlin, vladimir putin began the day meeting russian olympic champions. like them, he hates losing. with the olympians, putin was up close and personal. not so with his next guest. the un secretary—general had come to talk about russia's invasion of ukraine. the seating plan said everything about the gap between moscow and the international community. translation: you're telling me that russia's humanitarian - corridors in ukraine are not functioning. mr secretary general, you've been deceived. the corridors are open. we've helped more than 100,000 people leave mariupol. and from the un, a plea to russia for peace. it is my deep conviction that the sooner we end this war, the better, for the people of ukraine, for the people of the russian federation and those far beyond. the kremlin agreed in principle to un and red cross involvement in evacuations from mariupol. but moscow isn't rushing to halt its offensive. for diplomacy to succeed, there needs to be the political will for peace. but right now, there's little sign of that in the kremlin. vladimir putin seems determined to continue the offensive he launched in ukraine — at least until he can secure what he can present to the russian people as a victory. that means no ceasefire in ukraine. the russian military continues to attack, and continues to deny that russian troops have committed war crimes. kremlin critics argue that considering the scale of destruction, the un chief should have travelled to ukraine first before flying to moscow. i'm not in a position to give any advice to the general secretary of the united nations, but i would probably go to mariupol first. i would go to bucha. i would go to irpin. i would go to all those places, talk to people and then fly back to moscow and meet with putin and say, "mr president, what you are doing is crime." russia claims to be acting in self—defence, but it was president putin who ordered his troops to attack ukraine. the kremlin started this. it's determined to end it on its terms. the head of the international atomic energy agency has visited the dis—used chernobyl nuclear power plant and said the risk of an accident when russian soldiers were in charge had been serious. russian troops took over the site on the first day of the invasion of ukraine and stayed there for several weeks. workers told the bbc they were forced to steal fuel to keep generators working and prevent a dangerous leak of radioactive material. our eastern europe correspondent sarah rainsford travelled with the iaea and sent us this report. the road to chernobyl is littered with the wreckage of war. this was a route taken by russian tanks as they advanced on kyiv. it cuts right through the contaminated zone, around the world's worst ever nuclear disaster, but hundreds of russian troops stopped and made their base here at the atomic plant. very good. well done, well done... today, the head of the un's nuclear energy watchdog thanked the ukrainian technicians who stayed at their post, protecting the site under occupation. i don't know if we were very close to disaster, but the situation was absolutely abnormal and very, very dangerous. the un brought radiation monitors and other kits to replace what was damaged by the russians or stolen when they withdrew. the troops had dug trenches into radioactive soil here and churned up dangerous dust with their armoured vehicles, apparently oblivious to the risk. the un says radiation levels here are now back to normal, but the ukrainian military are still clearing the area of mines and booby—traps. one word that's used about the russian troops�* presence here in chernobyl is "reckless" — the very fact that troops occupied a nuclear facility in the first place, and then the way they behaved while they were here. the risk of an accident here was real. slavia ukraini! so as they marked the anniversary of the 1986 meltdown, ukrainian officials said they diverted another disaster, although the soldiers on guard when the russians rolled in were all captured. 169 from this unit are now missing. "they're our comrades and we're worried about them," alexander tells me. "we want them back as soon as possible." just beyond the exclusion zone, the invading troops occupied houses too. here, they parked a tank right outside. nina was so scared, she hid in the woods. "we stayed there for two nights without any food "or water," she tells me. "it was awful." nina's fear was no high—tech nuclear accident, it was the russian soldiers who climbed through her window and took over her home. sarah rainsford, bbc news, chernobyl. to the philippines now, where injust over two weeks, filipinos will vote for their next president. the current frontrunner is bongbong marcos, the son of the country's late dictator ferdinand marcos — whose corrupt and autocratic rule led to him being deposed in popular revolt in 1986. marcoer says he will make the country "rise again" but has been criticised for avoiding serious scrutiny about his father's legacy during election campaigning. howard johnson reports from manila. activists and students out in force during a public holiday to commemorate the popular uprising that ousted late philippine dictator ferdinand marcos. mr marcos ruled the country for two decades, much of it under martial law. his regime rigged elections, tortured and killed political opponents and plundered an estimated $10 billion. more than 30 years on, his son bongbong marcos is on the verge to returning the family to power. he's currently the front—runner in opinion polls, with his nearest rival leni robredo more than 30 percentage points behind. opponents of marcos believe that online disinformation, whitewashing the crimes of the past, is at the