which is straight after this programme. hello. welcome to the media show. well, on this week s programme, we ve talked about a couple of subjects which are pretty familiar to us on the media show, but they re no less pressing because of that. one is howjournalists should cover donald trump and of course, he s trying to become president of america again and the other is about the business models of news, because they are under ever more pressure. and when it comes to the business model, we are also looking at al and journalism, because several news organisations have done recent deals with the big tech firms. so that is all coming up. on this week s programme, we re going to hearfrom andrew neil, who has a brand new show on times radio. he s also the chairman of the spectator group. and we rejoined by caroline waterston, the relatively new editor in chief of the daily mirror. yeah, we ve also got two guests coming out of the states one, katie notopoulos, who s the senior tech and business correspondent at business insider. but the first person we spoke to isjeffrey goldberg, who is editor in chief of the atlantic. and we started off by asking him just to sum up what the atlantic is. how is that even possible? on the rare. just in case people don t know, it s a 167 year old magazine founded in boston. 1s. 1850s, before the civil war. politics, culture, literature, remains committed to those coverage areas today. but we try to explain america to itself to some degree. i think that s one of our purposes. we have a monthly magazine with a large subscriber base. we have a million subscribers, including digital subscribers. we reach a pretty wide array of people across the us and other parts of the english speaking world. and i think i m right in saying you re privately owned by emerson collective, which is an organisation set up by laurene powelljobs, widow of the apple founder stevejobs. just explain to us how that works. yeah. laurene and emerson collective bought the atlantic seven years ago. it works, knock on wood, wonderfully well. she s a great owner. we have complete editorial independence. she s very supportive of the mission, as is the whole organisation. we re a for profit organisation, although emerson collective has a for profit and a not for profit, separate wings. we are profitable on our own, which is a good thing and fairly rare these days. i m just thinking about. i ve been thinking about the washington post a lot of the last couple of days. well, we definitely want to ask you about some of the announcements at the washington post. and we want to ask you about your route to profitability, because that was one of the reasons we were so interested to have you on the programme. before we get into the details of what you ve done at the atlantic, ijust with katie s help as well, and a guest who sjoining us want to put what the atlantic is trying to do and what all publications in the news arena are trying to do in some context. yes, because katie notopoulos is from business insider, and ijust thought it d be useful if she just gave us a recap on the structural problems facing the industry. because, katie, you know, as has already been mentioned, much of this comes back to advertising, doesn t it? right. so one of the biggest problems isjust that| digital advertising - which was what supported journalism for many . decades or centuries has sort of dried up. facebook and google are very effective at being digital- advertisers, and they ve just sucked up a lot of the - ad dollars out there. so if you re a brand i like pepsi, it s easier to put your dollars somewhere else than to run an ad - in a publication. and that has really affected . the industry across the board. and you obviously. there s a lot of other| factors going on, just the rise of digital, - and therefore print is not as popular as it used to be. but i think. you know, there are some bright i spots, and there s reason to be i hopeful about the state - ofjournalism and being able to sustain media businesses. katie, thank you. jeffrey goldberg from the atlantic, let s bring you back in. you launched your online paywall in 2019. tell us about that decision and what s happened since. yeah, well, it turned out to be excellent timing, because the pandemic hit the next year and advertising bottomed out. we re holding our own on advertising. we have good people doing it. and, you know, it s not going to be the primary source of revenue for this company going into the future. we ve switched, actually, since 2019. we re now majority. you know, the bulk of our revenue comes from subscriptions, the consumer business, not advertising, but advertising is still an important part. but we launched this paywall. i mean, obviously, we re a print. we ve been a print magazine since the 1850s. we ve had long experience of being a subscription based organisation. when we entered the internet in a big way in the mid 90s, late 90s, obviously programmatic ad revenue, other forms of advertising, became huge for us. but we finally decided, the company finally decided in 2019 to launch a paywall for a digital product. and thank god we did, because a combination of pandemic news and trump news really accelerated our growth in the next couple of years. and that brought us, we just crossed a million subscribers total. half of those. roughly half of those subscribers are print and digital and half roughly half are digital only. all news organisations are diversifying the type of content that they re making. i wonder, aside from the trademark atlantic long articles which many people will know, what else you offer digital subscribers? well, we have a daily report. you know, we re not building a second newsroom, or a third newsroom in the washington post case, for tiktok videos or whatever it is that they re doing. you don t sound overly impressed, jeffrey. no, i m just feeling generally dyspeptic today. so you re just getting. just getting a general vibe. hopefully, that s nothing to do with you coming on the media show! god, no. glad to hear it. just checking. this is the only meeting i m looking forward to today. sorry, we interrupted you. no, no, no. it s ok. i d rather make jokes than talk about the business ofjournalism. i think that. so when i started as editor eight years ago, you know, all i wanted to do, and i have, you know, laurene s100% backing on this, make highest qualityjournalism, because highest quality journalism is the only thing that people will pay for. you know, if we had put all of our eggs in the programmatic ad revenue basket, we d be in bad shape, and so on. and so i think doubling down on what you do best, and doubling down on making a unique. unique stories that people will actually pay you for to read is the way to go. and so we have a much more. you know, obviously, 30 years ago, before the internet, the atlantic came out, it was a, you know, more leisurely paced thing. today, we publish every day. we publish, you know, every hour in busy times. but we re still trying to maintain that level of quality and differentiation so that we can convince readers to become subscribers. i m going to pause you there, sorry, just to bring in andrew neil, because some of this with your spectator hat on must be sounding quite familiar. jeffrey s talking about a million subscribers. how. you re a subscription model as well? we are a subscription model. the spectator has about 100,000 subscribers in the uk, 20,000 in america, because we just launched there, and about 12,000 in australia. if you get the business model right, the digital age can be a golden age forjournalism and publications like atlantic monthly and the spectator. but you need to get it right, and you need to realise that the old business models will bankrupt you. so when i took over the spectator in 2005, 65% of our revenues came from advertising. today, it s less than 10%. advertising is only our third biggest revenue stream. we ve had to seek new revenue streams. we put a very tough paywall up about 12, 14 years ago. 80% of our revenues now come from subscription. and it s a wonderful business model, because subscription revenues are predictable. i know within 5% plus or minus what s coming in this year, because i know the renewal rate, i know what the marketing will produce, and it s not subject to the economic cycle, unlike advertising, which is highly unpredictable. so you get that right and you re a golden age. the poster child of all this, of course, is the new york times, which now has nine million subscribers, more foreign correspondents than it s ever had in its history. and they got in early, didn t they? that was part of it. they got in early, as some of us did too. the times and the sunday times in this country are now highly profitable on the subscription model. and then you need to look, in addition to subscription revenue, for other streams of revenue, streams that you would never have thought of before. so, for example, of course, you still take some advertising. you take very little programmatic. because here s the problem if you re a subscription model, you re providing a premium website, and you don t want your website punctuated by endless ads for things that you have no control over. so you really need to control that. and you re talking about digital dimes in terms of programmatic, but instead, you do newsletters, you do podcasts, you have spectator tv and other ventures like that. and above all, our second biggest stream of revenue events we do events that expand the brand and bring in a ton of money. ok, caroline waterston, i want to bring you in because this presumably isn t sounding very familiar to you because it isn t something that you re doing at the mirror. have you ever thought about subscription? have you ever thought about a paywall? it s not on the mirror s agenda. i mean, certainly from my point of view and from the mirror s point of view, you know, i believe that our content should be available to a wide community and not just those that can afford it. you know, we are a news brand. i want to ensure that everyone has access to our content, and certainly it s not on our agenda. but what does that mean financially? you re taking a hit. do you believe.? i mean, are.? are you essentially of the belief that a paywall is this too dramatic, a paywall is a threat to democracy? is that how you see it? no, it s just not on our agenda at the moment. that s because it doesn t work. we talked. well. for red top tabloids, it doesn t work. the sun tried it and had to abandon it. you know, it s different with atlantic, spectator, times, sunday times, financial times. people are willing to pay. ..new york times. people are willing to pay for that kind ofjournalism. the problem with what we used to call the red top tabloids is that people won t pay for it digitally. of course, in the old days, they paid for it by putting their money down to buy the paper. but it seems that a lot of that kind of content, they think they can already get almost for free on the net. so they re not. it s a. of allthe. you know, all of our industry from the top to the bottom has had to withgo digital waves of change. the toughest part of the market to get right is the red top tabloid part of the market, because the subscription model doesn t work. caroline? yeah. and, look, good quality journalism is exactly what we want to do. but good quality journalism shouldn tjust be available to those that can afford to pay it. so, yes, we are an ad model. ads help fund.ourjournalism. and certainly. that s where we are at the moment. in terms of the experience of the user, the digital user of yourjournalism, do you have any concerns that the proliferation of adverts, which you need in order to fund the work you re doing, lessens the experience? look, it s something i think about every day, but, you know, ads are a part of life, and certainly from the mirror s point of view, we have to produce good quality journalism, and ads help us do that. 0k. let s bring you back in, jeffrey goldberg, because what about your experience in the us, particularly relating to donald trump, who we know back in 2016 drove huge levels of news and news related content consumption? are you seeing the same thing this time around? 2016 and 2020. i wouldn t say. well, first of all, we have a much tougher paywall, so that limits the sort of explosive numbers that you would have seen 2020, 2016, in particular. i think there s also fatigue. you know, these are. these are characters in now what would be called a long running drama, right? trump and biden as well. i think there is some fatigue with it. all that being said, yeah, there s. there s obviously an unusual election taking place. i m trying to use the most anodyne words possible. there s a consequential election taking place and people are. our kind of reader in particular is going to be very engaged in it. but, you know and i think this is a lesson from the washington post in a way you can tjust assume that political news will continually spike for you. i mean, you have to do the thing that s the right thing to do for your publication. it s mission first. and if you forget that, you re going to lose your subscribers eventually anyway. butl. we re not going to see the same crazy numbers that we saw in the past. but obviously, this is not a normal election. and trump does draw an extraordinary amount of attention. i want to ask you further about trump, but you ve alluded to the washington post a couple of times. we should say that on monday, sally buzbee, we heard, was leaving her role as the washington post s executive editor, to be replaced by robert winnett from the daily telegraph. and will lewis, who s the ceo of the washington post, said, we are losing large amounts of money. your audience. this is to staff. your audience has halved in recent years. people are not reading your stuff. i can t sugar coat it any more. so the washington post is looking to change its strategy. but coming back more broadly to donald trump, this is a question we ve asked a number of times on the media show over the years, but it doesn t make it any less pressing. you ve called the election consequential and unusual i m sure there are other words you would use, too. how do you, as the editor of a hugely consequential magazine and publication in the us, approach the challenge of covering donald trump? and i m interested to ask andrew and caroline the same question afterwards. you know, we. we had this problem in 2016, where we were trying to. you know, we were following the old rules, you know, to some degree, which is. and the old rules were the old rules of coverage, what people would call both sider ism. the old rules worked.when you had candidates who operated within certain lanes, lanes of self restraint, lanes of adherence to democratic norms, when candidates felt shame and repositioned themselves based on feedback, regarding the things that they do. you know, the most important thing for me, and, you know, we try to get it right, and a lot of other people are trying to get it right, and a lot of people are trying to catch up the most important thing is that we describe things plainly. right? not euphemise, because donald trump s behaviour is so novel i mean, it s not novel any more, but it s still novel historically and that. you know, and that we don t become. and this is what i m always encouraging our staff about. we don t normalise to this. our own, you know. oh, well, trumpjust said that, you know, the north korean dictator s head is made of cheese. oh, who cares? he always says stuff like that. no, and we have to do it every. we have to report the oddness, whenever it erupts, and that. by the way, this means. we re notjoining the resistance. we neverjoined the resistance, which means we also questionjoe biden s capacities, for instance. that s how you re approaching it at the atlantic. i wonderfor the daily mirror here in the uk, caroline, how do you.? do you approach donald trump like any other politician? or are there particular things you tell your colleagues look, we have to be careful here ? look, trump is an interesting character, but at the weekend, you ll hopefully have seen we actually had the world exclusive of stormy daniels, post everything that happened last week. and, you know, the content that comes out of trump in his everyday life and how he acts, i mean, it creates brilliant, brilliant content for our audience. that s honest. yeah. andrew, let me bring you in here now, because we have senior british executives at the wall streetjournal, the washington post, cnn and bloomberg news. what do you make of this exodus of senior british editors in the direction of the us? bbc too. mark thompson. mark thompson, former bbc. ..is at cnn and was at the new york times. of course, we always put ourselves down, but british journalism is vibrant and dynamic and hugely successful. and we know how to write and we know how to write concisely. well, not for the first time on the media show, we ve been talking about artificial intelligence, and the item that we re going to see now is all about search results that are being produced by new ai products. yeah, this is quite a fun one because google has got a new search called ai overview, a search product, and it is coming up in some cases with some pretty crazy results. and i started by asking katie notopoulos, who s the senior tech and business correspondent of business insider, tojust explain how it all works. so it s not on every single search, it s only on certain searches, typically ones that are sort of asking a specific question versus, you know, searching somebody s name or something like that. and it basically gives you a little bit of. maybe a couple sentences, a little paragraph, maybe a few bullet points that essentially answers your question. and this is probably very useful for most searches most of the time. but it was initially sort of riddled with laughable errors. i mean, one of the things that i do know that you did this really is dedication to yourjob you made a pizza with glue and ate it. just explain why you did that. slightly gimmicky. i m assuming it was for a piece. it was. piece of pizza! americanjournalists are ready. all in the line of duty. ..to undertake these big challenges. laughter. yeah, some people have to cover donald trump s trial. some people have to eat pizza with glue on it. right. basically sounds like i the same thing, really. exactly. laughter. one of the sort of silly answer that was going most viral on social media was someone had asked, how do i get the glued cheese to not slide off my pizza? and google suggested, you know, let the pizza cool for a while. and then it also said, add one eighth of a cup of glue to the sauce. so you re the only person in america who did it. ..it had sourced that little piece of information from a reddit comment that had suggested that obviously as a joke. and everyone on reddit at the time, when they were reading it, could understand in context that the person was making a joke that to keep the cheese from sliding off your pizza, you should add glue to the sauce. google sort of couldn t understand that this was satire, that it was a joke. so, not great. i mean, ijust should bring in. well, google have said about this, because they ve told the bbc, these were isolated examples, generally very uncommon queries, and they aren t representative of most people s experiences, and that the vast majority, it says, of ai overviews, provide high quality information with links to dig deeper on the web. and it said it s taken action where policy violations were identified and it was using them to refine its systems. just in the last couple of minutes of the programme, let me ask a further question about al, and it comes down to when big organisations that have content, like the atlantic or the spectator or the mirror, decide whether or not to share all of that content with the big language models that are training generative ai. and jeffrey at the atlantic, jeffrey goldberg, you ve cut a deal with openai. tell us about the discussions within the atlantic, whether you were weighing up whether to do that or not. well, ijust have to be technically clear about something. the editorial team has independence from the business side of this operation, but the business side has independence from the editorial side. and this was a decision made by the corporation and by our business leadership to do this. and so.i was certainly told about it, and i was.invited to share my views on it, but, you know, i. what are your views on it? well, i have my ambivalence about it. i mean, i don t want to. i forget who was saying this before, but, you know, the internet has turns out been great for a place like the atlantic. we reach many, many more people than we used to because of the internet. i don t want to be, you know, sort of axiomatically luddite about this sort of thing and say, ai is only a threat, but i have my deep ambivalences about.ai and what it s going to do tojournalism and also, by the way, humanity and the future of our planet. all that being said, ai is coming whether or not i want it to come. and it s a little bit like, to me, complaining about the weather. the weather doesn t care that i don t like it. so i ve got to dress for the weather, and dressing for the weather in this case means trying to figure out a way to have a relationship with openai, in which openai doesn t eat you for lunch. let me just ask quickly caroline and andrew very quickly, if you would. caroline, how s the daily mirror viewing the idea of sharing its content with these ai, these big ai operators? we wouldn t. - we wouldn t want to. you re not planning to do that yet? no, we re not- planning to do that. and the spectator? we won t do that until we know a lot more about it. if it s another potential stream of revenue that doesn t carry risks, that s one thing. but we need to know a lot more. for me, the al s biggest opportunity is on the commercial side. i think a lot of the ai can help us run the company commercially much better. we can learn more about our readers, about usage of the app, usage of the website. all that sort of thing is fine, but forthe moment, i ll keep editorial separate. and i lljust add, the new york times is taking a very different approach to this. it s not collaborating with openai. in fact, it s suing for the theft of its content. so we re going to watch how that plays out. and i was at the enders deloitte media conference yesterday, where anna bateson, who runs the guardian, said they would do a deal with an ai company, but only on the right terms. so there you go. well. something to end on, because that is all we have time for, i m afraid. thank you so much to katie notopoulos from business insider and, of course, andrew neil from times radio, but also the spectator. and caroline waterston, editor in chief of the mirror, and jeffrey goldberg, editor in chief of the atlantic. well, thanks very much indeed to all of our guests. fascinating to hear their perspectives on all those issues. i suspect it won t be the last time we turn to ai, to business models of news, to covering donald trump, but it was very interesting to hear from all of them. i think you re right. thank you so much to everybody. that was the media show. we ll be back at the same time next week. bye. bye bye. and if you d like to hear a longer version of today s show, search bbc the media show wherever you get your bbc podcasts. hello there. wind coming from the north at times. temperatures are struggled to get into double figures but a slightly different story further south and west, just look at anglesey, a beautiful afternoon and lots of sunshine. temperatures peaking at 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure continuing its way in from the west, west is the best for tuesday, likely to be a few showers around but hopefully if you would far between. most frequently will be across is in scotland and eastern england. sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon, having an impact with a temperature, but again with a temperature, but again with more shelter and sunshine, 17 or 18 degrees is not out of the question. scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland, hopefully they will ease over the afternoon. you can see the temperatures are still struggling. 10 15 degrees at the best. going into wednesday, the best. going into wednesday, the high pressure will continue to kill off the showers, so wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it, more rain to come. a chilly start once again for wednesday morning, single figures right across the country, low single figures in auroral spots. hopefully the showers will be few and far between and more favoured spots for the showers once again to the east. more sunshine to the west. temperature is generally similar to what we have seen all week, 10 80 degrees. the wind will change as we move into thursday, unfortunately towards the end of the week the low pressure will take over and we will see spells of rain at times, some heavy but the wind direction it will play its part. a southwesterly wind means we are the temperatures are climbing a degree also, do not anything to significant because we have the cloud and the rain. not out of the question in eastern england because the highs of 20 degrees. take care. live from washington. this is bbc news. hamas submits its response to a us led ceasefire proposal, but says israel needs to commit to completely stopping the war. us presidentjoe biden s son hunter, is found guilty on all three charges in his federal gun case. and malawi s vice president, saulos chilima was killed in a plane crash, along with nine other passengers. i m sumi somaskanda. it s great to have you with us. the white house says its evaluating an official response by hamas to the latest proposal for a truce in the gaza conflict. us presidentjoe biden submitted the proposal about 12 days ago. earliertuesday, hamas said it has a positive
