In paris, workers are finally preparing to begin the huge Restoration Project. This is one of the thousand oak trees that have been specially selected for notre dame. Smaller tree trunks will be used to rebuild the medieval rafters. Big ones like this will go to reconstruct the spire. And while the coronavirus pandemic has kept most of us locked down its given the animal world loads more freedom. We thought that animals for example, penguins in south africa have survived perfectly well, we think. But in fact, when we retreated we discovered that the penguins actually normally would be doing very much better than they have been doing for decades. Good afternoon and welcome to bbc news. The number of people waiting to start Hospital Treatment in england has reached a record high of 4. 7 Million People. The figure, from the end of february, is the highest since records began in 2007. There were also nearly 388,000 patients waiting more than a year for non urgent surgery compared with 1,60
the defence secretary grant shapps said the royal navy is working on a new dragonfire laser weapon to complement its existing weaponry, the sea viper air defence system. that s to be upgraded with a new warhead and software to counter ballistic missile threats. here s grant shapps. we have, for example, the largest ships that we have ever put to sea in the aircraft carriers. i toss it off, i think, 13 frigates and destroyers which are under commission at the moment. we are modernising the navy, going throughjust massive through just massive capitalisation programme and just this morning, for example, i have been on x, twitter, yesterday, the results of a new weapon which is a laser weapon called dragonfire, capable of doing what those men and women on hms diamond have been doing, with the sea viper missile system, and doing it with a labour laser instead to bring down incoming so the technology is also moving on very fast, as well as the investment. economists have warned
and researchers in the uk say they now know why swimming can significantly improve your mood. state media in russia is reporting that president putin has visited mariupol the ukrainian city which was captured by invading russian forces last year. (map)the tass news agency says he travelled there by helicopter, and visited local residents. it s mr putin s first trip to the ukrainian territory which has been occupied by russia since the invasion was launched just over a year ago. we ve received these pictures, which we understand to be mr putin in mariupol on saturday evening. he s shown driving around in a car, and also visiting what appears to be a child ren s playground. and other footage shows him visiting a theatre, and talking to a group of people on a street, before visiting a flat. the visit came at the end of a week when the russian president was charged by the international criminal court with forcible abductions of ukrainian children. the trip to mariupol which w
let s start with china, because it s currently holding its annual two day national people s congress and has set out its economic forecast for the year. premier li keqiang told a packed audience in beijing on sunday, that the government hoped to achieve economic growth of around 5% in 2023. the figure is in line with most analyst predictions. last year, successive strict lockdowns slowed china s growth. official figures show the world s second largest economy grew by 3% last year, which was way below the government target of five and a half % and its slowest for decades. lets discuss this with louise loo, senior economist at oxford economics. there s widely expected to be a big shakeup in the team handling the economy. around 5%, it probably implies that growth as low as 4.5% is probably acceptable to the government and we do think that means the policy matters that we see will be a little bit more than what we expect last year. more than what we expect last ear. , , , ye
the country has set a modest target for economic growth this year of around 5%, as it kicked off the annual session of its national people s congress, which is poised to implement the biggest government shake up in a decade. last year, successive strict lockdowns slowed growth in china. official figures show the world s second largest economy grew by 3% last year, which was way below the government target of 5.5% and its slowest for decades. now, compared to many economies, a 5% growth target sounds very positive but as janet mui, head of market analysis at brewin dolphin, explained china is an exception. i think economists were pretty disappointed at this conservative growth forecast, as you mentioned. it is actually a high figure for the developed market, but china is still an emerging market that should be growing strongly. so this is slower than expected, because i think in the previous year the government has missed this gdp growth target and i don t think that they