heart of the family's reversal of fortunes. but some truths are indelible. boni ilagan�*s sister rizalina, a student activist, was abducted by government forces in 1977 with nine other students. of course, the marcos keep on saying that, "we have to move on, we have to unite," but moving on means you have found peace with the past. how can the likes of me find peace with the past when the disappearance of my sister has not been explained? but there are millions of people in the philippines who support bongbong marcos. in the 1970s, former mayor primo lirio allied himself with ferdinand marcos to receive preferential treatment to develop his town. i know that he wants this country to be great, again. what about the people whose loved ones disappeared? yeah, it did happen. it really happened, yeah. but why will they point out at marcos for all of this death? oh, i actually know that — bridge over troubled water. bongbong's election team says theirs is a positive campaign, direct to the people through social media... again, we will have to skip mr marcos, who is absent... ..but he's refused to take part in several primetime tv debates and independent media interviews, so we approached mr marcos at a rally. mr marcos, can you really be a good president if you don't answer serious questions? sorry? can you really be a good president if you're not doing serious interviews? are you hiding something from the public? despite facts proven by court evidence, intelligence and whistle—blower accounts, many in the philippines say the reporting of the marcos—era abuses is not true. misinformation is prolific here, and it's turning philippine history on its head. howard johnson, bbc news, manila. the former bbc radio 1 dj tim westwood is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by women who say he abused his position in the music industry. the 64—year—old is accused of predatory and unwanted sexual behaviour and touching, in incidents between 1992 and 2017. the bbc and the guardian newspaper have heard detailed accounts from seven women in a joint investigation. their identities have been protected. tim westwood strenuously denies all the allegations. our correspondent chi chi izundu has this report. this is not about music now, and i'm just very, very scared. this is predatory behaviour. i was 17. if you are trying to remove an item of my clothing - and i put it back on, that means i don't l want it to be gone. this is the story from a group of women. this was an assault. an abuse of power. seven women, who alleged they had been subjected to unexpected and unwanted sexual behaviour from the former bbc radio1 dj, tim westwood. it's westwood. we are live on bbc two. this is how radio 1 get down. pamela — not her real name — used to work with kids trying to get into music. she said tim westwood invited her to do work experience at radio 1 because he wanted help getting a younger audience. so i get to london and he picks me up personally. i remember being in the car. he kept putting his hand on my leg and stroking my leg and touching my face. running his hands in my hair, like, what are you doing? like, stop touching me. we went back to his apartment. i was meant to be staying in a hotel. as i'm sat in his apartment, i'm thinking, "ok, when am i "getting to this hotel? this is what i should have clarified, but i didn't. he came up and i sat on the edge of the bed and then he starts touching me and removing stuff and i'm pulling it back. he's kissing me on the neck and... i didn't give him any come on. there was no flirtation. that's not somebody i would ever look and find attractive. so, me sat in this house thinking, "how am i going "to get out of this?" but knowing i can't get out of it — i'm in london alone with this guy who's a lot older than me. if i try to get out of it, who's to say how he's going to react? so i just submit to it. traumatic — that's how i would describe it. in a statement, the bbc said... another two women have accused the dj of predatory and unwanted sexual behaviour when they were 17 and 20. whilst another four women that we have spoken to accuse the dj of either grabbing their breast or slipping his hand down the back of their shorts or up their skirt, after taking a picture with him at nightclubs. the earliest alleged incident took place in 1992, the most recent in 2017. none of them went to the police. nowadays, i'm a big dog. as an early adopter of hip—hop, tim westwood has been a prominent figure in black music for more than a0 years. he presented bbc radio 1's rap show for nearly 20, interviewing some of the biggest names on his show. he says he strenuously denies all these allegations. all of the women that we spoke to as part of this investigation have two things in common. number one, they were all young, and numbertwo, they are all black. and all have the same question of their experience with tim westwood — who do you tell? because this is a man who has huge power in the music industry and a huge influence in black communities. and because they're black women, they felt that their experiences would be ignored. i want him and people like him to be held accountable. we have to stop protecting these people. chi chi izundu, bbc news. you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme: working against the clock — the cafe where finishing the job is part of the service. nothing, it seemed, was too big to withstand the force of the tornado. the extent of the devastation will lead to renewed calls for government help to build better housing. internationally, there have already been protests. sweden says it received no warning of the accident. indeed, the russians at first denied anything had gone