live from london, this is bbc news. joe biden s son, hunter, is found guilty of lying about his drug use to buy a gun. hamas says it wants a complete halt to war in response to us backed peace plans. scottish political leaders clash over the cost of living and independence in a bbc debate. and, how long could you last without your smartphone? we meet the teens going cold turkey for five whole days. hello. i m sally bundock. the son of the us president joe biden is facing up to 25 years in jail after being found guilty of lying about his drug use in order to purchase a firearm. a federaljury found hunter biden guilty on all three felony charges brought against him forfailing to disclose his drug use when buying a gun in 2018. it s the first criminal prosecution of the child of a sitting us president. hunter biden s lawyers say they are disappointed by the verdict and will pursue legal challenges. president biden said he would respect the result, and said he and his wife, jill, were proud of hunter for overcoming his drug addiction. let us go live now to to our northern american correspondent david willis on this. david, another historic moment? trier? another historic moment? very much so and another historic moment? very much so and when another historic moment? very much so and when it another historic moment? very much so and when it comes - another historic moment? - much so and when it comes to the november ballot, people voting in the us presidential election, they will have the choice between a convicted felon or the father of one! such the unprecedented times we are facing in the united states. hunter biden, found guilty as you said of those three felony gun charges and faces up to 25 years in jail. it s highly unlikely that he will receive a stiffjail sentence, possibly community service or probation and a short period in tail, if any at all. injail. his father has gone on the record saying he would not be using his powers of presidential pardon to get his son out of the. his son out of the. very difficult his son out of the. very difficult trial his son out of the. very difficult trial for- his son out of the. very difficult trial for all, - his son out of the. very| difficult trial for all, lots of explicit details about his addiction, and what it led to, and his impact on loved ones and his impact on loved ones and not least the president and the first lady, jill biden, in court with him at the time? very much so. strong support from his family throughout this week long trial and indeed president biden issued a statement today, saying i am the president but i am also a dad, adding that he loves his son and is proud of the man he has become, and is today. jill biden missed the sentencing, sorry, the verdict, because she could not get to court in time. so rapidly did thejury could not get to court in time. so rapidly did the jury get to their verdict so quickly, after three hours of deliberation over the course of two days but there is a feeling now that this, if anything, there is a feeling now that this, ifanything, undermines donald trump s assertion that the criminaljustice system in this country is, as he has put it repeatedly, skewed against him and seeking to undermine his bid for the presidency. you may remember less than two weeks ago, donald trump was found guilty of making illegal hush money payments to the porn star stormy daniels. he is yet to be sentenced. but he has repeatedly asserted that this has been or part of an attempt by the biden administration to weaponised the criminaljustice weaponised the criminal justice system weaponised the criminaljustice system against him but now we have the president s own son facing the possibility ofjail and even some republicans are starting to believe that that argument really no longer hold much water. let s speak to lauryn gouldin, a professor of law at syracuse university who has been watching this case unfold. good to have you on the programme. what do you think will happen next? we have sentencing in a few months time, what do you think a judge will decide on this? time, what do you think a udge will decide on this? will decide on this? thank you for having will decide on this? thank you for having me. will decide on this? thank you for having me. i will decide on this? thank you for having me. i agree, - will decide on this? thank you for having me. i agree, i - will decide on this? thank you for having me. i agree, i think the sentencing guidelines for these offences are much lower than some of the sentences that have been suggested in some of the reporting. the formal calculation of a sentencing guidelines recommendation would be 15-21 guidelines recommendation would be 15 21 months, seven for incarceration, but there would be many reasons a judge may go down word and possibly give no jail time at all. hunter biden does not have a criminal record. no one was hurt in this offence. he only possessed the ghana for two weeks, that there may be a lot of factors the judge would take into consideration possessed the gun. as we heard from david, a difficult time for the family. it is also an extraordinary year because it is an election year because it is an election yearin year because it is an election year in the united states and we have had donald trump convicted in court, just a few weeks ago, now hunter biden. how does this play out in november, do you think? hard to know whether november, do you think? hard to know whether these november, do you think? hard to know whether these are - know whether these are convictions that the voters are really going to be focused on. the news today about the conviction did not seem to trigger much celebration by republicans. i think in part because the politics around this particular conviction are a bit complicated for republicans. hunter biden was convicted of a gun offence and most republicans advocate for fewer gun restrictions and many republicans advocate for this particular statute to be deemed unconstitutional, so there is a whole side of legal questions playing out here. obviously, this case is taking a toll on the biden family and certainly affecting how they navigate the election process, but i don t know to what extent voters were really care about the underlying charges is. voters ma not underlying charges is. voters may not care underlying charges is. voters may not care that underlying charges is. voters may not care that much - underlying charges is. voters may not care that much as i underlying charges is. voters. may not care that much as you said, and they also in this particular case may be sympathetic, but he does face, hunter biden, another trial in california in september on charges of failing to pay $1.1; million in income taxes. less sympathy, would you say, when it comes to that kind of trial and charges? i it comes to that kind of trial and charges? and charges? i think those charues and charges? i think those charges may and charges? i think those charges may pose - and charges? i think those charges may pose a - and charges? i think thosej charges may pose a bigger political problem. the concerns about financial improprieties may be more of a political issue. , ., ~ , ., issue. interesting. thank you for our issue. interesting. thank you for your time. the outlook remains uncertain after hamas submitted its formal response to the latest ceasefire plan to end the war in gaza, outlined by president biden. while a hamas statement said it was ready to deal positively with efforts to reach an agreement, israeli media is quoting an anonymous israeli official who said the hamas response amounted to a rejection. with me now is bbc arabic s said shehata. what can you tell us? hamas osition what can you tell us? hamas position did what can you tell us? hamas position did not what can you tell us? hamas position did not change - what can you tell us? hamas position did not change since j position did not change since the start of negotiation. the main two sticking points, for withdrawal of israeli forces from gaza and a permanent ceasefire. and those two points are in the planet president biden? they are but hamas is requesting a commitment from israel and a guarantee from the united states. because benjamin netanyahu gave contradicting neta nyahu gave contradicting signals netanyahu gave contradicting signals where at one stage mr blinken said he affirmed benjamin netanyahu israel s benjamin neta nyahu israel s commitment benjamin netanyahu israel s commitment to the plan after mr blinken met with benjamin netanyahu. at the same time he said repeatedly that before eliminating hamas, any talk of a ceasefire would be a nonstarter, so there is, especially with the pressure of the firelight. far right. the two members of the cabinets are against a deal with hamas because it would allow hamas to rebuild its forces and control gaza again. rebuild its forces and control gaza again- rebuild its forces and control gaza aaain. , ., i. ., gaza again. given what you have ust said gaza again. given what you have just said and gaza again. given what you have just said and we gaza again. given what you have just said and we must gaza again. given what you have just said and we must bear - gaza again. given what you have just said and we must bear in . just said and we must bear in mind that benny gantz has resigned from the israeli war cabinet as well and that has changed the make up within benjamin netanyahu s government, what may happen. we have antony blinken, the us secretary of state, pushing very hard, in the meeting again for an eighth time to broker the ceasefire deal. your thoughts? it the ceasefire deal. your thoughts? the ceasefire deal. your thou~hts? ., , , ., thoughts? it doesn t seem or make any thoughts? it doesn t seem or make any change thoughts? it doesn t seem or make any change because . thoughts? it doesn t seem or i make any change because eight visits, meeting all of the past, present from america and other forces but still benjamin netanyahu is reluctant to accept any of that because if it will happen, it would be a coalition of the government would collapse, there would be elections and he doesn t want to do that. even with some optimism that hamas will welcome the plan, the sticking point is still the full withdrawal and permanent ceasefire. as far as benjamin netanyahu is in power, it is hard to imagine that they will accept the two sticking points from hamas. the green party will launch its election manifesto in brighton & hove today, promising a £50 billion pound a year investment into the nhs and social care. it ll be paid for by a tax on higher earners and the wealthy. our political correspondent hannah miller has the details. as the green party tried to get noticed, they are promising a game changing transformation of the country, pledging to men what they called broken britain ijy what they called broken britain by increasing taxes on higher earners and the wealthy. the promises include an annual i% wealth tax on individuals with assets above £10 million, rising to 2% for those who assets amount to over a billion. they also say they will increase national insurance payments for those earning over £50,000 and introduce a home improvement programme to cut energy costs and make homes warmer. the green party know that their leaders are highly unlikely to become the next prime minister but what they are hoping for is to get enough mps to have influence over whoever does win the election. the conservatives used them manifesto launch to promise a 2p cut in national insurance over the next three years, among their ways of saving money is cut to the welfare bill of £12 billion a year and as for labour? there manifesto will be published tomorrow but today they are focusing on potholes in england, putting forward an extra £61; million annually to fix a million more every year. in this week of manifesto launches, there are promises and pledges aplenty, as the parties hope to capture your attention, and of course, your vote! hannah miller, bbc news. the leaders of scotland s five main political parties have clashed in a special debate programme on a range of issues, from how to tackle the cost of living crisis, to the problems faced by the nhs, as well as scottish independence. our scotland editor james cook was watching. 60 minutes, five party leaders, one general election that could change the country. and three big topics. first, the economy. what worries me about what lies ahead is that there is the threat of more spending cuts. anas is not being straight with us. i am being straight with you. there is going to be £18 billion of public spending cuts and we have had enough austerity from the tories. we don t want it imposed on us by any incoming labour government. let me be straight with you, john, let me be straight with the public as well, we will raise revenue and we will raise revenue by a windfall tax on the oil and gas giants which would raise £10 billion, a measure that you oppose. read my lips, no austerity under labour. i have seen poverty, - i ve never seen anything like this, this is the worst cost of livingl crisis since the end of rationing. - the liberal democrats immediately - would reverse the two child cap on benefits. if we look at the covid pandemic and the war in ukraine, there has been a massive shock to not only our domestic economy but economies across the globe and the government at the uk level have tried to provide some universal support and some targeted support. it is disingenuous of douglas ross to pretend that times are hard. times are not hard for the super wealthy. they have made out been like bandits since covid, their wealth has doubled and tripled. the second topic, the nhs. my mother, who is 93, waited six hours for an ambulance, another two hours outside the hospital before she was admitted. is our nhs broken? the nhs is run from edinburgh but the scottish government s budget is determined in part at westminster. that austerity, that cutting taxes for the wealthy, it means you have to cut to the bone and cut again and again. and that took us to the third topic. independence. on the economy, on poverty, on health, on public services, they are all crying out for ministerial attention, that has been starved because of the constitutional debate that has gripped our politics for so long. i don t support independence, i don t support a referendum, but i can understand why so many people across scotland are looking for an escape route from a tory government they thought we could not get rid of or from a labour party that they thought could not win. people are really struggling i in scotland today because of the effects of 14. years of austerity and because of brexit, - and the cost of living crisis, all of those are a product of- decisions taken at westminster. tory decisions. they are all a product of decisions - taken in westminster. it is not the nhs we have been discussing today, it is not the education system, it is not carers, it is going to be independence above everything else, and scotland will suffer as a result of that. audience and politicians all had plenty to say tonight. on lithjuly, it is your turn. james cook, bbc news, glasgow. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. heavy rainfall has prevented flights from taking off from spain s third biggest airport because of flooding on its runways. eyewitnesses at palma de mallorca airport said it was chaos, with passengers running for cover from the water pouring through the roof. all flights were grounded. our reporter chi chi izundu has more. heavy rain, heavy flooding, a storm caused nearly nine centimetres of rain to fall in less than an hour in palma, majorca. this is spain s third biggest airport. passengers were not able to enter or leave the terminal building and officials activated an emergency plan and temporarily rerouted flights to other airports because of the impossibility of operating safely. i impossibility of operating safel . ., impossibility of operating safel. ., ., ., safely. i got the notification that my flight safely. i got the notification that my flight was - safely. i got the notification l that my flight was cancelled. it should have been this evening and now we re checking for other options that to germany tonight. it for other options that to germany tonight.- for other options that to germany tonight. it has been cancelled. germany tonight. it has been cancelled, apparently, - germany tonight. it has been cancelled, apparently, and il cancelled, apparently, and i was cancelled, apparently, and i was going on a business trip, so let s was going on a business trip, so let s see. was going on a business trip, so let s see- so let s see. last year, some 31 million so let s see. last year, some 31 million people so let s see. last year, some 31 million people pull - so let s see. last year, some | 31 million people pull through this airport s doors and now with flights resuming, approaching cleanup can begin. chi chi izundu, bbc news. let s get some of the day s other news now. firefighters are battling wildfires in brazil s pantanaal, the world s largest tropical wetla nd. 32,000 hectares, home to jaguars, giant anteaters and giant river otters, have already been destroyed. low levels of rainfall and high winds has intensified the fires, which climate scientists warn are happening out of its usual season. the world health organisation says 2.7 million people die every year in europe because of alcohol, tobacco and ultra processed foods. experts say powerful industries are driving ill health and premature death because they interfere in government policies and efforts to cut cases of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. an invasive species of mosquito has been found in 13 countries in the eu, including france, spain and greece, with experts saying their discovery is linked to a rise in dengue fever in europe. the european centre for disease prevention and control says that climate change is creating favourable conditions for the tiger mosquito to spread. it s also warning that international travel will increase the risk of more european outbreaks. authorities in hong kong have cancelled the passports of six democracy activists who fled to britain. it s the first time the power has been used under a tightened security law passed earlier this year. a hong kong government spokesperson accused the campaigners of continuing to blatantly engage in activities that endangered national security. police in the chinese territory have warned that anyone who gives them funds could face a lengthyjail sentence. now, how long do you think you could last without your smartphone? a few hours? a day? maybe two at a push? well, we ve followed a group of teenagers to see how they cope without their smartphones for five whole days. it s all part of the bbc s teen 2a day and it comes as a new online survey of 2,000 young people conducted for the bbc suggests three quarters of teenagers wouldn t swap their smartphone for a brick phone. but that s exactly what we asked 10 students to do at a college in salford, in the north west of england. our reporter kristianjohnson was there to follow how they got on. on friday i received a47 notifications. it s fair to say some teenagers are pretty glued to their phones. ok, guys, point of no return. thank you. but this group of students are doing the unthinkable, locking them away for almost a week. you said your goodbye? yes. no tik tok. no snapchat. no whatsapp. so, guys, these are your new mobile phone instead they will be using these for the next five days. the only way of communicating texts and calls. i want a nokia. so this is why i don t like it. they re going to have to learn a whole new set of skills for the next week to be able to adapt and continue their life as close to what it used to be. but with that mobile phone underpinning most of their activities, it s going to be a real challenge. so in the mornings, usually i search up the train times. oh yeah i need to leave in 5 minutes. oh yeah. i ve got a little bit of time before i need to leave. but with like without a phone, i ve got no way to know when the next time will be. not being involved in group chats means it s harderfor ruby to meet up with friends. i feel like with the nokia, i m kind of missing out a bit more on social interaction. like we always go bowling or stuff, so we ve not organised anything so far. so i m 52 hours into the detox. i m fine. 0k. i don t think it s difficult or anything. two days into the journey, and while ruby is coping well, charlie has already given into temptation. it s definitely hard when you don t have it. it s like having like a comfort item how many of years? and itjust goes. it was really stressful. some others are struggling too. not knowing what s going on, like a group chat. itjust makes me like, what am i missing out on? but most are focusing on the positives. my feeling i m actually learn and stuff and engage more noticing stuff around me, which i probably should be doing anyways, but i m just too addicted to my phone. usually before i go to bed, i usuallyjust watch like disney+ for like an hour and then just drift off. but since then i ve just gone straight to sleep and it s weird. i feel much better the more i time goes on, but it becomes a lot easier. to think of things to do because you re not going to like, oh, no message. will s journey home takes over an hour. a tram first, then a bus. so in terms of not having a smartphone, it makes it more difficult because i can t check the timetable. and when they say it s been delayed or something, i could at least ring my dad and ask for a lift, you know? will s mum, allison, admits not being able to use family tracking apps like life360 is a hindrance. but she s noticed big changes in her son just three days into the detox. actually, quite nice seeing you without headphones. don t see you that much normally. no. i think it sjust become the norm. whereas actual social interaction does require you to put these things away and engage a little bit more. five days later, it s the end of term and time to get those smartphones back. maybe i ll put my phone away in the car and i ll put my phone away, like when i m around my friends. but in general, like, going on to tik tok everything, i m still going to do that. like, ifanything, i m going to do it more now. i think it s been pretty difficult without a smartphone, but i ve managed to get through it all right. i ll try and use less tiktok, that s for sure. i know my screen time is quite high on that. judging by their initial reaction, perhaps the students aren t quite ready to give up their smartphones entirely, but the detox might start to slowly change their habits. christian johnson, bbc news. what a brave corresponded! separation anxiety! and finally this half hour, officials in kosovo s capital pristina are offering $50 a month to people who adopt a stray dog. at least 4000 dogs are believed to live on the city s streets, often creating problems for residents, including dog attacks. the mayor of pristina is spending more than $300,000 on efforts to catch, sterilise and immunise the street dogs ahead of their adoption. stay with us here on bbc news. we have business news coming up next. hello there. foremost a disappointing start to the week, gusts of wind coming from the north and in excess of 30 miles an hour at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures. a slightly different story further south and west. look at anglesey, beautiful afternoon! lots of sunshine and temperatures peaking at 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way from the west so west will be best through the course of tuesday! still likely to be a few showers but hopefully fewer and further in between. most frequent showers will be across eastern scotland and eastern england. sunny spells and scattered showers in the afternoon, impacting the temperature, 1a or 15 degrees but with a little more shelter and sunshine, 18 celsius not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland, hopefully some will either through the afternoon but you can see these temperatures still struggling, 10- 15 temperatures still struggling, 10 15 degrees at the very best. moving out of tuesday into wednesday, the ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers so wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it, more rain to come but it will be a pretty chilly start to wednesday morning, single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots but hopefully the showers should be a little bit fewer and further between animal favoured spots for the showers to east of the pennines and more sunshine to the west. temperatures generally similar values to what we have seen all week, 10 18 degrees are high. the wind direction or changes in moving to thursday and unfortunately towards the end of the week this low pressure will take mebwmawmwmmh over this low pressure will take over and we was see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy but the wind direction will play its part a little, a southwesterly wind means we will see temperatures climbing a degree also. do not expect anything too significant because we have the cloud and the rain around. not out of the question that across eastern we could see highs of up to 20 celsius. take care. facing a flood of cheap chinese cars, europe s expected to raise tariffs on electric vehicles today. apple investors push its value up to record highs following its foray into the world of ai. we ll look ahead to the uk s latest economic data as april s gdp data is released. will it spur a bank of england rate cut? plus, supplies are squeezed for the makers of orange juice with prices going up due to extreme weather and disease. welcome to business today. we start in europe, where china is accused of drawing upon surplus capacity to dump electric vehicles
voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. of all the world s continents, africa is the one likely to see the greatest transformation in the course of this century. it will likely be home to almost 40% of all humanity by 2100. if, by then, africans have benefited from sustainable development, their global economic power will be enormous. if they haven t, then they could be facing cataclysmic levels of economic and environmental breakdown. my guest is the president of the african development bank, akinwumi adesina, sometimes dubbed africa s optimist in chief . is his positivity realistic or deluded? akinwumi adesina, welcome to hardtalk. it s good to see you, stephen. it s great to have you here. you need the world to believe in a bright african future. how is that going right now? it s going pretty well. if you take a look at the african economic outlook we had from the african development bank, the gdp growth rate, gdp growth rates last year was 3.1%. this year, it s 3.7%. and next year, it s going to be 4.3%. now, why that is important is that that is well above the global average. you still have ten out of the 20 fastest growing economies in the world being in africa. yeah, it s not quite as good as it sounds because you have fast rising populations across africa. yes, but when you have a lot of global shocks like we have, increasing real interest rates, and you have also a lot of geopolitical risks, you have a lot of inflation all around the world, africa still has its head above the water. yeah, i agree with you that in terms of the population growth rate, it s still high. real gdp is still not as high as we want it to be. africa still needs to grow at double digits, though, for probably another 10, 20 years before you see.millions of people taking out of poverty. but don t forget, africa is still the pivotal continent in which it has tremendous amount of opportunities to actually accelerate its development. but as boss of the african development bank, you need to persuade investors both state investors, multilateral institution investors and private investors that africa is a risk worth taking. and right now, we see political instability in many different parts of the continent. we see massive economic problems, perhaps highlighted most by youth unemployment, across the continent of africa. the risks still look enormous to the outsider. well, you know. i mean, you walk across the street, it s a risk. you take a flight, it s a risk. the world is all about risk, the world is about managing risk. yeah, but the investors of the world face choices. they don t have any particular reason to want to invest in africa. let me tell you why they should actually invest in africa, even if i accept some of the risk. first is take a look at what you were saying earlier in terms of population growth rate. you have a continent that is going to have 2.5 billion people by 2050, right? that s going to be really. especially young people you have a77 million of them less than the age of 35. that s the workforce of the world. secondly. yeah, many of them unemployed young people who will be deeply discontented. no, but actually, when you actually turn that demographic advantage into an economic dividend, that s a different thing. but take a look at also the agricultural potential. well, you know, africa has 65% of the uncultivated arable land left to feed the world, 9.5 billion people, by 2050. that s not in asia, that s not in latin america or europe. it s in africa. so what africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world. but also, remember. 0k. we ll get to the detail of some of that proposition later. but let s just stick with risk because, again, this is about money and it s about loans and debts. and right now, i think it s right to say 22 or 23 african nations are struggling with the kind of massive debt that means they re flirting with default. i mean, some of them have defaulted. zambia, for example, defaulted in 2020. it s onlyjust emerging from default now. that represents, for a lender, a clear and obvious form of risk. well, let s take a look at the risk. perception is not reality. data matters. you know, moody s analytics did an assessment a iii year assessment of cumulative risk of losses on infrastructure around the world. guess what they found. they found that risk of loss in africa actual risk of loss in africa was 1.6%. 1.9%. latin america was roughly 12%. north america was 10%. if you take a look at western asia, 4.5%. so that means that africa is not as risky as people say. that said, you do have market risk, you do have political risk, you do have financial risk. and that s what we do as multilateral development banks, is to de risk those investments. but if you take a look at it in terms of risk return analysis, africa is still the place to be. hang on. some of this is jargon. so let s be simple about it. when you say we need to de risk some of the lending to africa, you basically mean you want special treatment, don t you, from institutions like the imf? no. no, it s not special treatment at all. in fact, africa wants no freebies. we have the instruments to de risk. let me give you some. well, it is special treatment, because you want these special drawing rights from the imf. they re literally called special drawing rights . yeah, but i ll tell you, you know, take a look at what we re talking about here. if you take, for example, benin, if benin needed to go to the capital markets to raise money from external investors, right? you still have a risk premium that african countries have, because everybody keeps saying, just like you said, africa risks premium. we have. it costs us three to four times to raise money than any part of the world. but we have partial credit guarantees that allows us to use $195 million to allow them to raise $400 million from external investors. we did the same also for senegal. we did the same for cote d ivoire, with $400 million to raise $530 million. what that does is it allows you to go into the capital markets, allows you to raise money long term and at a lower interest rate. and that is how we de risk investment. that s very, very important. we just did something, by the way, for egypt. we gave them a partial credit guarantee that allowed them to go issue panda bonds, $500 million on the capital markets, for china. it seems to me one of your messages over your quite long tenure now as president of the adb has been that the key multilateral financial institutions the imf, the world bank they are not sufficiently able or willing to understand africa, and they need more african involvement and input. 0veryourtenure, have you seen things change? for example, i m looking at the fact that the imf has created or is in the process of creating a third seat for africa on its board. south africa, for example, is now included in the g20. have you seen things change? well, you know, there s no choice. i mean, there s no doubt that everything has to change even more, right? first and foremost, their globalfinancial architecture is not serving the interests of africa very well. take a look at what happened during covid. while the developed countries actually disbursed, what, fiscal stimulus $19 trillion, 19% of the global gdp africa did what? $83 billion? that s just a minuscule 4.5%. take a look at climate change, right? climate change is devastating africa more than anybody else, any other parts of the world. we didn t cause climate change, only 3% of accumulated emissions, but we suffer $7 to $15 billion of losses every single year. ijust came from nairobi, where we had our annual meetings there devastated by floods. and you have zimbabwe devastated by drought and malawi and zambia with that. now what happens is africa needs, you know, stephen, 30. it gets $30 billion in terms of climate adaptation, but it needs $277 billion. now, let s go further in terms of what has happened also with the issue of debt that you were talking about. 0k, we have, you know, the situation for debt was not just because economics were being mismanaged. no, we still have, you know. people say you have long covid you have long fiscal covid here, in the sense that the economies are still trying to recover from the effects of that covid. but the two instruments that the global financial architecture put up, it s not solving that problem. you have the debt service suspension initiative, which was just simply postpone the evil day. then you have the g20 common framework. so your message is, you know, that, thanks to covid, thanks to climate change, africa s faced profound economic challenges and the international community hasn t really stepped up and responded and understood and appreciated ? if i mayjust say, because you mentioned the issue of the sdr, i ll talk about that. the special drawing rights? special drawing rights. you know, that special drawing rights, i have been a global champion for the need for us to take those special drawing rights of imf and use it better. when they were issued as a contingent facility, $650 billion were issued. africa gets hammered, $33 billion, $4.5 million. so. so i get it. i get it. the message you ve delivered over years is that the international community needs to do more. but i.want to tell you. ..for africa. ineed. i need to switch the focus a little bit because you re a former minister of agriculture in nigeria, you re an african politician. surely it s incumbent upon you to recognise that part of the problem here is desperately poor governance infartoo many countries inside africa. well, you know, there s no doubt about the need anywhere in the world to have improved governance, improved transparency, improved accountability. you know, we are. so i don t see you talking about that. no, no. i do. let s talk about. well, let s talk about it. ..one of the most famous african writers, and sort of the conscience of africa, wole soyinka, the nigerian novelist. he said, too many african states are run by his quote sick old men, dictators, authoritarians who ve been around for decades and decades. corruption is endemic in too many countries in africa. isn t it incumbent upon you to focus some of your effort on getting african nations to change? we actually, within the african development bank, have a programme called sega. you know, it is all about economic governance in africa. it has to do with public financial management. it has to do with debt management. it has to do with reducing illicit capital flows. now, i agree with you today, we have illicit capital flows out of africa, about $89 billion a year. sometimes it s like pouring water into a basket, right? it needs to be able to hold it. but this much, i will say, even as i agree with all of that corruption is not unique to africa. look. nobody s saying that. no, no. nobody s saying that. but what i m interested in, i m interested in your priorities. no, no. hang on. there was an extraordinary report in the financial times last year which revealed that your own african development bank anti corruption fund which was established, at that point, seven years earlier had never been used. there was $55 million there to finance anti corruption efforts, which you simply hadn t tapped into. no, that is absolutely. why? it s not correct. you know, we actually have an independent anti corruption unit that actually sanctions companies that have non competitive behaviour. you set up a fund and you didn t spend the money that was in the fund. will you let me make the point? because you re asking me the question, so let me answer it. the point is, we actually have the fund. but in implementing that fund, guess what we found? we found that there were conflict of interests in the way the fund itself was set up. as president of the bank, i m not going to mingle that with the funds of the bank. and we said, no, we can t do that. we need to find a way in which that is given to a third party. the money is there, the money is going to a third party. but, look, we re not going to mingle money we ve got for those that pay sanctions to ourselves. it just seems extraordinary that for seven years, you had an anti corruption fund, a so called integrity fund, which you didn t spend a single dollarfrom. well, $54 million. we are a $380 million bank. and just so that you know, the african development bank was ranked just last year as the most transparent institution in the world. let s get back to the strategic vision. you ve outlined it to a certain extent with me over the last few minutes. it is undoubtedly true that climate change and energy transition is one of the key pillars of what you want to achieve with this investment in africa. how s it going? it s going pretty well. you know, we now devote 55% of our overall financing in the bank to climate. when i was elected in 2015, we had only 9% going to climate. but climate is the biggest issue. climate adaptation is the biggest issue. now we have three ways in which we re supporting african countries on that. first is we are. we ve made a commitment to double our climate finance to $25 billion by 2030. second, we have a programme that is called african adaptation acceleration program, which is to deploy $25 billion for climate adaptation. by the way, it s the largest climate adaptation programme in the world, together with the global centre on adaptation. and thirdly, nine out of ten, stephen, countries that are most vulnerable to climate change in the world are in africa. 100% of them are in the low income countries that we serve with the african development fund. so what we did was we created a climate action window with $429 million that will rise to about $13 billion to deploy capital to support those countries to be able to, you know for example, let me get practical here provide crop insurance for 20 million farmers and also have a million hectares of land that s been degraded to be improved, and also 20 million people to have climate information. and so that s what we do. now, interestingly, we have one programme that s working very well. it s called africa disaster risk insurance facility. what it does essentially is it pays premiums for countries when they face exogenous shocks like this one. we ve been able to do it for 15 countries. we re scaling that now to $1 billion to be able to insure countries against catastrophic risk events. but it s still not enough. it s still not enough. lots of different mitigation and adaptation efforts that are being financed partly, at least by the adb. i m just interested to know whether you are still willing to finance investment in fossil fuel production, exploration and production, in africa? there are countries from mozambique to angola to zimbabwe which are still major players and, to a certain extent, rely on fossil fuel energy. are you prepared to put money in those projects? we are not doing upstream work on oil or gas. any? no, and we don t fund coal either. however, i will say this. we fund natural gas because natural gas is a very important transition fuel for africa, just like it is in europe, where you are, right? you turn on your cooker and you cook. guess what? with gas. why should that be different from african countries? where we lose today, we have 1.2 billion people that don t have access to clean cooking energy. you know, we lose 300,000 women every year. all they are trying to do is just cook a decent meal. that doesn t make any sense. secondly, it s that we need gas also for fertilisers. the same way in which the west has fertilisers, africa has the right to be able to do that. but this much i will say about gas, so that we don t confuse ourselves. you know, gas reduces the amount of emissions you actually get from relying primarily on just simply other fossil fuels. and secondly, when you use that for clean cooking, it actually saves hundreds of millions of hectares of land. thus far, all the promises made by the rich world the industrialised, developed world to pour billions of dollars into developing economies, particularly in africa, to help them cope with the potentially devastating impacts of climate change, that money hasn t yet been delivered in any serious amount. is it your message that countries in africa need now to be given massive sort of financial recompense for not, for example, deforesting their extraordinary natural assets? i m thinking of a country like democratic republic of congo which has vast forests. yeah. you know, in fact, if you take a look at africa today, that congo basin that you were talking aboutjust now is the second only to amazon in terms of the carbon lungs for the world. and so africa is providing the global public goods for which it s not paid for. you know, basically, you have vast carbon sinks, you have vast forests, you have biodiversity, but africa is nature rich but cash poor. but how do you get people to listen to this message? well, let me tell you what we re doing about it, what we re saying. we re not going to be doing that any more. if you take what got us to all the mess that we re all dealing with globally today, it s because of the way we measure wealth. we measure wealth by saying gross domestic product, value of goods and services that an economy produces. but who really cares? because that doesn t tell you anything about the technology used to do it, the externalities for it, and who internalises the externalities. in the case of africa, we have all this forest, and we say we re going to have to revalue and rebase the gdp of africa based on its natural capital stock. and why is that important? so you basically take these forests and say, this is real wealth. yes. ..and it has to be recognised, and therefore you have to give us the credit that comes with having that asset ? yes, steve. and the thing is, if you take a look at the debt to gdp ratio, which is the measure that we use to determine whether your debt is sustainable or not, if you rebase your gdp based on your natural capital stock, your debt to gdp ratio falls. no, iunderstand. no, no, but i want to. and therefore it s easier for you to borrow money, which is where you and the adb come in. i get all that, but isn t there an element of blackmail to this? because the underlying message seems to be, yes, we are custodians of this vast natural asset call it a carbon sink and the message is, if you don t recognise that and recognise it as part of our asset base, our wealth and loan to us accordingly, we will exploit it, we ll mine it, we ll deforest it. no, no, no, no, no. no. you see, the coming. it s not about exploitation. it s about being wise and valuing yourself properly, just like if you and i go to a commercial bank and you re trying to value your assets. all we are saying is we want african economies to develop going green. but in going green, the proper valuation of the natural capital of africa, it s very, very important, so africa stops being nature rich and cash poor. 0k, we need to move on because we don t have that much time. 0k. i just want to ask you a little bit more about demographics. you earlier were telling me what a great asset it is for africa to have these hundreds of millions of young people. i, at the beginning, talked about africa becoming home to 4 in 10 of all humanity, potentially, by 2100. isn t the truth of this that there is no way africa can support the levels of population growth that we currently see? well, i think africa is doing well with regard to that. three things i want to say. first is, education matters. you know, with 477 million people under the age of 35, i. and it kind of. sometimes i, you know, see migration to mediterranean and all of that, that breaks my heart, of course. but here is. but it s actually increasing. yeah, exactly. but the future of africa s youth is not here in london. it s not in europe. it s not in latin america. it must be in an africa growing very well, equitably and able to create jobs. but what we are doing. ok, i see the potential, but i also see the downsides. not so very long ago, a few years ago, in this studio, nigeria s former president 0basanjo told me that the levels of population growth in africa that he saw at that particular time, i think it was 2017, represented a ticking time bomb. would you use that language today? i wouldn t use that term. you know, i don t disagree with him. ijust think we need to grow much faster to be able to turn that demographic dividend into an economic dividend. and if you allow me just to make that point, that is why, for example, isn t it odd, stephen, that we have a continent with that amount of people, we don t have financial institutions for young people? and that s why the african development bank is rolling out what we call youth entrepreneurship investment banks. they are new financial institutions that will give debt and equity for the businesses of young people, because i firmly believe that we must create youth based wealth in africa. we have to improve their skills, their entrepreneurship, their access to financing, and for them to be able to play a bigger role in our economy. look, the future of the world is going to depend on what happens to the youth of africa. and so we are putting our financing at risk on their behalf. otherwise that s going to be our biggest risk, is not taking care of our youth. that s a very powerful statement you just made about how crucially important africa is to the future of the world. you need outside help to ensure that africa s 21st century is a positive story, not a negative one. where do you think most of that help is going to come from in the future? the economist magazine says that america has essentially lost interest in africa. it s so preoccupied with problems in other parts of the world. does that mean that china, maybe russia as well, are going to be where you at the adb, perhaps, but certainly african nation states look for economic support and cooperation in the future? ijust came back from nairobi, where we had the annual meeting, steve, of the african development bank. the african development bank, which has 81 shareholders, which includes 54 african. it includes the us and china. and uk, by the way, great supporter of us, you know. but my point is, geopolitical tensions are rising. does africa need to make a choice about who it partners with? yeah, but i want to say is that we got an increase in capital of the bank from all our shareholders, $117 billion. that puts our capital at $308 billion. and that came from all over. it came from the united states. it came from uk, it came from italy. it came from everybody else. but when it comes to investments, we need to be able to have investors in africa. yes, you and i talk about the issue of risk and how we manage those risks. and those investors can come from any part of the world. the fact of the matter is africa.doesn t have to really choose. africa has to decide what s in its own interest and be able to attract the kind of investments it needs. take a look at the transformative power of working together. you know, we have, for example, the lobito corridor, which is linking.angola to zambia, which we are doing with the united states. we also have other corridors we are working with multiple partners on. we also have, by the way, stephen, and i hope i can invite you there, what is called the africa investment forum, which we ve been running for the last five years, and we ve been able to mobilise well over $180 billion of investment interest to africa. same africa that you were saying has risk is exactly where people are coming to put their money. if you re not in africa, i wonder where else you ll be putting your money in. that s where the frontier is. clearly, this is a hugely important story. but for now, akinwumi adesina, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you, stephen. thank you. very good to see you. hello there. for most of us a disappointing start to the week. gusts of wind from the north and in excess of 30 miles an hour. temperatures struggled to get into double figures. slightly different further south and west. just look at anglesea. temperatures peaking at around 18- 19 temperatures peaking at around 18 19 degrees. high pressure continuing to nudge in from the west. likely to be a few showers around but hopefully fewer and further between. most frequently across eastern scotland and eastern england. sunny spells and scattered showers into the afternoon, impacting the temperature. again, with a little more shelter and sunshine, 17 or 18 to celsius not out of the question. scattered showers moving through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully they will either through the afternoon. temperatures are still really struggling. as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. wednesday likely to be the driest day of the week. make the most of it, more rain to come. a pretty chilly start once again to wednesday morning. single figures across the country. low single figures in rural spots but hopefully the showers should be few and further between. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures of similar value we have seen all week. the wind direction will start to change as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, the low pressure will take over and we will see further spells of rain. at times heavy but the wind and will play its part a little. temperatures climbing a degree or so but do not expect anything too significant because we have the cloud and rain around. across eastern and southeast england we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. live from london, this is bbc news. joe biden s son, hunter, is found guilty of lying about his drug use to buy a gun. hamas says it wants a complete halt to war in response to us backed peace plans. scottish political leaders clash over the cost of living and independence in a bbc debate. and, how long could you last without your smartphone? we meet the teens going cold turkey for five whole days. hello. i m sally bundock. the son of the us president joe biden is facing
