Good evening. Tonight one rising superpower, two big stories with global impact, whether

it's to do with the looming threat in the biggest European armed conflict since the

Second World War or new assessment of the worst pandemics since 1918, China is front and

center tonight. On Ukraine, members of the administration spoke today and over the weekend

warning that Beijing, warning Beijing, I should say, that arming Russia would be a mistake.

We're confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment.

It would be a very risky and unwise bet.

This bill burns the CIA director on COVID, we learned yesterday that the Department of

Energy has assessed an newly updated intelligence report that a most likely originated from

a laboratory leak. CNN has just learned the reason for that updated report. Three sources

telling CNN that the Department of Energy's shift was based in part on information about

the research that the Chinese Centers for Disease Control, the Chinese CDC in Wuhan,

was doing around the time of the outbreak on a coronavirus variant. CNN has previously

reported that the lab was studying coronaviruses and bats, but it's unclear how closely related

the variants were to the strain which started the pandemic. As for the Energy Department's

new assessment, it is described as low confidence and it's a minority view, apparently, within

the intelligence community. That said, still spark new calls today for transparency from

China.

We wish to see from the PRC a greater degree of responsibility, a greater acknowledgement

that it's in the interest of the Chinese people, yes, to better understand the origins

of COVID-19, but it's in the interest of people around the world to understand the origins

of COVID-19.

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