wrong. only when radioactivity levels began to increase outside russia were they forced to admit the accident. for the mujahideen, the mood here is of great celebration. this is the end of a 12—year war for them. they've taken the capital, which they've been fighting for for so long. it was 7.00 in the morning. on the day when power began to pass from the minority- to the majority, when africa, after 300 years, reclaimed its last white colony. - this is newsday on the bbc. i'm karishma vaswani in singapore. our headlines: the un secretary general, antonio guterres, holds talks in moscow about the invasion of ukraine. president putin refuses to stop the shelling. the us defence secretary, lloyd austin, says staunch support for ukraine in its battle with russia will continue "for the long haul." to china now — where, until earlier this spring, the country had claimed success in managing covid. but earlier this year, it all started to go wrong. shanghai followed hong kong and dozens of other cities as infections of omicron spread quickly. many complained they were starving, unable to work or buy food, and in places deaths spiked too. now attention is turning to beijing, as questions multiply about whether china's leaders need a new covid plan. here's ben chu. families in beijing rush to stock up on food, supermarkets stay open late... ..and residents are compelled to queue up for mandatory testing. the fear is that this mass testing, now ordered across most of the districts of the chinese capital as the number of detected coronavirus cases creeps up, could be a prelude to beijing itself being plunged into one of the planet's most stringent lockdowns. the chinese national government has used strict municipal lockdowns — like the one in shanghai, four weeks old and counting — to pursue its dynamic zero covid policy. beijing residents have seen it coming. hence the food hoarding by its residents. news of the outbreak in beijing has prompted a steep stock market sell—off. shares are now down around 6% since last friday's close. criticism of lockdowns is proscribed, but increasingly, protests are breaking through on social media. china is no democracy, but public opinion is not irrelevant to the regime, and the backdrop for this surge in discontent is the run—up to the 20th communist party congress in november, where xijinping is expected to be granted an unprecedented third term as china's paramount leader. as china's economic growth grinds inexorably lower amid the multiplying disruptive lockdowns, it's increasingly clear xi jinping can't have both common prosperity and zero covid. many regime watchers think something will have to give. but the big question is, which will it be? that was ben chu reporting on that story for us. to discuss all this, i'm joined now by professor david goodman, director of the china studies centre at the university of sydney, where he is also professor of chinese politics. it's great to get you on the programme, professor goodman. i want to start by asking you, how much pressure is xijinping under right now from what is going on with covid in china? and is that pressure different from what the communist party is facing? do people see these two things as separate entities in china? ., ., , ., �* in china? no, i really don't think s0- — in china? no, i really don't think so. of— in china? no, i really don't think so. of course, - in china? no, i really don't think so. of course, at - in china? no, i really don't. think so. of course, at various times in the past, the tavern classes made a difference between mao zedong and the communist party, but that's not what is going on, and in general terms, what is going on, and in generalterms, in what is going on, and in general terms, in authoritarian systems, people tend to blame the local officials rather than the local officials rather than the number one supreme leader. even at the height of mall's mendis at the end of the great leap forward in the date 1950s, people used to write to him and say, "if you knew what your local officials were doing, you would step in and save us," even though they were doing exactly what he had wanted and driven him to do —— mao's madness set point indeed, but professor, now we are hearing stories, seeing reports of people not being able to get food, not being able to leave their homes, deaths are spiking. how much does this threaten the longevity of the nineties threaten the longevity of the ninetie - ., , threaten the longevity of the ninetie ., , ., threaten the longevity of the ninetie— i i nineties communist party? i think it is — nineties communist party? i think it is too _ nineties communist party? i think it is too soon - nineties communist party? i think it is too soon to - nineties communist party? i think it is too soon to say i think it is too soon to say that it threatens the longevity of the chinese communist party. there is a lot of hyperbole on language, if i can take you up on your spike. in shanghai, since the beginning of the pandemic couple of years ago, there have been 145 deaths, which compares favourably to many countries, including britain and germany and australia, where i live it. the real problem in china is not that they are dying, but that they might die, and that the infections made spread, because outside the biggest cities, like beijing and shanghai, health care borders often on the rudimentary, not enough hospital beds, not enough doctors, and that is i think what is driving the severity of the lockdown largely across the world. there is of course the danger of the political backlash, but that will be manageable, i think, backlash, but that will be manageable, ithink, by backlash, but that will be manageable, i think, by the party — because, after all, they include media, including social media.