the un security council endorsed a ceasefire proposal for gaza on monday. it is the first time the council has passed a resolution demanding a stop in fighting after eight months of war. the resolution urges both hamas and israel to fully and quickly implement the three phase plan. 1a countries voted in favour and russia abstained. reactions to the resolution between the two parties have been mixed. hamas says it welcomes the endorsement and that it s ready to work with mediators. a senior israeli diplomat said her country would continue to pursue its objectives.us ambassador to the un linda thomas greenfield says the resolution shows hamas that the international community is united. colleagues, today this council sent a clear message to hamas. accept the ceasefire deal on the table. israeli has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today if hamas would do the same. i repeat, the fighting could stop today. the bbc s nada tawfik has more from new york. what we heard from the united states was that this was the best possible way to secure a durable end to the war, saying that it really is a deal that was israel s initiative, it outlined three phases that they said would eventually, you know, lead to the complete withdrawal of israeli forces, the release of all hostages, in exchange for palestinian prisoners, major reconstruction of gaza, eventually. but, i think, from different members, you heard different positions. you know, while the united states says this resolution passing means that the international community is united, and that this will help put pressure on hamas to accept the deal, you know, algeria said they still had some reservations about the text, but supported it, because they felt it wanted to give diplomacy a chance, wanted to give a glimmer of hope to palestinians. but from russia and china, a lot more scepticism. you know, russia said it didn t want to block this resolution, because the arab group of nations supported it, but it questioned whether israel had really accepted the deal, as the resolution states, and they pointed to a number of statements by israeli officials, including prime minister benjamin netanyahu, that they will continue the war until hamas is defeated. china, as well, questioned if, you know, parties will actually implement these three phases of presidentjoe biden s proposed deal, and china noting that the other security council resolutions that have been passed weren t implemented, including a permanent ceasefire, including getting more aid in at scale into gaza, questioning, you know, whether this will have a tangible impact on the ground. so i think it remains to be seen if this resolution will, in fact, be different than the other ones. meanwhile, us secretary of state antony blinken is visiting the middle east for the eighth time since the october seventh attacks. secretary blinken is fiercely advocating for the ceasefire deal proposed by president biden ten days ago. mr blinken met with egyptian president abdel fattah al sisi, before heading tojerusalem for talks with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. a state department spokesman said secretary blinken assured mr netanyahu that the proposal would unlock the possibility of calm along israel s northern border. for more on the security s visit and the proposed ceasefire plan, i spoke to a former ambassador to turkey and iraq and chair of the wilson center s middle east programme. i want to start with the un security council adopting this resolution that welcomes this three phase ceasefire agreement that was outlined by president biden on may 31. do you think israel is going to accept this ceasefire? israel is going to accept this ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel. ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel, first ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel, first of ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel, first of all - - that israel, first of all it s an israeli proposal, a [ls page proposal that the president basically underline basically underlined a week ago friday. the important thing is the ultimate departure of israeli troops from gaza and a permanent ceasefire, which is at the end of what we call the second six week phase, isn t automatic. that requires negotiations. these negotiations. these negotiations could go on. and in the terms of the agreement, although president biden s tried to play this down, the israelis or hamas could break off in the initial six week ceasefire at the end of those six weeks could be terminated. what s the difference between what president biden outlined and what the israelis want and what hamas is asking for? the israelis, again, what hamas is asking for? the israelis, again, are what hamas is asking for? tue: israelis, again, are agreeing there are other things such as some hostages come back, there s aid pouring in, people can go back to their homes. the basic thing is, for six weeks, the israeli military stops fighting and pulls out of the major urban areas. it basically will hold a strategic terrain along the egyptian border, the sea, and other places, but stops fighting. and in return as will hamas. and in return, will negotiate on a possible permanent ceasefire during those six weeks if. they haven t achieved a breakthrough by then, they can extend that six week seizer if while they continue to negotiate. but, importantly, they don t have to. and if one or the other side decides after the six weeks to break off the negotiations, we would go back to fighting. so this puts pressure on hamas. that s the israeli proposal. president biden is stressing how important it is to keep those negotiations going on forever, because then the initial six week ceasefire will look like a permanent ceasefire. right. right. that s really interesting. i mean, if you look at one part of this proposal, of course, it does lead to the release of the hostages who are in gaza. do you think the freeing of four hostages over the weekend, four israeli hostages who have been held in gaza, changes the equation at all for prime minister netanyahu? we know the families of the remaining hostages are putting even more pressure on his government. first of all, it overshadowed the departure of minister gantz, which was an important blow to, i think, netanyahu, and it will lead to, i think, less moderate israeli policies. but we ll see. nonetheless, this was a military victory, a huge cost for the palestinian side, but a huge cost for the palestinian side, buta military huge cost for the palestinian side, but a military victory, and strengthens israel s position not only inside israel, but also vis a vis hamas. israel, but also vis-a-vis hame israel, but also vis-a-vis hamas. ~ , ., ., hamas. we saw vision of the raids leading hamas. we saw vision of the raids leading to hamas. we saw vision of the raids leading to those - hamas. we saw vision of the l raids leading to those hostage and, as you said, benny gantz has left the war cabinet. what impact does it actually have on prime minister netanyahu? does it mean that he is more beholden to the right wing forces in his government? fin forces in his government? on the forces in his government? 0? the margins yes forces in his government? (m the margins yes margins, yes. but he has support from minister lapid, who said he and his party would support netanyahu if netanyahu went along with the ceasefire. and thus, netanyahu even if the two very right wing ministers in the parties pulled out of the 64 out of 120 knesset member coalition, netanyahu knesset member coalition, neta nyahu could stay knesset member coalition, netanyahu could stay in power. so i think, all in all, we re in the potential endgame. the key will be what s in those negotiations for the second phase? it won tjust be how israel leaves. it s going to be who governs gaza? you ll notice nobody talks about this. there s a third phase of major reconstruction. i have provided my recommendations to both the us and israeli government, as have others on how to do this. but what s important is and this is new israel has signed up this is new israel has signed up in this agreement to the eventual under the right conditions departure of all israeli forces. that means that the idea of permanent israeli occupation of gaza, which we feared, was the position of the netanyahu government, is no longer really on the table if we get the right conditions. what is your recommendation, then, on what postwar governments would look like in gaza? fix, governments would look like in gaza? , ., ., ., governments would look like in gaza? ., ., ., gaza? a stand-down of hamas - i think that will gaza? a stand-down of hamas - i think that will be gaza? a stand-down of hamas - i think that will be negotiated - think that will be negotiated in the second phase, where it s a ceasefire not only against israel, but against the people, and anybody who tries to govern gaza. then an international presence various ideas of arab, european, other players would come in and do governance, do reconstruction. would palestinian leaders be open to that? t would palestinian leaders be open to that? open to that? i think they would be open to that? i think they would be subject - open to that? i think they would be subject to - open to that? i think they would be subject to an . open to that? i think they i would be subject to an awful lot of pressure, and they would also want a certain role. and that s where you get the negotiations with the israelis. but that s normal in every one of the maybe two dozen ceasefires i ve been involved in in the last 50 years. this can be an endgame. it isn t an endgame yet, but we re moving towards that direction. fine towards that direction. one tuick towards that direction. one quick final towards that direction. one quick final question. - towards that direction. one quick final question. secretary of state blinken is again in the region. what do you think his aim is in this visit? simply to show that we re not going to spend a week without at least one senior official visiting israel in the region. but the real work is between back channels between washington and jerusalem. back channels between washington and jerusalem. here in the us: the us president s son, hunter biden, tells the bbc he believes his federal gun case now before a jury went well. jurors began deliberating monday after closing arguments wrapped. our correspondent carl nasman a spoke to mr biden in downtown wilmington, delaware a few minutes away from the courthouse. hunter biden is accused of is accused of lying about his drug use on a federal form while buying a weapon in 2018, and of illegally possessing a firearm while he was allegedly a drug user. for more on this, carl nasman has this report. the jury will return to this courthouse behind me here in delaware on tuesday morning to continue its deliberations to weigh the evidence and testimony that they ve heard in this trial over the past week or so. much of that has been very detailed and sometimes difficult to listen to. the prosecution has laid out its case that hunter biden was addicted to crack cocaine, that he was using the drug on or around the time that he purchased that revolver on october 2018. and that he then lied about that on a federal form. of course, all of this evidence the text messages, the pictures, video, even some audio snippets from hunter biden s memoir has played out notjust for the jury, but also for the biden family itself. many members of that family were again in court today sitting just behind hunter biden in a show of support. among them was the first lady herself, jill biden. this is already an historic case, an historic trial. but a conviction here would also be historic. hunter biden would become the first son of a sitting president to be convicted in a federal courthouse. that would carry a maximum penalty of about 25 years. it s unlikely he would serve that amount of time the discretion would be up to the judge but, of course, it s in the hands of the jury now. they will continue those deliberations on day two here on tuesday. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let s look at another story making headlines in the uk: an initial postmortem concluded that dr michael mosley died of natural causes, brought on by the conditions of a strenuous walk. the bbc presenter s body was found in a rocky area of the greek island of symi sunday, four days after he went missing while on holiday. joe inwood reports. it was just near the beach bar that his body was found yesterday, not by search and rescue teams, but by local journalists, the mayor, and the staff of agia marina. he passed out of the land. michalis was one of the first on the scene. he is still in shock, and feels guilt for not finding him sooner. we did our best. we gave whatever we can to do, and i m very sorry about it. i m very sorry about the end. cctv footage which has not been released shows the final moments of dr mosley s life. it confirms that the presenter died before his family had realised he was missing. dr michael mosely was 67 years old. you re watching bbc news. french political parties are scrambling to prepare for legislative elections less than three weeks away. it comes after president emmanuel macron s surprise decision to dissolve parliament and call a snap vote. mr macron made the announcement on sunday after his allies suffered a resounding defeat by the far right in european polls. but, as nicke beake reports, his first day of the campaign was marked not with a rally, but with a memorial service. emmanuel macron visited the site of one of the worst nazi massacres in france, perpetrated 80 years ago today. he s been drawing on the past to highlight what he claims is the current threat confronting the country from the far right. in the face of his opponents success this weekend, the president has taken an almighty gamble in calling a snap election. 40 miles outside paris, this is coulommiers, the land of cheesemaking, where support for macron has crumbled. the members of the monday club said they hadn t veered to the right. but then we met 31 year old mum of three noemi, a worker in an elderly care home, who says she s desperate for something new. translation: what frightens people could actually do them j good, so we should try the national front, because france is getting worse. i m scared to leave my house and the public transport is not safe. whatever the result of these snap parliamentary elections, emmanuel macron is set to stay on as president for another three years, but a national rally victory could have a huge impact here and in many parts of france. it would also be hugely symbolic, too, because injust six weeks time, the country will host the olympic games and by then, france could have its first far right government since the second world war. this is the 28 year old who could be france s prime minister in a month. through his social media, jordan bardella has been winning young supporters in particular, focusing on the cost of living, softening the image of a party once condemned as unelectable, and working alongside marine le pen. she hopes to replace macron as president in 2027. so can national rally translate their victory at the european elections to the national vote? so they have some kind of, say, a political virginity people say, we do not know what they will do if they come to power but nevertheless, let s give them a try, and if we are not happy, we will have election next time and we ll get rid of them. it s not clear what the president s thinking is, but his legacy will be defined in the coming weeks. nick beake, bbc news, outside paris. for more on the snap election, i spoke to craig copetas, a writer and correspondent based in paris. what impact do you think the french president calling snap elections is going to have not only on france, but across the eu? well, it started a large pr campaign by both the left and the right throughout europe, but it s essentially a french story. macron had to do this because he has wanted to put a stop to the rise of ultra right right wingism in france, which many here call fascism. you know, the right wing here approximately tax up 40% short of a majority of the 289 seats that s going to be required to get in the parliament in the national assembly to take a majority. they have 577 seats. so macron s decision here which is a political calculation, a tricky one he just wants to shut down the ultra right wing once and for all. he thinks he can do it. you said this is a french story, but we did also see a surge for right wing parties in austria, italy and germany. you don t think we will see this kind of ground breaking snap election in any other country? no other country has yet announced a snap election. and i think viewers have to remember that the european union parliament elections have always been a vehicle to express national discontent, frustrations, in local issues back home. a good illustration, of course, is nigel farage from the uk. so, macron knows this, and again this is another reason why he intends to host the shutdown, this attempt of le pen, jordan bardella, and of course her niece, marichelle and the other cronies, to take them on in the french elections in two years. which according to the polls right now, the french right wing has a good chance of taking. france s snap election is just part of the fallout of this year s european parliament election an enormous undertaking, with 373 million eligible voters across the eu s 27 member states. the parties in the centre still dominate the legislature. the centre right european people s party, led by european commission president ursula von der leyen, gained seats and is still the largest bloc. ms von der leyen said the centre has held , but she acknowledged that more extreme parties also made gains. in her native germany, chancellor olaf scholz s social democrats were pushedinto third place by the far right alternative for germany, afd. unlike president macron, the chancellor rejected calls to hold early elections following these results. he rebuffed suggestions that he should take responsibility for his party s result and said gains and in italy, the party of populist prime minister giorgia meloni secured a clear victory. she said the italian people had sent a strong message for her party to go ahead with greater determination. but elsewhere, right wing parties did not perform as strong. in poland, the governing centrist civic coalition has claimed victory. for more analysis of the results across the continent, i spoke to liana fix, a fellow at the council on foreign relations focusing on europe. looking at the success of right wing parties in a number of eu countries, what do you think voters were casting their ballots on? immigration? the war in ukraine? cost of living? all of the above? in opinion polls ahead of the european parliamentary elections, european voters said that they re primarily concerned about health care, about poverty, and about social exclusion. so, very traditional social welfare topics. another item on the agenda was also security and defence for the first time a third of the european electorate said the third most important priority is actually security and defence, making europe secure after russia s war against ukraine. but social welfare has been on the minds of the european electorate, much more than immigration, surprisingly. we have seen the presence of right wing parties in previous european elections. why do you think we re seeing, however, this surge now? i think that there s a story of a glass half full and glass half empty. on the one hand, the european centre in the european parliament still holds. which will allow, for example, european commission president ursula von der leyen to have a comfortable majority to be re elected. on the fringes, we have this far right surge, as you said. this goes back to national member states and their current political situation. we have germany with the alternative for germany. the far right has been strong there. marine le pen and her party in france have doubled the votes of macron s party. other member states, however, the future doesn t look as dire as in france and germany. so, across the board, we do see a surge in the far right. but if we look down and drill down, it is specifically certain member states where the far right has been very successful. let s talk about consequences. we saw president macron call a snap elections. could we see that in germany as well? we know that there is pressure on chancellor scholz to call a no confidence vote? yes, indeed especially because germany will face a number of regional elections in the eastern part of the country where the afd and the far right has traditionally been very strong. this will be a tough item for this coalition in berlin. however, it is unlikely that early elections will be called in contrast to france the germans are actually much more hesitant about political instability, political surprise moves. they don t appreciate calling early elections. and for the three parties that are in government now, early elections might actually not be beneficial, because they are already in such a dire position right now. for germany, the outlook doesn t look as urgent as for france. what about the impact on the european level in brussels, and how the far right will have a presence there? i mean, could we see the centre right, as you said it has held with european commission president von der leyen could we see the centre right actually turn to working with the far right? that was indeed a major concern before the elections, because we have already seen this on the level of member states that centre right governments have entered into a coalition with far right parties or have been supported by far right parties, for example. sweden, netherlands, finland, have all pursued this kind of model. at the european level too, it would be tempting for the centre right to form a coalition with the far right. but the election results so far suggest that this will not be necessary, that for the election of ursula von der leyen as the commission president, if she gets confirmed, and a majority from the centre will be sufficient. but she has flirted with opening up to the far right. so this story is not yet at its end. one more question what do you think all of this means for relations with the eu? we are here in washington, of course. will the relationship with the eu change at all with these different moving pieces on the european end? the relationship with the eu, if we just look at the outcome of the parliamentary elections, we ll probably remain stable. because the outcomes within the parliament are not too surprising. a little bit of a surge for the far right, but not a radical break. more concerning is the domestic developments in france. if we have a far right government in france, which might be a possibility after the two rounds of elections that emmanuel macron has announced, then this will have a significant impact on the european us relationship too. if it remains as it is right now, then washington can count on probably ursula von der leyen remaining an important actor working together with russia, working together with the white house on a regular basis, and steering europe into a direction of a stronger stance on china, more support for ukraine, and also stronger climate policies. four instructors affiliated with iowa s cornell college were injured in a serious incident at a park in china, the college says. the instructors were in china for a teaching partnership programme with a local university. the college s president said in a statement they were injured during a visit to a public park and that no students were a part of the programme. a us state department spokesperson told our news partner cbs that they are aware of reports of stabbing injulin, which is in northeast china. let s turn to some important news around the world: former us president donald trump attended a pre sentencing interview with a probation officer on monday after his hush money trial conviction last month, according to our partners at cbs news. the interview was part of the report the probation department would submit tojudgejuan merchan to help decide mr trump s punishment. sentencing is set forjuly 11. in may, mr trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony. apple unveiled its ai technology on monday called apple intelligence, at its annual worldwide developers conference in california. the new ai system will be integrated across its apps, including siri, to generate images and text. the company has partnered with openai to add chatgpt into their devices which has faced concerns over data security. apple executives said privacy safeguards have been built into its new technology. that is our programme at this hour. from washington, thank you for watching bbc news. stay with us. hello, there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week, in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland, gusts of winds coming from the north, and in excess of 30 mph, at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story, further south and west. just look at anglesey beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west, so west will be best, through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers, certainly, are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so, sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature, 14 or 15 degrees, but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully, some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so, wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start, once again, to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but, hopefully, the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers, once again, to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures, generally, similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high, but the wind direction will start to change, as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part, a little a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant, because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern don t expect anything too significant, because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england, we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. forfive decades, colombia was ravaged by political violence, cocaine, cartels and corruption. then came a peace deal with the main rebel group, the fa rc. and two years ago, the election victory of a former guerrilla turned democratic politician, gustavo petro a story of national recovery and redemption. well, not necessarily. my guest is the renowned colombian novelistjuan gabriel vasquez, who weaves powerful stories out of fact and fiction. is there anything magical about colombia s current reality? juan gabriel vasquez, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it s a pleasure to have you. now you inhabit two different intellectual worlds. you are a political commentator. it is yourjob to have instant, strong opinions for newspapers.
