This is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Im victoria derbyshire. The uk signs deals for 90 million doses of Coronavirus Vaccines being developed overseas on top of a pledge for 100 million of the Oxford University vaccine. There is a very high degree of confidence but we will be entering trials, will need half a Million People to be able to trial these vaccines Going Forward through the winter. But its a really important part of their development. A new treatment for covid 19 developed by a uk company could dramatically reduce the number of patients needing intensive care. Eu leaders in brussels hold
talks through the night as they attempt to Reach Agreement on a Coronavirus Recovery Fund. As tensions grow between britain and china the uk is expected to announce its suspending its extradition treaty with hong kong. Amber heard takes the stand at Londons High Court in johnny depps libel case against the sun over allegations of Domestic Violence during the pairs relationship. Please do get in touch with us regarding any of todays stories on twitter vicderbyshire or you can email at victoria bbc. Co. Uk. Also coming up this hour an Historic Mission to mars is underway rhe first attempt by the first attempt by the United Arab Emirates to reach the red planet. Hello and welcome if youre
watching in the uk or around the world. Here, the uk government has signed deals for 90 million doses of Coronavirus Vaccine developed overseas. One of them is with a partnership between the german and us pharmaceutical giants biontech and pfizer. Its vaccine produced a strong immune response in early trials. If successful, the first of 30 million doses could arrive by the end of the year. The other deal is with the french firm valneva, which wont begin trials of its jab until the autumn. That agreement is for 60 million doses. And theres already a deal to buy 100 million doses of the vaccine produced by the university of oxford early results of trials for this vaccine are due later today. Also this morning theres been some positive news about a new treatment which could dramatically reduce the numbers of patients needing intensive care. More on that in a moment but first our medical correspondent, fergus walsh has this report. There are now an astonishing 23 Coronavirus Vaccines in Clinical Trials around the world, including two in the uk developed
by Oxford University and Imperial College london. Today, the government announced deals with two overseas vaccine producers. Biontech, pfizer, is one of the frontrunners a german us partnership. Its Coronavirus Vaccine produced a strong immune response in early trials. If its successful, the first of 30 million doses could arrive by the end of the year. The other deal is with the french firm valneva who wont begin trials of theirjab till the autumn. That agreement is for 60 million doses. Its vaccine will contain an inactivated virus. This is a more tried and tested method for creating a vaccine so could be important if others fail. Theres already a deal to buy 100 million doses of the vaccine produced by Oxford University. This may look like the uk government
has overbought but bear in mind that nine in ten vaccines are unsuccessful, and you see, the logic behind the decision to back several horses in the search for a winner. Also, most of the Coronavirus Vaccines in trials require more than one dose. Vaccine trials depend on volunteers. The public are being encouraged to sign up to a new nhs website to speed up the process forjoining Coronavirus Vaccine studies. The aim is to get half a Million People to register interest by october. Fergus walsh, bbc news. The uk education secretary, Gavin Williamson said the vaccines were the most advanced in development. Theres a very high degree of confidence but well be entering trials. Well need half a Million People to be able to trial these vaccines Going Forward through the winter. But its a really important part of their development. But its vital that britain is leading the way and as im sure youll know, britain is a world leader in terms of research and development and we talk about the work thats going on at oxford, but similar work going on at imperial, some amazing universities in this country. But not only are we leading the way in terms of the research, were leading the way in terms of manufacture as well. Youll see the investment and development of manufacturing facilities, you know, expansion in scotland at livingston, but also the creation of a new Vaccine Centre in 0xfordshire as well. So we lead the world on research and development but also lead the world on manufacture. The chair of the vaccine taskforce, kate bingham says the uks is at the forefront of the effort to source and develop vaccines. Were still in the process of actually running the Clinical Trials and the different vaccines weve secured rights to. So what that means is we are assessing whether or not these vaccines are safe and whether or not they provide protection to those who are vaccinated. The rules at which we do that are very tightly regulated by the mhra, which is the regulator in the uk that defines which vaccines and drugs can get licensed. We are well on the way. 0xford, if you take that as an example, has vaccinated over 9000 people so far. So, we are really beginning to get a good sense of how these vaccines are behaving. The fact that these Clinical Trials are taking place more quickly does not mean we are cutting any. Making any short cuts in terms of safety. Whats happening is we are running things in parallel in ways that have never been done in parallel before. So, we are, from the uk government perspective, funding activities such as manufacturing before we know whether or not the vaccines will work so that if they do work we then have a vaccine ready and available. And that is not normal. Normally this happens all sequentially. Now what we are doing is compressing everything and running it in parallel. Positive news this morning about a possible new treatment for covid 19 which reduces the risk of patients ending up in intensive care. It uses a protein which our bodies produce to fight infections. 