Young Reporters
Wednesday 16th March 2022
LO: To research and write possible stories for BBC writers
Tips:
Do your homework
Make friends with the camera
Try and act confident
Enjoy yourself
Know your audience
Be yourself
Try and find a story that supports people
News Stories:
More than 1.89 million people have fled Ukraine to Poland since the war began, the Polish Border Guard agency has said.
More than half a million may have already left the country, according to Warsaw University migration research prof Maciej Duszczyk.
And 94% of those crossing the border have been Ukrainian citizens.
On Tuesday alone, 66,600 people crossed the frontier, the agency wrote on Twitter, down 7% from Monday.
By 06:00 GMT on Wednesday, 13,600 people have crossed, down from 17,500 during the same period on Tuesday.
Most refugees have gone to large cities including Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw, which are experiencing difficulties coping with the numbers.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged to raise human rights when he meets Gulf leaders for talks about ending reliance on Russian oil and gas after the invasion of Ukraine.
He will discuss energy security and other issues in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday.
He said a global coalition was needed "to deal with the new reality we face".
But critics have expressed concerns about the human rights records of the countries.
Last weekend, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 81 men in one day, and its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said "going cap in hand from dictator to dictator is not an energy strategy".
Shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband the trip was "a sign of our vulnerability and energy insecurity as a country".
Ahead of the trip, some MPs had called on the prime minister to cancel his visit.
But Mr Johnson said if western countries wanted to "avoid being blackmailed" by Russia's President Vladimir Putin, they needed to move away from using his country's fossil fuels and explore other partnerships.
Asked about working with a government with a questionable human rights records, the prime minister said: "I've raised all those issues many, many times - since I was foreign secretary and beyond and I'll raise them all again today."
He pointed towards Saudi Arabia announcing a £1bn investment in green aviation fuel in the UK as "the kind of thing we want to encourage".
That does not mean, he added, that "we can't stick to our principles and raise those issues that we all care about".
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also defended the trip on BBC Breakfast, insisting the UK was "absolutely right" to "look at alternative sources of oil and gas".
She said while the UK did not agree with "every single policy of Saudi Arabia or the UAE", they "do not pose a threat to global security in the way that Vladimir Putin does".
Boris Johnson will hold talks with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as he bids to end the West's "addiction" to Russian oil and gas.
With Vladimir Putin's increasingly barbaric assault on Ukraine set to enter a third week, the prime minister is visiting the Gulf in a stepping-up of his efforts to starve Moscow of its income from fossil fuels.
Mr Johnson will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, before travelling to Riyadh to speak with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The prime minister is using the trip to try and persuade Gulf states to boost their own production of oil and gas.
Speaking to broadcasters at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi, he said: "When we look at the dependency the West in particular has built up on Putin's hydrocarbons, on Putin's oil and gas, we can see what a mistake that was because he's been able to blackmail the West and hold western economies to ransom - we need independence."
This would allow Western nations to wean themselves off Russian supplies and deal a further financial blow to Moscow.
He said the government would be setting out the energy strategy "next week" to include a "massive jump forward on renewables, more nuclear, using our own hydrocarbons more effectively" and sourcing fossil fuels from outside Russia
Just over three years ago, Mr Johnson himself described the killing of Mr Khashoggi as "barbaric act" and suggested the Saudi state had "copied the playbook of Vladimir Putin" with the "ostentatious horror of this murder".
Fears have been expressed that - in seeking to now turn away from Putin's regime - the UK and other Western nations could instead find themselves more reliant on other leaders accused of human rights abuses.
On Wednesday Mr Johnson defended trying to forge closer ties with Saudi Arabia.
Asked about working with a regime with such a questionable human rights record, the PM said: "I've raised all those issues many, many times... since I was foreign secretary and beyond and I'll raise them all again today.
"But we have long, long standing relationships with this part of the world and we need to recognise the very important relationship that we have."
Downing Street said the PM was expected to use Wednesday's visit to discuss with Gulf leaders his current efforts to improve energy security and reduce volatility in energy and food prices amid concerns over a cost of living crisis in the UK.
He tweeted on Wednesday morning to confirm Saudi Arabian investment in greener energy in the UK: "Great news that Alfanar Group is investing £1 billion in the Teesside Lighthouse Green Fuels Project, creating hundreds of jobs to produce sustainable aviation fuel from waste, with the potential to reduce emissions by 80% compared to their fossil fuel equivalent."
The talks will also focus on regional security and humanitarian relief following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the importance of allies working together to increase the diplomatic and economic pressure on Mr Putin's regime, Number 10 said.
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