we have a special report on a yazidi family suing an islamic state leader s widow for abuse and sex trafficking. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. we begin in new york, where the united nations security council has voted in favour of an american resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire by israel and hamas in gaza. 1a countries voted in favour, with russia abstaining. speaking after the vote, the us ambassador to the un, linda thomas greenfield, said the fighting could end now if hamas accepted the three phase plan. our north america correspondent nada tawfik is monitoring events for us, and sent us this update. the united states, i think, it s no surprise that this resolution, the vote, coincided with antony blinken s trip to the region. and what we heard from the united states was that this was the best possible way to secure a durable end to the war, saying that it really is a deal that was israel s initiative, it outlined three phases that they said would eventually, you know, lead to the complete withdrawal of israeli forces, the release of all hostages, in exchange for palestinian prisoners, major reconstruction of gaza, eventually. but i think from different members, you heard different members, you heard different positions. you know, while the united states says this resolution passing means that the international community is united and that this will help put pressure on hamas to accept the deal, you know, algeria said they still had some reservations about the text, but supported it, because they felt it wanted to give diplomacy a chance, wanted to give a glimmer of hope to palestinians. but from russia and china a lot more scepticism. you know, russia said it didn t want to block this resolution because the arab group of nations supported it, but it questioned whether israel had really accepted the deal as the resolution states, and they pointed to a number of statements by israeli officials, including prime minister binyamin netanyahu, that they will continue the war until hamas is defeated. china as well questioned if, you know, parties will actually implement these three phases of presidentjoe biden s proposed deal, and china noting that the other security council resolutions that have been passed weren t implemented, including a permanent ceasefire, including getting more aid in at scale into gaza, questioning, you know, whether this will have a tangible impact on the ground. so i think it remains to be seen if this resolution will, in fact, be different than the other ones. the un vote took place hours after washington s top diplomat, antony blinken, held talks with the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, injerusalem. the us secretary of state emphasising the importance of a post conflict plan for gaza. earlier on monday, mr blinken met the egyptian president in cairo. abdel fattah al sisi said he d agreed to step up attempts to reach a ceasefire and the release of hostages. speaking to reporters, mr blinken said that egypt has been speaking with hamas in the previous hours. the only party that has not accepted, the only party that s not said yes, is hamas. that s who everyone is depending on waiting on. that s who the palestinians in gaza are waiting on. it s who the israelis are waiting on. it s who the hostages and the hostage families are waiting on. does hamas want to end this conflict? end this war that it started? or not? we ll find out. but it s clear that virtually the entire world has come together in support of the proposal, and the only open question is will hamas say yes? our state department correspondent tom bateman has been travelling with the secretary and has more from jerusalem. publicly, we re seeing the americans come here and try to press arab leaders to put pressure on hamas to accept this. but hamas is going to want and basically wants, you know, a far clearer guarantee that this would mean the end of the war and a full israeli withdrawal from gaza. the war and a full israeli withdrawalfrom gaza. clearly, they don t feel like they ve got that yet, because we re not seeing a formal response from them, or the resumption of these negotiations. but there is something else going on beneath the surface and this isn t part of the public presentation, but what mr blinken is trying to do is bind the israelis into this and the israeli leadership, because although mr netanyahu has said that his war cabinet has authorised the deal, we haven t heard unequivocal support from him and crucially, in his wider cabinet, that fractious cabinet, that fractious cabinet, including far right ministers, some of those have outright rejected this proposal already, and some of those who have said they would quit the coalition, precipitate its collapse, if this proposal were to go ahead. so that puts pressure on mr netanyahu potentially to pull back from it all. so i think the white house is trying to bounce the two sides into making progress. that is why mr blinken is here. there are also some strong motivations, really, for the israeli leadership to some extent the top echelons of hamas to play for a bit more time here, but among those who are trying to rush this through, the white house, president biden, desperately seeking an agreement before the us presidential election campaign gets under way proper later in this year. but so far, here from the region, few signs of any here from the region, few signs ofany imminent here from the region, few signs of any imminent breakthrough. in france, political parties are scrambling to get ready after president macron called surprise parliamentary elections across the country, several years before he needed to. he made the move after his ruling alliance was roundly defeated in sunday s european elections, with france s far right national rally securing an overwhelming victory for seats in the european parliament. president macron s decision to go to the polls after such a stinging result is being seen as a huge gamble by some, as he risks becoming a lame duck president if he loses. nick beake reports from the town of coulommiers, east of paris. emmanuel macron visited the site of one of the worst nazi massacres in france, perpetrated 80 years ago today. he s been drawing on the past to highlight what he claims is the current threat confronting the country from the far right. in the face of his opponents success this weekend, the president has taken an almighty gamble in calling a snap election. a0 miles outside paris, this is coulommiers, the land of cheesemaking, where support for macron has crumbled. the members of the monday club said they hadn t veered to the right. but then we met 31 year old mum of three noemi, a worker in an elderly care home, who says she s desperate for something new. translation: what frightens people could actually do them good, so we should try the national front because france is getting worse. i m scared to leave my house and the public transport is not safe. whatever the result of these snap parliamentary elections, emmanuel macron is set to stay on as president for another three years but a national rally victory could have a huge impact here and in many parts of france. it would also be hugely symbolic too because in just six weeks time, the country will host the olympic games and by then, france could have its first far right government since the second world war. this is the 28 year old who could be france s prime minister in a month. through his social media, jordan bardella has been winning young supporters in particular, focusing on the cost of living softening the image of a party once condemned as unelectable and working alongside marine le pen. she hopes to replace macron as president in 2027. so can national rally translate their victory at the european elections to the national vote? so they have some kind, say, of a political virginity people say, we do not know what they will do if they come to power but nevertheless, let s give them a try and if we are not happy, we will have election next time and we ll get rid of them. it s not clear what the president s thinking is but his legacy will be defined in the coming weeks. nick beake, bbc news, outside paris. in the uk, the prime minister has apologised again and asked for forgiveness after leaving d day commemorations early. during a campaign visit on monday, rishi sunak said it hadn t crossed his mind to resign. in an interview on monday evening, he said it has been a tough few years, but the election was about the future and the country had turned a corner. our political editor chris mason has more. one of the key things we want to do in this election is put your questions to those seeking your questions to those seeking your support. we re calling it your voice, your vote. you ve told us how much housing matters to you, so we put that directly to the prime minister tonight. having your own home has got harder under a conservative government, hasn t it? it has not government, hasn t it? it has got harden government, hasn t it? it has got harder. and government, hasn t it? it has got harder. and i government, hasn t it? it has got harder. and i want - government, hasn t it? it has got harder. and i want to - government, hasn t it? it has i got harder. and i want to make sure that it s easier and what we will do is notjust build homes in the right places, and do that in a way that is sensitive to local communities, but make sure that we support young people into greatjobs so they can save for that deposit. the brutal truth is that a party that s been in powerfor 14 years has a long track record to scrutinise, but how different things may have been or could be in the future under any government is worth pondering too. so, on housing, why would it be any better under labour? it why would it be any better under labour? under labour? it was a staggering under labour? it was a staggering admission l under labour? it was a - staggering admission from rishi sunak tonight that effectively so many young people are priced out of the housing market. the dream of home ownership is transformative for young tra nsformative for young people. it s transformative for young people. it s why we ve said we want to build morehouses, but reforming the planning rules which hold back house building. these half hour interviews with all the main party leaders offer the chance to explore plenty of topics, like the prime minister leaving the 0 day commemorations early. d day commemorations early. do you understand that for quite a lot of people watching, i think, they simply think that the basic duty of the prime minister, the duty, was for you to be in that photograph, and not david cameron? to be in that photograph, and not david cameron? well, that s wh i ve not david cameron? well, that s why i ve apologised why i ve apologised unreservedly for the mistake and i hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me. my in their hearts to forgive me. my duty is also to make sure that this is a country which looks after our veterans, which is why i m proud that there is a veterans minister sitting around the cabinet table. find around the cabinet table. and what about around the cabinet table. and what about the around the cabinet table. and what about the reform uk leader nigel farage, who manages to haunt, bamboozle and excite conservatives in roughly equal measure? isn t your problem that many conservatives think he s more of a conservative than you are? well, at the end of the day, or onjuly 5, there is only going to be one person who s going to be prime minister, it s keir starmer. be prime minister, it s keir starmer. . . be prime minister, it s keir starmer. ., ., starmer. .. and i m asking about niel starmer. .. and i m asking about nigel farage? starmer. .. and i m asking about nigel farage? and starmer. .. and i m asking about nigel farage? and i m starmer. .. and i m asking about| nigel farage? and i m answering the question- nigel farage? and i m answering the question. the nigel farage? and i m answering the question. the choice - nigel farage? and i m answering the question. the choice is - nigel farage? and i m answering the question. the choice is for i the question. the choice is for keir starmer or myself. a vote for anyone who is not a conservative candidate is just making it more likely that keir starmer is that person. and making it more likely that keir starmer is that person. and so to the conservative starmer is that person. and so to the conservative manifesto, that published bundle of promises, coming in the morning. a tomorrow you ll promise more tax cuts? ~ ., ., tax cuts? we will have a manifesto tax cuts? we will have a manifesto tomorrow - tax cuts? we will have a | manifesto tomorrow that tax cuts? we will have a - manifesto tomorrow that builds on all the things that you ve just gone through, but we ve already announced in the campaign that, yes, does continue to cut people s taxes because i believe in a country where people s hard work is rewarded. he where people s hard work is rewarded- where people s hard work is rewarded. ., , ., , ., rewarded. he has to believe, to ho e, rewarded. he has to believe, to hepe. too. rewarded. he has to believe, to hepe. too. that rewarded. he has to believe, to hope, too, that something - rewarded. he has to believe, to hope, too, that something willl hope, too, that something will turn up for him politically, and quickly. the polls aren t budging for rishi sunak. his manifesto might be one of his last chances to shift the dial. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. you re live with bbc news. we turn now to the korean peninsula where the us and south korea have been discussing how to deal with nuclear threats from pyongyang. the nuclear consultative group finalised its guidelines that spell out how to deter north korea from a nuclear attack, and how washington and seoul should respond to any strike. they ve agreed to test the strategy during joint drills this summer. it comes as a propaganda battle escalates on the border involving trash filled balloons and blaring loud speakers. for more, let s speak to sue thompson, associate professor at the national security college for the australian national university. thank you very much for your time here on newsday. well, south korea and the us working on that joint strategy south korea and the us working on thatjoint strategy what, in your opinion, have been the highlights for you so far from the meeting? highlights for you so far from the meeting? highlights? well, the meeting? highlights? well, the united states the meeting? highlights? well, the united states has the united states has reaffirmed its commitment to support south korea and support the integration of south korean defence with united states nuclear capability. what s also quite interesting is that the united states has come out and said, in any event of an attack, from the north korea against south korea, there will be, quote, united states department of defence says there ll be overwhelming and decisive response which is quite interesting as well and this, of course, as you said in your lead in, this, of course, as you said in yourlead in, is this, of course, as you said in your lead in, is coming at a time of increased propaganda tensions between the north and the south, so it s going to be an interesting summer ahead. yes. and if i could pick a little bit on the specifics, well, joint drills focused on nuclear installations is one aspect. there is talk of deploying some nuclear submarines. would you say there is a risk of possible pushback from pyongyang? how will they view the developments? i from pyongyang? how will they view the developments?- view the developments? i think pyongyang view the developments? i think pyongyang will view the developments? i think pyongyang will view view the developments? i think pyongyang will view these - pyongyang will view these developments as quite. you know, with concern. i think there is potential of pushback. whether it would ever go to any sort of escalation is. not sure about that because, of course, that would get to quite a serious point. the united states and south korea have beenin states and south korea have been in a mutual defence treaty since 1953, since the armistice in the korean war, so, you know, always been those military connections and the united states forces have been stationed in south korea, so how far pyongyang would go is unsure. a lot of people see kim jong un as, you know, not a very reliable character in terms of what his motivations might be. with this balloon incident, kimjong un s might be. with this balloon incident, kim jong un s sister just recently came out and expressed how it was a serious incident, and it could escalate, so, you know, tensions are heightening in this situation. tensions are heightening in this situation. you mentioned in our this situation. you mentioned in your first this situation. you mentioned in your first answer this situation. you mentioned in your first answer that - this situation. you mentioned in your first answer that this i in your first answer that this was also washington s way of affirming their commitment to south korea s defence. how solid do you see that commitment, given the fact that there are multiple fronts open for the us? you ve got the ukraine russia war. you ve got the conflict in the middle east. you ve got the south china sea. how do you see this progressing from a us point of view? i progressing from a us point of view? ~ ,, ., view? i think the us would really rather view? i think the us would really rather it view? i think the us would really rather it didn t - really rather it didn t progress. you know, there is that problem. there s the problem in the south china sea. the united states has problems with taiwan, although a lot of analysts don t believe that china has intentions towards any sort of military activity towards taiwan at the moment. but, as you say, there s a lot of these tensions going on globally and, of course, the united states is just about to embark on their own presidential election campaign and anything could happen as a result of those elections in november. result of those elections in november- result of those elections in november. ~ , , november. we ve seen this, you know, propaganda november. we ve seen this, you know, propaganda war november. we ve seen this, you know, propaganda war - - know, propaganda war currently balloons full of garbage. you ve got loudspeakers as well. explain to us what we re seeing and whether this is leading up to something more. so what s also behind this so there s been propaganda warfare has been going on between north and south korea, you know, for decades. and at this recent tensions, this recent tension is a concern because back in 2018, the two sides had a deal to reduce military tensions between them. and just last week, south korea decided to walk away from that 2018 deal, so that is something that is underlining in the back ground of awful this as well. and the rubbish. and north korea s response has been to recent spate of south korean balloons, south korean activists sending balloons over the border, with us drives of propaganda, k pop and k cinema with them, so this has been seen as a response. and now south korea is saying that they re going to start blaring, have loudspeakers blaring, have loudspeakers blaring again they ve done it in the past across the border so it is quite a serious escalation. so it is quite a serious escalation. . . ., , escalation. i m afraid that s all the time escalation. i m afraid that s all the time we escalation. i m afraid that s all the time we have. - escalation. i m afraid that s all the time we have. sue l all the time we have. sue thompson, thank you very much for your thoughts and your views on that developing story. let s take a look at some other stories in the headlines. a plane carrying malawi s vice president has gone missing. the aircraft left the capital, lilongwe on monday morning, but the malawi defence forces say it has gone off the radar. the vp, saulos chilima and nine others are believed to have been on board. the president has ordered a search and rescue operation. yemen s houthi rebels have accused 11 un staff and several aid workers of being part of an american israeli spy cell. the un staff all believed to be yemeni nationals were detained in the capital sanaa last week.the un has called for their unconditional release. fine particles in the air may have caused 135 million premature deaths over a ao year period according to new research. researchers at singapore s nanyang technological university believe more than half the premature deaths occurred in china and india. particle pollution is caused by vehicle emissions, industrial processes, wildfires and dust storms. it s nearly ten years since the so called islamic state created a caliphate across iraq and syria, and its reign of terror spread far and wide. thousands from the yazidi religious minority were killed and many more were kidnapped and enslaved. the pain has never gone away for famlies who ve continued in their search forjustice. now one yazidi family is attempting to sue um huthaifa, the widow of the is leader, who s accused of being involved in sex trafficking and abuse at her home. feras kilani reports from iraq on one family s search forjustice. yazidis fleeing for their lives across northern iraq in 2014. persecuted by the islamic state, thousands were killed. more were kidnapped and taken as sex slaves. suad was one of them. ten years on, we returned to the family home from where she was abducted by is fighters. translation: there is no one left from my family, only me and my brother survived. at the age of 1a, she was taken captive and suffered years of sexual abuse. suad s sister and her uncle hamid s daughter are still missing. now they are determined to fight for justice for what happened to her and the family. the girls were kept at the home of is leader abu bakr al baghdadi. it s believed they were then sold as sex slaves. al baghdadi s widow umm hudaifa is now being held in a prison in baghdad. suad is taking her to court for her alleged past and their ordeal. i spent two hours with umm hudaifa. she admits the two missing girls did stay at her home. translation: at the time, i felt ashamed. how is it that women could be degraded to such an extent? i was entirely against it, but i was a helpless woman. suad insists that umm hudaifa is not innocent and she must be confronted with her crimes. suad and hamid are accusing umm hudaifaof sex trafficking and abuse. he assaulted a worker. translation: it s| al-baghdadi s wife. she s a criminal like him. where is my family? i can t find them. isn t it because of both of al baghdadi and his wife? i won t forgive her. i will take my and other yazidis girls revenge. iasked umm hudaifa why she didn t help the girls escape. i myself couldn t leave. how was i supposed to help her? i don t deny that my husband was a criminal. i m very sorry about what they went through, but i wish they would know that i had absolutely nothing to do with this. abu bakr al baghdadi led is, an extremist jihadist group. this brutal organisation carried out crimes including murder, torture, kidnapping and enslavement. he was killed in a us raid in 2009. umm hudaifa says her husband was changed forever during detention at a us from prison in 200a. translation: i ve always l asked him about that change in his mental state. and he used to tell me that he was exposed to something i could not understand. i believe that he was subjected to sexual torture during his detention. the pentagon didn t reply to a request for a comment on her claims. al baghdadi s death didn t end the yazidis search for justice. for many, the trauma continues thousands are still missing. but this family may be heading towards justice and could have someone who may be held accountable. feras kilani, bbc news, baghdad. that s all for now. stay with bbc news. hello there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland. gusts of winds coming from the north and in excess of 30 mile an hour at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story further south and west. just look at anglesey, beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west. so west will be best through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers certainly are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature 1a or 15 degrees. but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius, not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling, ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it, there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start once again to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but hopefully the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers once again to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures generally similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high. but the wind direction will start to change as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part a little. a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. apple enters the race to bring generative al to consumers with a big partnership. we ll have all the details. and we ll take a close look at the chinese electric vehicle market which is set to be hit by tariffs from the european union. hello and welcome to business today. i m arunoday mukharji. let s begin in california, where apple has made a splash with its announcements on artificial intelligence. the much anticipated worldwide developers conference kicked off on monday, and the company spelled out the new features for iphones, ipads, and macbooks. our north america business correspondent erin delmore has the latest. the hottest abbreviation in tech these days is easily ai. apple is taking shot at redefining artificial intelligence into apple intelligence. the company unveiled a series of micro when related announcements at its worldwide developers concerts on monday chief among them a partnership with the artificial intelligence juggernaut openai. that will allow apple to integrate start up s cutting edge chat bot chatgpt into its devices including a superpowered series. the voice assistant will be available with chatgpt features for free later this year. other new additions include ai generated images of a mode help with proofreading in tone adjustment. these announcement are the big stand