— social media. absolutely, professor, _ social media. absolutely, professor, but _ social media. absolutely, professor, but given - social media. absolutely, j professor, but given what you've described, do you see the sort of approach to covid shifting in any way, from a authorities in china? i think it won't shift _ authorities in china? i think it won't shift in _ authorities in china? i think it won't shift in the - authorities in china? i think it won't shift in the near- it won't shift in the near future, until the attempts to eradicate omicron have basically succeeded. of course, some people may say, from outside china, that that's not possible, that you have to live with these infections, this virus, as you do with flu, and that may well be the long—term consequence, that the moment that will not happen, and i cannot see the strategy using “p cannot see the strategy using up this year. when the shanghai outbreaks started in the beginning of march, there was a much more relaxed approach to dealing with it in the city, until it became clear that it could not, would not hold, and then things had to change. and that's when the severer lockdown came into place and there was clearly a decision in beijing sometime around the end of march that local officials, not just of march that local officials, notjust in shanghai but around the country, who had tried to be a little mindful of too much lockdown had been disciplined. about 70 officials got disciplined for poor implementation of omicron control. ., control. professor david goodman. _ control. professor david goodman, thank - control. professor david goodman, thank you . control. professor david j goodman, thank you for control. professor david - goodman, thank you forjoining us on newsday. and tested to get your thoughts. —— fantastic. before we go, for the aspiring writers out there having trouble finishing their great works, it might be time to head to this coffee shop in tokyo. it's known as the "manuscript writing cafe" — and the deal is that before you leave, you must finish the project you've been working on. as you go in, you have to write down your goal and the amount of time you need to finish. then, throughout the day, the staff will check in to see how your work's going. and that's the perfect cure for procrastination! i certainly could do with some of that. i would love to know whether any of you would as well. thanks so much for joining us on the programme and, for me and the team at newsday, do stay with bbc news for the latest global headlines and analysis. thanks for joining us. hello again. it was southern areas of both england and wales that had the best of the sunshine on tuesday, temperatures reaching 17 degrees and parts of southwest england but also reaching 17 degrees in parts of southwest england but also around cardiff's bute park as well. wasn't like that everywhere, though. after a largely sunny start for quite a few, we had cloud tending to bubble up through the afternoon and spread across the skies, as you can see here on the satellite picture. with that cloud increasing, temperatures weren't as high for many of you. indeed around the eastern coast, just 8 degrees in places. right now, we're seeing a good feed of cloud coming in still from the north sea, so predominantly cloudy weather in scotland and across eastern areas, from northeast england all the way into parts of east anglia. but there are breaks elsewhere, notably across parts of southern england, across parts of the midlands, wales, running into northern ireland, northwest england as well. these areas, you might well start off with a little bit of morning sunshine, but even where you start off with the sun, cloud will tend to bubble up and spread across the skies in any case as we go through the day. so, whether you start off cloudy or cloud develops later on, most of you will see quite a lot of cloud through the day. across northeast scotland, you might hold onto some sunny spells through the afternoon here. there will be one or two elsewhere in the west. temperatures about nine to 14 degrees for most. the area of high pressure has been bringing us this long spell of settled weather, still on the charts for thursday, but it is starting to weaken to a degree. we may well see just a few showers running into northern scotland, maybe one or two not far away from southwest england. otherwise, still predominantly dry, often a lot of cloud friday follows a very similar pattern as well. if you start off with the sunshine, cloud will tend to develop later on. one or two showers for northern scotland, but otherwise it's another dry day with light winds across the whole of the country. temperatures not changing a whole deal either. looking at highs potentially peaking up to 16 degrees where any sunshine breaks through the cloud. the weekend will start to see some changes in the weather as high pressure starts to relinquish its grip. a little area of low pressure could thicken the cloud up enough to bring just a few passing showers. that's most likely across northern areas of the uk, the south most likely to stay dry with a few brighter spells. this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour as newsday continues straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk i'm stephen sackur. vladimir putin claims ukraine is a fake nation. he peddles a moscow centric version of history which draws on centuries of russian imperialism. his invasion of ukraine is about much more than military supremacy, it's about culture, language, identity and values too. my guest is the ukrainian rock star, former mp