0ur correspondentjustin rowlatt has more details. These are preliminary results of a relatively small Clinical Trial the company did with the drug. But it does produce what the scientists call a very strong signal. It suggests there was a reduction of 80 in the number of patients whose condition deteriorated once they were in hospital. Patients were more than twice as likely to recover fully within 28 days. They were likely to leave hospital earlier, so instead of spending nine days in hospital theyd spend six days and one of the key symptoms of covid 19, breathlessness, was reduced very significantly, according to the study. So those are all very positive
signals, very good news. The health warning, if you like, on the study is, as i said these are initial preliminary results. We havent had this reviewed in a peer reviewjournal. We havent had the data released so the bbc hasnt been able to confirm the claims the company is making. But, if the claims the company is making are correct, then this is a very significant new development in the treatment of coronavirus illness. One of the clinical lead around the Clinical Trial, a guy called tom wilkinson, described it as a potential game changer in terms of the treatment of covid 19. The managing director of the company says it is a major breakthrough, potentially. But the warning again, these results have not been Peer Reviewed yet so this is quite an early stage. But nevertheless, very encouraging news on the treatment of covid. Health ministers in the uk have admitted failing to assess Data Protection risks around the nhs test and Trace Programme for coronavirus in england. The system traces contacts of people who may have been infected
with covid 19 but privacy campaigners are concerned over how personal details are collected and stored. They say the admission means the programme has been unlawful; the programme has been unlawful. The government insists no information has been misused. Eu leaders in brussels have been talking through the night to try to agree on a Coronavirus Recovery Fund stretching their two day summit into a fourth day of negotiation. Some Member States believe the 750 billion euro package is too large and should come as loans not grants. The summit is the first face to face meeting between leaders since the lockdowns began in march. Gavin lee is in brussels and says there is still some hope they could reach an agreement. I think there are some signs or a puff of white smoke emerging at least from the austrian camp. Because Sebastian Kurz has tweeted this morning that after some tough negotiations, he is happy with where this is going and suggestions that they could conclude by this afternoon. It is already the longest european summitfor20 years, go back to nice 2000
when they were expanding from 15 countries. This is about money, this is about trust, this is about the idea that these frugal four, the self proclaimed frugal four, austria, sweden, netherlands, denmark plus finland in this circumstance, they are not budging, according to the others. They have been saying we dont want to give 500 billion euros in grants. We dont trust enough that the money will essentially thatll be it and it will be spent on the right things and the furthest is the dutch leader, mark rutte, who wants a veto for the dutch to be able to say, we dont like the spending lets stop it at this point. So its basically been a back and forth between the council, putting new proposals on the table with lots of different meetings. Now, where we are at at the moment, the so called frugal four are saying they will offer as grants, no more than 375 billion euros. Other countries, including france and germany are saying that they wont go over 400 billion
euros and at the table this afternoon will be around 390 billion. That is where it seems to be at. And this has got pretty nasty at points. Tempers flaring like i havent seen it before, youve had the bulgarian Prime Minister, boyko borissov, calling mark rutte acting as a policeman of europe. Victor 0ban, the hungarian leader saying, whos to blame . Not me, its the dutch guy. This morning in the early hours, emmanuel macron, the french president , banging his fists on the table saying to the frugal four, you are putting the european project in danger. According to french officials and italian diplomats told me that giuseppe conte, the Prime Minister said to them, you might be a hero in your home country in the short term but you will be lambasted, you will be seen as part of the reason that europe fails. So that is how its got, tiredness leading to tempers flaring and the art of diplomacy, like the masks that the leaders have been wearing, slipping. The uk government says all state schools in england will receive a funding increase of at least 2 next year. In a settlement agreed