hello and welcome. this is business today. after months of speculation, apple has revealed its plans for artificial intelligence in a move that chief executive tim cook has called the next big step . the tech giant is to boost its siri voice assistant and operating systems with openai s chatgpt as it seeks to catch up in the ai race. it s part of a new personalised ai system called apple intelligence. here s our north america business correspondent erin delmore. the hardest abereaviation in tech these days is easily ai. now, apple is taking its shot at redefining artificial intelligence into apple intelligence. the company unveiled a series of ai related announcements at the world development conference on monday. chief among them a partnership with the artificial intelligence juggernaut, intelligencejuggernaut, openai. that will allow apple to integrate the start up s cutting edge chat bot, chatgpt, into its including a superpowered siri. apple s signature voice assistant will be available with chatgpt features for free later this year. other new additions include ai generated images and emojis and help with toning improvements. this is apple s big stand in integrating the ai features that have captured users attentions and company s big bucks. wall street has spent the year rewarding firms that have not onlyjumped on but rewarded it, like nvidia. last week, it overtook apple itself to become the second most valuable company in the world by market capitalisation. microsoft, which has its own long standing partnership with openai remains the most powerful. lets get the view of carolina milanesi president and principal analyst at creative strategies. what did you make of the big reveal? i what did you make of the big reveal? ~ ., , ., , reveal? i think what people were surprised reveal? i think what people were surprised about - reveal? i think what people were surprised about is - reveal? i think what people were surprised about is thei were surprised about is the fact that apple intelligence is actually home grown. so that is not what chatgpt is powering. so that is something that apple has created on its own merit, with its own technology, its own silicon and its cloud, to keep everything personal and private. where chatgpt comes in, it becomes a bit more like a table stakes of general queries that we have been accustomed to do and play with, which chatgpt and other services, is on its own chat bot. so if you like, you were talking about it becoming smarter. apple is making siri smarter. apple is making siri smarter and chatgpt makes siri more knowledgeable. 50. smarter and chatgpt makes siri more knowledgeable. more knowledgeable. so, the oint more knowledgeable. so, the point you more knowledgeable. so, the point you made more knowledgeable. so, the point you made about - more knowledgeable. so, the point you made about apple | point you made about apple intelligence, it is its own software chips, etc, etc. yes. do ou software chips, etc, etc. yes. do you think software chips, etc, etc. yes. do you think that software chips, etc, etc. yes. do you think that people - software chips, etc, etc. yes. do you think that people willl do you think that people will therefore, think that it is more superior? it is more secure and safer in some way? i think that they re certainly going to believe that privacy is at the core of what apple wants to deliver, and is more personal. there s no question that consumers across different countries trust the brand of apple. apple doesn t monetise from consumer s data. it monetises through hardware, so it is in their interest to bring hardware back. so the di phone for example. and we ve seen that apple intelligence will be available only on the latest devices that are running either an m1 on mac and ipad, or on the iphone, the iphone pro and pro max. or on the iphone, the iphone pro and pro max. how does this com are pro and pro max. how does this compare to pro and pro max. how does this compare to what pro and pro max. how does this compare to what microsoft - pro and pro max. how does this compare to what microsoft or i compare to what microsoft or google are offering? i mean, apple has been seen to be behind? does this now bring it up behind? does this now bring it up to speed? is it now possibly going to move ahead? your thoughts? i going to move ahead? your thoughts? thoughts? i think it s a very different thoughts? i think it s a very different business - thoughts? i think it s a very different business model. l thoughts? i think it s a very - different business model. both google and microsoft are in the cloud business, so they are in the large language model business, and they are monetising from services like co pilots and duet. for apple, everything is free because they monetise from the hardware. so it s hard to make a comparison. there is no question that being more personal will drive more engagement from a user perspective. engagement from a user perspective- engagement from a user perspective. 0k. well, it s aood perspective. 0k. well, it s good to perspective. 0k. well, it s good to get perspective. 0k. well, it s good to get your perspective. 0k. well, it s good to get your take. - perspective. 0k. well, it s i good to get your take. thank you for your time. well lets stay on the theme of ai the ceo of morgan stanley, ted pick, has said the use of ai could companies financial advisers between 10 and 15 hours a week. he told a conference it s potentially really game changing . lets explore this with will walker arnott, director of private clients at charles stanley. good morning to you. good morning- good morning to you. good morning. so, good morning to you. good morning. so, can good morning to you. good morning. so, can you - good morning to you. good morning. so, can you see l good morning to you. good - morning. so, can you see this? would that morning. so, can you see this? would that be morning. so, can you see this? would that be the morning. so, can you see this? would that be the case, - morning. so, can you see this? would that be the case, for- would that be the case, for example, in your line of work? you could save 10 15 hours a week if ai you could save 10 15 hours a week if al was really implemented where you are? we re actually own bid an american company called raymond james, and they really see the role of ai as not replacing human roles but augmenting and increasing productivity. so the first thing rolled out is access to co pilot, which is a microsoft product which helps us to review long documents and analyse them very quickly. but also, we have some preparatory called opportunities, which is released by raymond james, which when we get in, in the morning, we ll review portfolios and prompt us to react. and finally in the back office, we can improve productivityjust office, we can improve productivity just through things like when we re processing documentation. so i think that it will save time and will be a game changer in the wealth management arena. now, let s talk about apple from the market perspective. shares actually went down after this big launch, as it were. and yet, the snp500 closing at a record high. five of the so called magnificent seven stocks doing well yesterday. why was apple not riding the wave of this reveal of the ai plans? i wave of this reveal of the ai lans? ~ ., wave of this reveal of the ai lans? ~ ., , ., , plans? i think to be honest, it had a very plans? i think to be honest, it had a very strong plans? i think to be honest, it had a very strong recovery - plans? i think to be honest, it. had a very strong recovery over the last three months. if you go back to the turn of the year, there was a lot of concerns around the company surrounding chinese demand and the like. and the share price has since had a strong sense of due won earnings has rallied hard. so a little bit of profit taking after the announcements, but you re quite right, the big technology companies are really supporting growth in us market, and that s really down to the strong earnings we saw in the recent results season.- recent results season. now, it s a busy recent results season. now, it s a busy week recent results season. now, it s a busy week for - recent results season. now, it s a busy week for you - recent results season. now, it s a busy week for you and | it s a busy week for you and others watching financial markets. we have the federal reserve meeting starting today. of course, they wrap that up on wednesday. lots of thoughts of where they re headed. oil prices spiked on monday as well. brent crude still above $81 a barrel. and then us inflation numbers out this week as well. it s going to be busy, isn t it? ., as well. it s going to be busy, isn t it? . , ., as well. it s going to be busy, isn t it? . , ., , isn t it? yeah, it s a busy, busy week- isn t it? yeah, it s a busy, busy week. and isn t it? yeah, it s a busy, busy week. and you re - isn t it? yeah, it s a busy, i busy week. and you re quite right all surprises did spring up a bit yesterday. but over the year, they ve been pretty flat. we re about to enter the driving season in the us, which traditionally means there s a lot more demand for oil. but i think the fact that president biden will not want to see oil prices rising ahead of an election means that he s going to continue to release his strategic reserves and keep a cap on that. so i think that the oil price will remain range bound. and looking for, yes, we have inflation data from us. we also have the federal reserve where markets are still expecting interest rates to go up expecting interest rates to go up one or two times possibly this year, which seems about right. this year, which seems about riuht. ,, right. all right, goodness me! thanks for right. all right, goodness me! thanks for talking right. all right, goodness me! thanks for talking to - right. all right, goodness me! thanks for talking to us. - right. all right, goodness me! thanks for talking to us. have j thanks for talking to us. have a good day. we ll see you again, soon. here in the uk, we will get the latestjobs data in around 90 minutes time as pressure mounts on the bank of england to join other major banks in cutting interest rates. but economists expect to see wage growth of around 6% in the three months to april an acceleration which could leave a rate cut less likely over fears of the labour market fuelling inflation. toby fowlston is chief executive of the recruitment company robert walters group. good to have you on bbc news again, tony. so tell us what you re expecting? what will we learn about uk jobs market today? learn about uk “obs market toda ? ,., ., learn about uk “obs market toda ? , ., ., ., learn about uk “obs market toda ? ., , today? good morning, sally. well, it wouldn t today? good morning, sally. well, it wouldn t surprise - today? good morning, sally. | well, it wouldn t surprise me to see perhaps a small drop in terms of the number of vacancies, orat terms of the number of vacancies, or at best, terms of the number of vacancies, orat best, it perhaps staying flat. vacancies, or at best, it perhaps staying flat. and from our perhaps staying flat. and from your point perhaps staying flat. and from your point of perhaps staying flat. and from your point of view, perhaps staying flat. and from your point of view, as - perhaps staying flat. and from your point of view, as a - your point of view, as a recruitment company, what are the trends at the moment? well, we re seeing. the trends at the moment? well, we re seeing. so the trends at the moment? well, we re seeing. so we the trends at the moment? well, we re seeing. so we operate . we re seeing. so we operate in the professional services space. we ve sort of gone from what was deemed the great resignation coming out of covid in 2021 and 2022, and then we moved into the boomerang people realised that they needed to work and went back to employers now we ve sort of entered this phrase being coined as the big stay . and it really comes down to just a lack of confidence. a lack of confidence on clients, obviously cost of hiring, and also a particular lack of confidence with candidates, who are obviously seeing what s going on in the world and they are choosing, albeit anecdotally, looking to move the actual physical movement of people. we rejust the actual physical movement of people. we re just not seeing that happening as it was previously. that happening as it was previously- that happening as it was reviousl . , ., ., previously. does that mean we re in previously. does that mean we re in an previously. does that mean we re in an unhealthy - previously. does that mean i we re in an unhealthy position in the ukjobs market? because also, of course, the number that the government is looking at quite closely all the time is the so called economically inactive those who are not in work that could well be in work for various reasons? for various reasons? yeah. so we ve seen for various reasons? yeah. so we ve seen an for various reasons? yeah. so we ve seen an increase - for various reasons? yeah. so we ve seen an increase in - we ve seen an increase in long term sickness in the workplace. i think we re up to 2.8 million in february 2024 were the numbers. down to various reasons long covid, nhs delays, interest in people working from home and not set “p working from home and not set up properly in term of equipment. so that has increased. so we re also seeing a lack of confidence with candidates who. .. a lack of confidence with candidates who. and let s not forget, they went into the job market in 2021 and 2022. salaries were at a premium. we had inflation. that inflation got to inflection point of around 10%ment and then we started to see that clients couldn t keep up that rate of inflation in terms of real pay. so today what we ve got is low unemployment, candidates sat on relatively high salary premiums in the professional services space. why would they move at the moment? so we need confidence to come back. we need to start seeing enter prize businesses hiring and we need to see some stability in the marketplace. the marketplace. and, of course. the marketplace. and, of course, all the marketplace. and, of course, all the the marketplace. and, of course, all the political. course, all the political parties are talking about this, aren t they? how uk economy will be given a boost post election. we ve got the conservative manifesto coming out today. are you hopeful that whatever the outcome of the election, it will mean policies in place that will help to boost uk economy? in place that will help to boost uk econom ? . ., boost uk economy? yeah, i mean, i ll leave the boost uk economy? yeah, i mean, i ll leave the politics boost uk economy? yeah, i mean, i ll leave the politics to i ll leave the politics to politicians. but from a working perspective, firstly we need stability. we need a decision. then we need a government that s going to start looking at how we can encourage workers back in. so examples of that would be greater learning and education. we know there s going to have to be a huge reskilling of the workforce with the increase in al. and actually, we re looking at perhaps half of the professional working force having to reskill by 2030. i think things around how we can support employees as well in terms of cost of living right now are going to be really important. now are going to be really important- now are going to be really imortant. . ., important. thanks, toby. good to net important. thanks, toby. good to get your important. thanks, toby. good to get your take. staying in the uk the lack of affordable housing is a big issue and with an election imminent this problem is getting a lot of attention. the uk has the highest housing costs in the english speaking world with typically more than a quarter of disposable income spent on housing. so what are the wider issues in the housing sector across the uk and why aren t enough homes being built? here s our economics editor faisal islam. as the cost of living squeeze from energy and food costs starts to settle, there is no such luck with housing. mortgage and rental costs are still rising the latter by record amounts. this is a long term issue basic supply and demand as you can see at this new housing development in warwickshire. many of these new homes are going forjust over £300,000. that s bang on the average house price in this country. and we can see how that s changed over the past three decades or so no surprise to see that line going up and up. what has changed has been the relationship with affordability. back in the late 90s, five years worth of annual average income was more than the average house price. now, it s crossed over, the gap is massive and looks very difficult to bridge. it s all about house building. successive governments over years, over decades, have made big promises on house building, often not met. this is what s happened for england, over the past ten years, broken down per three month quarter. a similar pattern across the united kingdom. the conservatives made a promise in 2017, a manifesto commitment in 2019, to meet a target of 300,000 homes per year by the mid 2020s, so that s about 75,000 a quarter. it s only even nearly met in a single quarter, and that s because of a rush on green targets, then it falls quite sharply in the second half of last year. now, the government argues it has met a separate, lower target of a million new homes in the past parliament, but we don t have the full figures for that yet. the labour party say it will continue that target for the next five years if it wins 1.5 million new homes over that five year period. the financial crisis, the pandemic, rising interest rates and inflation all can be blamed, but mass house building has only historically been done when government funds it, and the parties seem to agree there isn t the money. in the 60s, local authorities were building a lot of social housing, and that has died down in the 90s, and without this push, we can never get enough new builds. and then there s planning. yes, 50, planning permission has therefore been refused. up and down the country, in lengthy councillors meetings just like these, now recorded on council websites. applause. ..there are the familiar sight and sound of new homes not being built, planning permission refused repeatedly. the two main parties do differ here. labour says it s willing to build on specific areas of the green belt that are not so green they call the grey belt. ultimately, both for buying and renting, supply not responding to demand means higher housing costs, the most enduring aspect of the cost of living crisis. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. singapore airlines has set aside more than a million dollars in compensation for the injured passengers of a flight which suffered severe turbulence last month while flying from london to singapore. the flight diverted to bangkok. at the time passengers recounted scenes of absolute terror and one british passenger died from a suspected heart attack during the incident. live now to nick marsh in our asia business hub. tell us more about the offer. what does it mean to the passengers? what does it mean to the ”asseners? ,, ., ~ , passengers? sing apore airlines have off offered passengers? sing apore airlines have off offered $10,000 - passengers? sing apore airlines have off offered $10,000 to - have off offered $10,000 to each passenger who received minor injuries. i ve reached out to singapore airlines and asked firstly, what does minor mean and how many passengers are we talking about? they haven t responded as of yet. i ll keep you updated when they do. but we do know that more than a hundred people were treated in hospital after that flight diverted to bangkok following that turbulence. so we re talking about at least a hundred people entitled to this $10,000. for people who sustained more severe injuries, they ve been offered an initial advance payment of $25,000 us. and that s actually subject to negotiation depending on how bad your injuries were. in terms of the actual flight, sally, i ll remind people watching what happened. it was a flight from london to singapore. it hit really bad turbulence over myanmar. the plane dropped 178 feet more than 50 metres in less than five seconds. when through all kinds of g force changes. people said it was an absolutely terrifying experience. one man, obviously, sadly died. and bad news for singapore airlines who had been doing really well financially up doing really well financially up to then. now they ll have to she“ up to then. now they ll have to shell out all of the compensation money. 0k, compensation money. ok, thank you for the latest. the oil giant, bp, has tightened its rules on workplace relationships after its former boss was dismissed for failing to disclose details about his personal relationships with colleagues. senior managers must now report any intimate relationships that have taken place with colleagues in the last three years. with more, here s david waddell. bp s chief executive was sacked in december, accused of certificate yours misconduct serious misconduct. he lost his jobs along with millions of pounds of share allowances and bonuses. in december, the firm accused its former boss of providing inaccurate assurances as part of 2022 investigation. they said he knowingly misled the board. at the time, mr luney said he was disappointed with the way the situation had been handled. this week, bp said it had updated its conflict of interest policy after looking at comparable organisations and good industry practice. previously, employees were only required to disclose and record family or intimate relationships at work if they felt there could be a conflict of interest. but this policy goes much wider. about 4,500 managers have been asked to submit any reports in the next three months whether or not they feel they represent a conflict of interest. the company said the changes reflect the influ especially that leaders have, and any failure of compliance could lead to disciplinary action. the chartered institute of personnel and development said that any relationships between managers and employees would be a clear conflict of interest, and should be reported as they could create risks around confidentiality and fairness. now will you be popping out for a run after this programme? maybe you are on the treadmill now. this week in the uk, it is bike week, and many use one of a number of fitness apps to track progress against goals when they re doing such activities. so the fitness world has delivered a number of devices and apps to allow users to take part in a growing community. strava is one of them. it currently has 120 million users around the world. joining me now is the company s ceo michael martin. i assume that you are a strava user. i i assume that you are a strava user. ., ., i assume that you are a strava user. . ., , ., user. i am, i have been for the last seven user. i am, i have been for the last seven years user. i am, i have been for the last seven years what - user. i am, i have been for the last seven years what is - user. i am, i have been for the last seven years what is that? l last seven years what is that? running, hiking, cycling? soi primarily go on runs, often with my dog, as well as walks, swims and cycling. swims and cycling. ok, this week is bike swims and cycling. ok, this week is bike week- swims and cycling. ok, this week is bike week in - swims and cycling. ok, this week is bike week in uk. i swims and cycling. ok, this i week is bike week in uk. the whole point of is to encourage people on to their bikes, to change their transport option from maybe going in a car to cycling. that kind of thing, increasing health, wellbeing. do you see. do you notice a difference during the weeks in strava. do you see a surge of activity? strava. do you see a surge of activi ? ~ ., ., ., activity? we do, although those surues activity? we do, although those surges during activity? we do, although those surges during weeks activity? we do, although those surges during weeks like - activity? we do, although those surges during weeks like this i surges during weeks like this are actually relatively minor versus the overall trends in growth on cycling overall. specifically in the uk and also specifically to commute. ok. specifically to commute. 0k, and ust specifically to commute. 0k, and just talk specifically to commute. 0k, and just talk us specifically to commute. ok, and just talk us through how artificial intelligence is changing what you offer? i presume you re going to be moving in that direction? absolutely. one of the things that we announced recently is our first products using ai. i ve worked with artificial intelligence and machine learning for almost a decade now. i ve never been particularly interested in the novelty of the technology, but i ve been amazed by its ability to solve real problems. and combining artificial intelligence with the world s. .. intelligence with the world s. with the data from the world s largest active community, i believe is going to unlock new types of motivation and get more people on their bikes more frequently. so, it s a win win from your perspective. there are those who say that there are cheats on strava. this is something i ve been hearing, in the sense that you ve got your leaderboards and it can be quite competitive in terms of who s the fastest on a particular route, etc. how do you counter that? how do you make sure that someone is genuine in terms of the data that they re putting in? that s a problem that they re putting in? that s a problem that that they re putting in? that s a problem that strava - that they re putting in? that s a problem that strava has - a problem that strava has frankly had for quite a while. it s one of the most requested fixes that the community has asked for. and given my background in tech, it s actually a perfect example of a problem that al is suited to solve. before it was very, very difficult to actually discern with great precision and accuracy what was a false record versus somebody who was just doing better than everybody else. but that is tailor made for artificial intelligence, and that was one of the other announcements that we made recently. that s the second way that we re going to be deploying ai second way that we re going to be deploying al to help people on strava. ., . , be deploying al to help people on strava- on strava. how many of your users are on strava. how many of your users are free on strava. how many of your users are free users? - on strava. how many of your users are free users? and i on strava. how many of your i users are free users? and how many are on paying you a subscription? what s the percentage? brute subscription? what s the percentage? subscription? what s the ”ercentae? ~ ., ,. percentage? we don t disclose that. but percentage? we don t disclose that- but i percentage? we don t disclose that. but | will percentage? we don t disclose that. but i will say percentage? we don t disclose that. but i will say that - percentage? we don t disclose that. but i will say that we ve i that. but i will say that we ve been seeing growth, both in terms of the free usage, but also growth in terms of our subscriber base and we re really excited. that growth has continued following the pandemic. and it s actually accelerated within the last year. accelerated within the last ear. , ., ., year. and i understand that ou re year. and i understand that you re moving year. and i understand that you re moving to year. and i understand that you re moving to try - year. and i understand that you re moving to try to - you re moving to try to encourage more women to use so what s the plan from that point of view? ~ , ,., , ., of view? absolutely. the women are under pen of view? absolutely. the women are under pen rated of view? absolutely. the women are under pen rated in of view? absolutely. the women are under pen rated in terms - of view? absolutely. the women are under pen rated in terms of. are under pen rated in terms of their activity in sport overall. and i believe that strava has a true opportunity here to actually make sport more inclusive, specifically for herself. so we ve announced a number of features intended to help with some of the challenges that she has, specifically things that would allow women to feel more safe as they go for a run or for a ride. give them more control of the information that they share. and i think that s going to be great for them. we re seeing the early data right now. just this year in the uk, for the last six months, we re seeing womenjoin strava for the last six months, we re seeing women join strava at twice the rate of last year. but then i think that those tools and those capabilities will also broadly applicable to others in the flat for as well. 0k, others in the flat for as well. ok, interesting on the platform as well. ok, interesting. thank you for joining us on the programme. thank you. thank you. thankyou. thank ou. ., thank you. so whatever you re u . thank you. so whatever you re u- to thank you. so whatever you re up to today. thank you. so whatever you re up to today, maybe thank you. so whatever you re up to today, maybe you re - thank you. so whatever you re i up to today, maybe you re going on your bike or going for a run enjoy. thank you for your company. i ll see you soon. hello, there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week, in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland, gusts of winds coming from the north, and in excess of 30 mph, at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story, further south and west. just look at anglesey beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west, so west will be best, through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers, certainly, are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so, sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature, 14 or 15 degrees, but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully, some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so, wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start, once again, to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but, hopefully, the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers, once again, to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures, generally, similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high, but the wind direction will start to change, as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part, a little a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant, because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england, we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. good morning welcome to breakfast withjon kay and sally nugent, our headlines today. a promise to cut another two pence from national insurance as the conservatives launch their general election manifesto. labour say the prime minister is desperate good morning from taunton in somerset, one of the new constituencies in this election. we have been talking to voters about what matters to them most and whether they have decided where they will be putting their cross on the 4th ofjuly. former rugby union player ed slater pays tribute to rob burrow and says thank you for supporting people with motor neurone disease. in sport, scotland are already there. now, after a royal send off england are, too. gareth southgate s squad arrive at their euros base in germany with the tournament starting on friday. good morning. we are seeing some sunshine today but generally there will be a lot of cloud, some showers. showers especially in eastern areas and it
the un security council endorsed a ceasefire proposal for gaza on monday. it is the first time the council has passed a resolution demanding a stop in fighting, after eight months of war. the resolution urges both hamas and israel to fully and quickly implement the three phase plan. 1a countries voted in favour, and russia abstained. reactions to the resolution between the two parties have been mixed. hamas says it welcomes the endorsement, and that it s ready to work with mediators. a senior israeli diplomat said her country would continue to pursue its objectives. us ambassador to the un linda thomas greenfield says the resolution shows hamas that the international community is united. colleagues, today this council sent a clear message to hamas. accept the ceasefire deal on the table. israel has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today, if hamas would do the same. i repeat, the fighting could stop today. the bbc s nada tawfik has more from new york. and what we heard from the united states was that this was the best possible way to secure a durable end to the war, saying that it really is a deal that was israel s initiative, it outlined three phases that they said would eventually, you know, lead to the complete withdrawal of israeli forces, the release of all hostages, in exchange for palestinian prisoners, major reconstruction of gaza, eventually. but, i think, from different members, you heard different positions. you know, while the united states says this resolution passing means that the international community is united, and that this will help put pressure on hamas to accept the deal, you know, algeria said they still had some reservations about the text, but supported it, because they felt it wanted to give diplomacy a chance, wanted to give a glimmer of hope to palestinians. but from russia and china, a lot more scepticism. you know, russia said it didn t want to block this resolution, because the arab group of nations supported it, but it questioned whether israel had really accepted the deal, as the resolution states, and they pointed to a number of statements by israeli officials, including prime minister benjamin netanyahu, that they will continue the war until hamas is defeated. china, as well, questioned if, you know, parties will actually implement these three phases of presidentjoe biden s proposed deal, and china noting that the other security council resolutions that have been passed weren t implemented, including a permanent ceasefire, including getting more aid in at scale into gaza, questioning, you know, whether this will have a tangible impact on the ground. so i think it remains to be seen if this resolution will, in fact, be different than the other ones. meanwhile, us secretary of state antony blinken is visiting the middle east, for the eighth time since the october 7th attacks. secretary blinken is fiercely advocating for the ceasefire deal, outlined by president biden ten days ago. mr blinken met with egyptian president abdel fattah al sisi, before heading tojerusalem for talks with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. a state department spokesman said secretary blinken assured mr netanyahu that the proposal would unlock the possibility of calm along israel s northern border. our state department correspondent tom bateman is travelling with the secretary, and has more from jerusalem. publicly, we re seeing the americans come here and try to press arab leaders to put pressure on hamas to accept this. but hamas is going to want, and basically wants, you know, a far clearer guarantee that this would mean the end of the war and a full israeli withdrawal from gaza. clearly, they don t feel like they ve got that yet, because we re not seeing a formal response from them, or the resumption of these indirect negotiations. but there is something else going on beneath the surface and this isn t part of the public presentation, but what mr blinken is trying to do is bind the israelis into this and the israeli leadership, because although mr netanyahu has said that his war cabinet has authorised the deal, we haven t heard unequivocal support from him, and crucially, in his wider cabinet, that fractious cabinet, including far right ministers, some of those have outright rejected this proposal already, and some of those have said they would quit the coalition, precipitate its collapse, if this proposal were to go ahead. so that puts pressure on mr netanyahu, potentially, to pull back from it all. so i think the white house is trying to bounce the two sides into making progress. that is why mr blinken is here. there are also some strong motivations, really, for the israeli leadership, to some extent the top echelons of hamas, to play for a bit more time here, but among those who are trying to rush this through, the white house, president biden, desperately seeking an agreement, before the us presidential election campaign gets under way proper later in this year. but so far, here from the region, few signs of any imminent breakthrough. for more on the resolution in the midst of the secretary s visit, i spoke to james jeffrey, former us ambassador to turkey and iraq, and chair of the wilson center s middle east program. ambassador, i want to start with the un security council adopting this resolution that welcomes this 3 phase ceasefire agreement that was outlined by president biden on may 31. do you think israel is going to accept this ceasefire? yes, in the sense accept this ceasefire? yes, in the sense that accept this ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel, - accept this ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel, first. accept this ceasefire? yes, in the sense that israel, first of| the sense that israel, first of all, it is an israeli proposal, it is a proposal that the president, basically, underlined basically, outlined a week ago, friday. but the important thing is the ultimate departure of all israeli troops from gaza and a permanent ceasefire, which is at the end of what we call the second six week phase, that is an automatic. that requires negotiations. these negotiations. these negotiations could go on, and in terms of the agreement, although president biden has tried to break this down, the israelis or hamas could break off at the end of the initial ceasefire at the end of a six weeks could be terminated. if you look at what s on the table, what is the difference between what president biden outlined, and what is really want and what have us ask for? the israeli said things that some hostages come back, there is aid pouring in, people can go back to their homes, but basically for six weeks, the israeli military stops fighting and pulls out of the major urban areas, so basically where all the strategic terrain along the egyptian border, the sea and other places, but stops fighting, and in return, as will hamas, and in return will negotiate on a possible permanent ceasefire during those six weeks. if they haven t achieved a breakthrough by then, they can extend about six weeks ceasefire while they continue to negotiate, but, importantly, they don t have to, and if one or the other side decides after the six weeks to break off the negotiations, we would go back to fighting. so this puts pressure on hamas. that is the israeli proposal. president biden is stressing how important it is to keep those negotiations going on forever, because then the initial six week ceasefire will look like a permanent ceasefire. right. that s very interesting. you look at one part of this proposal it does lead to the release of hostages who are in gaza. do you think the freezing of four hostages over the weekend, four israeli hostages were being in gaza, changes the equation at all for prime minister netanyahu? we know that families of the remaining hostages are putting even more pressure on this government. first of all, it overshadowed the departure of minister gantz, which was an important blow i think to netanyahu, and it will lead to i think less moderate israeli policy, but we will see. but nevertheless this was a military victory, at huge cost from the palestinian side, but it was a military victory and it so strengthens netanyahu s position, not only inside israel but also viz a viz haouas. inside israel but also viz a viz haouas. ~ ., , ,., viz haouas. we have seen some consternation viz haouas. we have seen some consternation course viz haouas. we have seen some consternation course across - viz haouas. we have seen some consternation course across the| consternation course across the world over the loss of palestinian lives in that raid that led to the freeing of those hostages, and as you said, benny gantz has left the war cabinet. what impact is not actually have on prime minister netanyahu? does it mean he is more beholden to the right wing forces in his government? fin forces in his government? on the margins, yes, but he forces in his government? (m the margins, yes, but he has support from one of the opposition leaders, minister lapid, who said he and his party would support netanyahu if netanyahu went along with this ceasefire, and thus netanyahu, even if the two very right wing ministers in the party pulled out of the 64 out of 120 contested coalition, netanyahu could stay in power, so i think all in all we are in the potential endgame. the key will be what is in those negotiations for the second phase. it won tjust be how israel leaves, it will be who governs gaza. you notice no one is talking about this. there is a third phase of major reconstruction. i have provided my recommendations to both the us and the israeli government, as have others come on how to do this, but what s important is, and this is new, israel has signed up in this agreement to the eventual, under the right conditions, departure of all israeli forces. that means that the idea of permanent israeli occupation of gaza, which we feared was the position of the netanyahu government, is no longer really on the table, if they can get the right conditions. they can get the right conditions. ., , , ., conditions. so what is your recommendation conditions. so what is your recommendation to - conditions. so what is your recommendation to the - conditions. so what is your| recommendation to the us, conditions. so what is your - recommendation to the us, to the israelis come on what the post war governments would look like in gaza? fit, post-war governments would look like in gaza? like in gaza? a stand down of hamas, like in gaza? a stand down of hamas. i like in gaza? a stand down of hamas, i think like in gaza? a stand down of hamas, i think there - like in gaza? a stand down of hamas, i think there will- like in gaza? a stand down of hamas, i think there will be l hamas, i think there will be negotiated in the second phase, where it is a ceasefire not only against israel but against the people and anyone who tries to govern gaza, then an international presence in the various ideas of arab, european, other players would come in and do governance, due reconstruction. reconstruction. would palestinian reconstruction. would palestinian leaders i reconstruction. wouldj palestinian leaders be reconstruction. would - palestinian leaders be open to that? i palestinian leaders be open to that? 4 , ., , that? i think they would be sub ect that? i think they would be subject to that? i think they would be subject to an that? i think they would be subject to an awful - that? i think they would be subject to an awful lot - that? i think they would be subject to an awful lot of. subject to an awful lot of pressure and they would also want a certain role, that is where you get the negotiations with the israelis, but that is normal and everyone a fair may be two dozen ceasefires i have been involved in the last 60 years. this can be an end game. it isn t an end game yet but we re moving in that direction. 0ne quick final question, secretary of state clinton is again in the region. what do you think his aim is in this visit? ,, , , ., you think his aim is in this visit? ,, ., you think his aim is in this visit? ,, , , ., ., visit? simply to say we re not auoin to visit? simply to say we re not going to spend visit? simply to say we re not going to spend a visit? simply to say we re not going to spend a week - visit? simply to say we re not| going to spend a week without at least one senior official visiting israel in the region, but the real work is between channels between washington and jerusalem. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let s look at another story making headlines in the uk. an initial postmortem concluded that dr michael mosley died of natural causes, brought on by the conditions of a strenuous walk. the bbc presenter s body was found in a rocky area of the greek island of symi, sunday, four days after he went missing while on holiday. joe inwood reports. it was just near the beach bar that his body was found yesterday, not by search and rescue teams, but by local journalists, the mayor and the staff here. he journalists, the mayor and the staff here- staff here. he passed out of the land- staff here. he passed out of the land. michaelis- staff here. he passed out of the land. michaelis was - staff here. he passed out of the land. michaelis was one j staff here. he passed out of. the land. michaelis was one of the land. michaelis was one of the first on the land. michaelis was one of the first on the the land. michaelis was one of the first on the scene. - the land. michaelis was one of the first on the scene. he - the land. michaelis was one of the first on the scene. he is i the first on the scene. he is still in shock and feels guilt for not finding him sooner. we did our for not finding him sooner. - did our best. we gave whatever we can to do, and i m very sorry about it. i m very sorry about the end. cctv footage, which has not been released, shows the final moments of dr mosley s life. it confirms that the presenter died before his family had realised he was missing. he was 67 years old. you re live with bbc news. french political parties are scrambling to prepare for legislative elections, less than three weeks away, after president emmanuel macron s surprise decision to dissolve parliament and call a snap vote. mr macron made the announcement on sunday, after his allies suffered a resounding defeat by the far right in european polls. but, as nicke beake reports, his first day of the campaign was marked not with a rally, but with a memorial service. emmanuel macron visited the site of one of the worst nazi massacres in france, perpetrated 80 years ago today. he s been drawing on the past to highlight what he claims is the current threat confronting the country from the far right. in the face of his opponents success this weekend, the president has taken an almighty gamble in calling a snap election. 40 miles outside paris, this is coulommiers, the land of cheesemaking, where support for macron has crumbled. the members of the monday club said they hadn t veered to the right. but then we met 31 year old mum of three, noemi, a worker in an elderly care home, who says she s desperate for something new. translation: what frightens people could actually do them j good, so we should try the national front, because france is getting worse. i m scared to leave my house and the public transport is not safe. whatever the result of these snap parliamentary elections, emmanuel macron is set to stay on as president for another three years, but a national rally victory could have a huge impact here and in many parts of france. it would also be hugely symbolic, too, because injust six weeks time, the country will host the olympic games and by then, france could have its first far right government since the second world war. this is the 28 year old who could be france s prime minister in a month. through his social media, jordan bardella has been winning young supporters in particular, focusing on the cost of living, softening the image of a party once condemned as unelectable, and working alongside marine le pen. she hopes to replace macron as president in 2027. so can national rally translate their victory at the european elections to the national vote? so they have some kind of, say, a political virginity people say, we do not know what they will do if they come to power but nevertheless, let s give them a try, and if we are not happy, we will have election next time and we ll get rid of them. it s not clear what the president s thinking is, but his legacy will be defined in the coming weeks. nick beake, bbc news, outside paris. france s snap election is just part of the fallout of this year s european parliament election, with 373 million eligible voters across the eu s 27 member states. the centre right european people s party, led by european commission president ursula von der leyen, gained seats, and is still the largest bloc. ms von der leyen said the centre has held , but she acknowledged that more extreme parties also made gains. in her native germany, chancellor 0laf scholz s social democrats were pushed into third place by the far right alternative for germany, afd. unlike president macron, the chancellor rejected calls to hold early elections, following these results. in italy, the party of populist prime minister giorgia meloni secured a clear victory. but elsewhere, right wing parties did not perform as strong. in poland, the governing centrist civic coalition claimed victory. live now to kristine berzina, from the german marshall fund of the united states, a transatlantic policy organisation. she specializes in us eu geostrategic ties. uncertainty after far right parites made major gains, great to have you on the programme tonight. what you think of emmanuel macron s move to call these snap elections? this is quite a gamble. it is a ve bi this is quite a gamble. it is a very big gamble. this is quite a gamble. it is a very big gamble. there - this is quite a gamble. it is a very big gamble. there was i this is quite a gamble. it is a i very big gamble. there was an earthquake in france with the european parliament elections. already there is an expectation the far right pretty well in europe, and we saw that in france, where the shock to the system, they shocked to macron s party and to his base was so significant that he has called for this snap election. this is a gamble that could determine what is the opportunity for the national rally to be a real political force, with the opportunity right now to also lead to the parliament. of course, president macron stays for the next three years, but his further agenda will be in many ways defined by his relationship with the parliament, and his leadership of european politics, of security policy, of europe as a global force will be called into question, if he has to be set against a parliament that is far more isolationist and uninterested in the world, in fact very concerned about immigration, has a very different approach than he himself does. so we see a gamble and potentially a play at the future role that france has in europe. france is in the world. and if this gamble does not work out for macron, it will provide an opportunity, in fact a necessity, for other europeans, for the germans, for the polls, for the north before the polls, for the north before the east, to step up and provide a much more ambitious dr tom ., , ., ., provide a much more ambitious drtom ., , ., ., ., dr tom to “ump in and ask about this and dr tom to jump in and ask about this and other dr tom to jump in and ask about this and other countries, - this and other countries, countries like germany, austria, italy also saw these far right surges. what consequence could we see there, is it something we will see is a knock on effect from france? germany had a blow to some of its major coalition parties, the social democrats and the greens suffered across all of europe we have seen pushback on the green agenda, some of the car policies, admission policies in particular. this is going to be hard for the coalition but it appears that the coalition is going to hold. there are elections coming down next year and there are regional elections that are worrying, and the far right party, the afd, is making gains, but again this is not going to be quite an earthquake in germany as it is in france. georgia maloney in italy is a far right leader and the domestic policies are very harsh and objectionable to many people but on foreign policy she has been an ally for many of the pan european and pan nato foreign objectives such as helping ukraine and we can see that continue. in other parts of europe we have seen the success of the right. but not of the far right. we have seen a drop in support for more than s party, we have seen a drop in support for donald tusk s more centrist, again right but centre right, not far right. if right but centre right, not far riuht. .., right but centre right, not far riuht. , ., ., right but centre right, not far riuht. ., ., , ., right. if i could follow up on that and right. if i could follow up on that and ask, right. if i could follow up on that and ask, what - right. if i could follow up on that and ask, what are - right. if i could follow up on that and ask, what are we l that and ask, what are we witnessing, is this a broader shift towards more conservative policies, orare shift towards more conservative policies, or are we seeing a trend we could then see swing the other way in another election? the other way in another election? ~ ., , ., ., election? we are seeing a lot of concern election? we are seeing a lot of concern about election? we are seeing a lot of concern about fiscal - of concern about fiscal responsibility, being something thatis responsibility, being something that is across the continent. we are seeing