last summer, education spending will increase by £2. 2 billion, an average increase of 3 per pupil. The institue for fiscal studies says theres been am 8 real terms cut in per pupil spending since 2010. Ministers are also providing an extra £1 billion covid catch up fund to help children who have missed over four month of education due to School Closures during the lockdown. 0ur asissta nt Political Editor norman smith is at westminster. What can this money be used for, norman . There are two streams of money and one is the three year increase in educational spending, worth over 1a billion over three yea rs. We worth over 1a billion over three years. We knew about this, what we get today is where the cash is going. That tells a story because the areas which are getting the biggest percentage increase of the most deprived parts of the uk where schooling is deemed to be struggling
most. That is down in the south west and also in the north east. There is and also in the north east. There is a view over the past 15 years or so, london in particular has benefited hugely from increased resources and increased focus on particularly inner city schools. London inner city schools where the worst in the country. Now, if you look at the data, london inner city schools outperform most other parts of the country outside of london. So they are trying to replicate what was donein are trying to replicate what was done in london in the city schools and some of these other areas like the south west and the north east. The second thing we get today is extra cash to help schools enable pupils to catch up after six months also off because of the covid virus, before they go back in september. Familiar message from Gavin Williamson, they will leave it to schools as to how they want to spend this money. In terms of their covid catch up, its about making sure that teachers have the ability to do an assessment of the children where they fallen behind, what theyve missed out on, how we can get the right types of interventions. What we have been encouraging on the £650 million that has been announced going to schools, we are giving schools the discretion on how to spend that but we have been looking at them to give extra coaching for small groups of children, making sure that if they fallen behind on their maths or the english or foreign languages, they have been given that little bit of extra support. Now, labour this morning saying this extra cash is fine but it does not make good the amount of money that was cut by the government during the eight years of austerity, and 8 cut per people. The other thing i thought interesting from labour this morning, there does seem to be a noticeable tilt in labours stance
on getting children back into schools in september. Previously, they have been a bit equivocal on it, more aligned to the unions who have been sceptical, unless there is a significant fall in the level of infections. This morning, the new shadow education secretary, kate green, going out of her way to stress the enormous social benefits of getting children back into school in september. Thank you, norman. The uk foreign secretary, dominic raab, is expected to suspend the uks extradition treaty with hong kong today. Its all part of mounting tension with beijing after china imposed a controversial new security law on hong kong, and after the uk decided to ban huawei from its 5g network. At a news briefing in beijing this morning, a Chinese ForeignMinistry Spokesman has urged britain to
avoid, in his words, taking any more steps down the wrong path. Translation these remarks, these Hong Kong Related remarks turn a blind eye to the basic facts that the National Security law is for the sustained success of one china two systems. It goes against the International Law, the international norms. We strongly condemn this wrong action. We urge the us to make no more steps down the wrong path so as to avoid further damage to china uk relations. Our china correspondent Stephen Mcdonell is in beijing. A strong warning from beijing . Yes, we have just come from that briefing. Some tough language. He is accusing the uk are brutally meddling in chinas internal affairs
regarding the new state security law in hong kong and crucially, threatening some sort of unspecified resolute response. If britain goes ahead and pulls out of an existing extradition treaty with hong kong. He also accused britain of breaching International Law and actually we asked which law are you talking about . He could not name our lord that london was breaking, but said this was a breach of international norms, as he described it. And, also had some tough words for the foreign secretary regarding the far Western Province of china where, according to the uk foreign secretary, there has been the forced sterilisation of women. By making those remarks, according to the Chinese Government, he has slandered china and they accuse him of flat out lying about this subject. So very strong
language today from the Foreign Ministry targeted towards a british government, towards the foreign secretary in particular. But we still dont know how they are going to britain pulls out of this extradition treaty with hong kong because of the new state security law in the coming hours, as has been predicted. Thank you very much, we will see what happens. Amber heard is beginning three days of evidence at the high court as part ofjohnny depps libel case against british newspaper the sun over allegations of Domestic Violence during the pairs tempestuous relationship. Lizo mzimba is at the high court in Central London for us. What might we expect over the next few days . We are entering the third week brought byjohnny depp against the Sun Newspaper. For the first two
weeks