an opposition to green politics. there are many things that europe has been trying to do recently. there is economic birth, a very ambitious green agenda, as well as security and defence, and the thing we are seeing a lot of opposition is specifically on the green agenda. so we are seeing more support for stricter and more restrictive immigration policies. this is something that is a far right issue, but ever more of the centre right is taking this on. where we are not seeing the far right flourish is along the eastern flank or in a lot of europe that feels most at risk, say the far right in estonia, the far right in finland, the far right in sweden suffered serious losses, and we also talked about the polish case, and so you see the areas of europe that are at most risk for some kind of aggression from russia holding to a centre far more firmly than we are seeing the large western european countries hold and have their relationship with the far right right now. some could say that this is because there hasn t been an opportunity for the far right to have significant power in places like poland, where this has been a recent phenomenon, or in hungary still today, where this has been experienced, we are seeing a backlash against it. backlash against it. great to net our backlash against it. great to get your analysis backlash against it. great to get your analysis tonight, i get your analysis tonight, thank you forjoining us. uk prime minister rishi sunak and the conservative party are expected to unveil their election manifesto tomorrow. in an interview with the bbc, mr sunak detailed many of the party s initiatives, including addressing the growing challenge of homeownership, and a plan to cut a further 2p from the national insurance. with the country s snap election just weeks away, the party hopes the manifesto s promises will help close the gap in the polls with the labour party. nick robinson questioned the prime minister on the conservatives many campaign promises. we ve had endless promises. i ve got all your tory press releases here. a promise of national service. a couple of billion there. a promise for a tax cut for pensioners. a promise of a tax cut for parents. more apprenticeship, more police officers. endless promises. of more and more money from the conservatives. have you found the magic money tree? ., , , ., ., tree? no, every single one of those policies tree? no, every single one of those policies that tree? no, every single one of those policies that you - tree? no, every single one of those policies that you have l those policies that you have ust those policies that you have just been through is fully funded and costed, as is explained in every single one of those explained in every single one of those press releases, as indeed of those press releases, as indeed when we have set out our manifesto indeed when we have set out our manifesto tomorrow, people will be able manifesto tomorrow, people will be able to see all the details behind be able to see all the details behind it even further. and tomorrow behind it even further. and tomorrow you behind it even further. and tomorrow you will - behind it even further. fific tomorrow you will promise more tax cuts? we tomorrow you will promise more tax cuts? ~ ., ., tax cuts? we will have a manifesto tax cuts? we will have a manifesto tomorrow - tax cuts? we will have a | manifesto tomorrow that tax cuts? we will have a - manifesto tomorrow that builds on all manifesto tomorrow that builds on all the manifesto tomorrow that builds on all the things you just gone through on all the things you just gone through that we have just built just through that we have just built just announcing this campaign, but does continue to cut people s taxes because i believe cut people s taxes because i believe in a country where heartles believe in a country where people s hard work is rewarded. meanwhile, the labour party gave details of its childcare plan for england, pledging to create 100,000 additional childcare places and more than 3,000 new nurseries. liberal democrats are pledging everyone in england would be entitled to free at home care, the two child benefit cap would be lifted, and people in england would have the right to see a gp within seven days, or 24 hours, if urgent. the us president s son, hunter biden, tells the bbc he believes his federal gun case now before a jury has went well . jurors began deliberating monday, after closing arguments wrapped. 0ur correspondent carl nasman spoke to mr hunter biden, as he was leaving the courthouse. how do you feel today when? i think it went well. we ll see, though. we ve got to wait for the jury to come back. thank you. hunter biden is accused of lying about his drug use on a federal form while buying a weapon in 2018, and of illegally possessing a firearm while he was allegedly a drug user. for more on this, our correspondent carl nasman has this report. of the 0f thejury will of the jury will return to this court behind me here in delaware on tuesday morning to continue its deliberations, to weigh the evidence and testimony that they have heard of this trial over the past week or so. much of that has been very detailed, and sometimes difficult to listen to. the prosecution has laid out its case that hunter biden was addicted to crack cocaine, that he was using the drug on or around the time that he purchased that revolver in october 2018, that he then lied about that on a federal form. of course all of this evidence, of course all of this evidence, the text messages, audio, video, some snippets from hunter biden s memoir has played out notjust for the jury played out notjust for the jury but also for the biden family itself. many members of herfamily were again family itself. many members of her family were again in court today, sitting just behind hunter biden in a show of support. among them was the first lady herself, jill biden. this is already a historic case, a historic trial, but a conviction he would also be historic. hunter biden would become the first son of a sitting president to be convicted in a federal courthouse. that would carry a maximum penalty of about 25 years. it is unlikely he would say that amount of time, the discretion would be up to the judge but of course it is in the hands of the jury now, and they will continue those deliberations on day two here on tuesday. carl nazam and reporting. before i go, an iconic event in hong kong. 0n before i go, an iconic event in hong kong. on monday, hundreds of paddlers took part in the city s annual dragon boat festival. they made a splash in the waters of aberdeen harbour with 29 races. similar competitions take place in singapore, australia and the us. that is our programme at this hour. thank you for watching bbc news and stay with us. hello, there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week, in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland, gusts of winds coming from the north, and in excess of 30 mph, at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story, further south and west. just look at anglesey beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west, so west will be best, through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers, certainly, are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so, sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature, 14 or 15 degrees, but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully, some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so, wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start, once again, to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but, hopefully, the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers, once again, to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures, generally, similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high, but the wind direction will start to change as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part, a little a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant, because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england, we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. apple enters the race to bring generative al to consumers with a big partnership. we ll have all the details. and we ll take a close look at the chinese electric vehicle market which is set to be hit by tariffs from the european union. hello and welcome to business today. i m arunoday mukharji. let s begin in the us, where apple has made a splash with its announcements on artificial intelligence. the much anticipated worldwide developers conference kicked off on monday, and the company spelled out the new features for iphones, ipads, and macbooks. 0ur north america business correspondent erin delmore has the latest. the hottest abbreviation in tech these days is easily ai. apple is taking its shot at redefining artificial intelligence into apple intelligence. the company unveiled a series of ai related announcements at its worldwide developers concerts on monday. chief among them, a partnership with the artificial intelligence juggernaut 0penai. that will allow apple to integrate start up s cutting edge chat bot chatgpt into its devices including a superpowered siri. the voice assistant will be available with chatgpt features for free later this year. other new additions include ai generated images and emojis and help with proofreading in tone adjustment. these announcement are the big stand apple integrating ai features that have captured viewers attention and spending the big bucks. rewarding terms that are not onlyjumped up
hello, i m sally bundock. a very warm welcome to the programme. the united states is making a major push to pause fighting in gaza, with diplomatic efforts taking place both in the region and at the united nations. the un security council endorsed a ceasefire proposal for gaza on monday. it is the first time the council has passed a resolution demanding a stop in fighting, after eight months of war. the resolution urges both hamas and israel to fully and quickly implement the three phase plan. 1a countries voted in favour, and russia abstained. us ambassador to the un linda thomas greenfield says the resolution shows hamas that the international community is united. colleagues, today this council sent a clear message to hamas. accept the ceasefire deal on the table. israel has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today if hamas would do the same. i repeat, the fighting could stop today. our north america correspondent, nada tawfik, has been following the developments from new york and sent this update. what we heard from the united states was that this was the best possible way to secure a durable end to the war, saying that it really is a deal that was israel s initiative, it outlined three phases that they said would eventually, you know, lead to the complete withdrawal of israeli forces, the release of all hostages, in exchange for palestinian prisoners, major reconstruction of gaza, eventually. but, i think, from different members, you heard different positions. you know, while the united states says this resolution passing means that the international community is united, and that this will help put pressure on hamas to accept the deal, you know, algeria said they still had some reservations about the text, but supported it, because they felt it wanted to give diplomacy a chance, wanted to give a glimmer of hope to palestinians. but from russia and china, a lot more scepticism. you know, russia said it didn t want to block this resolution, because the arab group of nations supported it, but it questioned whether israel had really accepted the deal, as the resolution states, and they pointed to a number of statements by israeli officials, including prime minister benjamin netanyahu, that they will continue the war until hamas is defeated. china, as well, questioned if, you know, parties will actually implement these three phases of presidentjoe biden s proposed deal, and china noting that the other security council resolutions that have been passed weren t implemented, including a permanent ceasefire, including getting more aid in at scale into gaza, questioning, you know, whether this will have a tangible impact on the ground. so i think it remains to be seen if this resolution will, in fact, be different than the other ones. the vote came as the us secretary of state antony blinken is visiting the middle east. it s the eighth time he s been to the region since the october 7th attacks. mr blinken is fiercely advocating for the ceasefire deal proposed by president biden ten days ago. he met the egyptian president abdel fattah al sisi on monday and will holds talks in jerusalem with the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu later. let s speak to president of the middle east policy council, ambassador gina abercrombie winstanley. good to have you on the programme. first of all, your reaction to the un security council vote to go ahead with president biden s plan, your thoughts on that. president biden s plan, your thoughts on that. thoughts on that. well, i believe it thoughts on that. well, i believe it was thoughts on that. well, i believe it was a - thoughts on that. well, i believe it was a very - thoughts on that. well, i - believe it was a very positive step forward for the un security council to come through with a really strong support for the resolution. just one state of staining is really important. we have seen a response from hamas to that vote. again, a positive response, and i believe this is a very effective way for the united states and partners in the region to put in the building blocks of pressure on both hamas and israel to get to this ceasefire. the both hamas and israel to get to this ceasefire. this ceasefire. the question is, well this ceasefire. the question is. well they this ceasefire. the question is, well they get this ceasefire. the question is, well they get there? - this ceasefire. the question i is, well they get there? there is, well they get there? there is, as you say, a positive response from hamas, which is encouraging. israel is well is said to be on board and yet there are concerns about the pressures on benjamin netanyahu within his own party? yes. pressures on benjamin netanyahu within his own party? within his own party? yes, i mean, within his own party? yes, i mean. the within his own party? yes, i mean, the departure - within his own party? yes, i mean, the departure of- within his own party? yes, i. mean, the departure of benny gantz means those to the right of the prime minister are in a different position. nonetheless, the leader of the opposition said he would provide a safety net for the prime minister to take this very positive step for the israeli people so the prime minister does have the ability to reach, and take the ceasefire deal which of course originated from israel. the challenge on both sides is his desire to stay in power would lead him to stick with the members of his coalition to the right of him. s decide to stay in power might also lead them not to give a definitive yes and sign on the dotted line. but the president is very clear about the benefits of the ceasefire and it gives important things to both sides that are needed now. my colleague that are needed now. my colleague pointed out that other resolutions have passed the un security council but when it comes to the implementation, it has not happened. what does it take? if both sides agree to president biden s plan, what will it take to see through its implementation do you believe? it is going to take the focus and energy, particularly from the region, but from the international community. we have been here before with conflicts around the world and throughout history and so we know how difficult it can be, but the ceasefire proposal lays out very clear steps and lays out very clear steps and lays out very clear benefits if they take steps and the hope is, in getting this ceasefire, getting this calm into the gaza strip, both sides will reap the benefits of that of getting hostages released, of getting palestinian prisoners returned and have the ability to start rebuilding in the gaza strip, hopefully quiet the northern border as well. you cannot forget there is a lot of tit for tat going on with hezbollah and we have tens of thousands of israelis displaced from their homes, it is not just into the gaza strip, and having the ability to reach the ceasefire will likely give some relief to that part of the conflict as well.- conflict as well. 0k. ambassador - conflict as well. 0k. ambassador gina i ambassador gina abercrombie winstanley, president of the middle east policy council, thank you for talking to us on the bbc news. my talking to us on the bbc news. my privilege. here, the conservatives will be publishing their election manifesto later. they re promising a further cut in national insurance contributions. rishi sunak will argue that another conservative government would enable working people to keep more of the money they earn. meanwhile in an interview on monday evening, mr sunak said it has been a tough few years but the election was about the future and the country had turned a corner. correspondent hannah miller reports. hoping for a warm welcome as rishi sunak prepares to set up his party s plans for another five years in government. on the eve of his manifesto launched last night, the prime minister hinted at tax cuts to come. ~ ., minister hinted at tax cuts to come. ~ . ., ., , ., come. we will have a manifesto that builds come. we will have a manifesto that builds on come. we will have a manifesto that builds on all come. we will have a manifesto that builds on all the come. we will have a manifesto that builds on all the things - that builds on all the things that builds on all the things that you ve just got free, that we have an us on this campaign, that yes, continues to cut people s tax because i believe in a country where people s had work is reported. work is reported. after cutting national insurance work is reported. after cutting national insurance last - work is reported. after cutting | national insurance last autumn and in the spring, the manifesto will promise to cut it a further 2p for employees. it would also pledge that the state pension will not be taxed and make permanent and existing cut to stamp duty for first time buyers, as well as promising that parents will only have to start paying back child benefit when the household income reaches £120,000. the manifesto will also contain pledges to raise defence spending, reform the welfare system and double down on plans to send asylum seekers to rwanda. labour says it amounts to a desperate wish list from what they call a desperate prime minister. after 14 ears desperate prime minister. after 14 years of desperate prime minister. after 14 years of the desperate prime minister. after 14 years of the tories, - desperate prime minister. after 14 years of the tories, the - 14 years of the tories, the money is not there so nope matter what promise rishi sunak max, he will not be able to deliver on any of them because it cannot explain whether money is coming from. the it cannot explain whether money is coming from. is coming from. the prime minister is coming from. the prime minister is is coming from. the prime minister is a is coming from. the prime minister is a bit is coming from. the prime minister is a bit is - is coming from. the prime minister is a bit is a - is coming from. the prime minister is a bit is a day i is coming from. the prime minister is a bit is a day toj minister is a bit is a day to when notjust attention but votes as well as to turn his party s votes as well as to turn his pa rty s forges votes as well as to turn his party s forges around after a rocky few days. hannah miller, bbc news. in france, political parties are scrambling to get ready, after president macron called surprise parliamentary elections across the country, several years before he needed to. he made the move after his ruling alliance was roundly defeated in sunday s european elections, with france s far right national rally securing an overwhelming victory for seats in the european parliament. our europe correspondent nick beake reports. emmanuel macron visited the site of one of the worst nazi massacres in france, perpetrated 80 years ago today. he s been drawing on the past to highlight what he claims is the current threat confronting the country from the far right. in the face of his opponents success this weekend, the president has taken an almighty gamble in calling a snap election. 40 miles outside paris, this is coulommiers, the land of cheesemaking, where support for macron has crumbled. the members of the monday club said they hadn t veered to the right. but then we met 31 year old mum of three, noemi, a worker in an elderly care home, who says she s desperate for something new. translation: what frightens people could actually do them j good, so we should try the national front, because france is getting worse. i m scared to leave my house and the public transport is not safe. whatever the result of these snap parliamentary elections, emmanuel macron is set to stay on as president for another three years, but a national rally victory could have a huge impact here and in many parts of france. it would also be hugely symbolic, too, because injust six weeks time, the country will host the olympic games and by then, france could have its first far right government since the second world war. this is the 28 year old who could be france s prime minister in a month. through his social media, jordan bardella has been winning young supporters in particular, focusing on the cost of living, softening the image of a party once condemned as unelectable, and working alongside marine le pen. she hopes to replace macron as president in 2027. so can national rally translate their victory at the european elections to the national vote? so they have some kind of, say, a political virginity people say, we do not know what they will do if they come to power but nevertheless, let s give them a try, and if we are not happy, we will have election next time and we ll get rid of them. it s not clear what the president s thinking is, but his legacy will be defined in the coming weeks. nick beake, bbc news, outside paris. let s get some of the day s other news now. the president of malawi, lazarus chakwera, says he s ordered the search and rescue operation for his vice president, saulos chilima, to continue until the plane carrying him and nine others is found. the military aircraft is thought to have come down in bad weather on monday morning. singapore airlines says it has sent out offers of compensation to all the passengers on one of its flights which was hit by severe turbulence three weeks ago. a 73 year old british man died on the london to singapore flight and many passengers were injured. the main channel for shipping to the us port of baltimore has been fully restored, nearly 3 months after it was closed because of a collapsed bridge. us army engineers and salvage crews have been working to remove tens of thousands of tonnes of debris since a giant container ship crashed into the francis scott key bridge in march. apple has unveiled new plans to integrate artificial intelligence into its products. apple intelligence will not be an app or a product in its own right, but will instead be embedded across many apps, to assist with activities such as writing messages and supplying travel directions. we will have a lot more on that in business today. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. the next session of the ukraine recovery conference, takes place later in the german capital, berlin. it s the third recovery conference, but the first time it s been held in an eu member state. there have already been some tensions ahead of the meeting, with the resignation of the director of the state agency for restoring ukraine. for some clarity on this, timothy ash, an associate fellow at chatham house spoke to the bbc earlier. it is the third set of these conferences are driven by the fact that during the second gulf war in a row, the west forgot about recovery construction. this time around, with the ukraine war, there has been a lot of focus on what happens when the was and and ukraine s recovery and reconstruction and is about the money in the end. winning a war is very expensive. about $1 billion a year to keep ukrainian in the war. the cost to ukraine around $500 billion in damage. it could be around $1 trillion for the total reconstruction. who is going to pay on that? these conferences will have some looking at that. and also about how the money is going to be manage and co ordinated. momentum behind the idea of using assets because the numbers are so huge. $100 billion a yearjust to simply keep ukraine on the wall. to win it, 50 billion and the recovery reconstruction $1 trillion. western taxpayers properly do not want to pay for populism was very strong in the eu elections recently. in western bank accounts, russian taxpayer money, a big campaign to make sure that money is used first to pay for winning the war so that you crank it the weapons to defend itself but also from the recovery reconstruction, that has to be a key focus of the g7 summit. the us, uk, and canada using for that money to be used. lobbying from their europeans to make sure that does not happen. they are less at about it. if the money does not come, ukraine could lose the war. a jury in the us state of delaware has begun deliberating in the trial of president biden s son, hunter, on gun charges. hunter biden has told the bbc he believes his federal gun case now before a jury went well. our correspondent carl nasman spoke to mr biden as he left the court. good evening, mr biden. have a comment for bbc news? no. i m positive. how do you think it well? i positive. how do you think it well? ~ positive. how do you think it| well? we well? i think it went well. we will be keeping well? i think it went well. we will be keeping an well? i think it went well. we will be keeping an eye - well? i think it went well. we will be keeping an eye on - well? i think it went well. we | will be keeping an eye on that case. hunter biden is accused of is accused of lying about his drug use on a federal form while buying a weapon in 2018, and of illegally possessing a firearm while he was allegedly a drug user. carl nasman sent this update from the courthouse. the jury will return to this courthouse behind me here in delaware on tuesday morning to continue its deliberations to weigh the evidence and testimony that they ve heard in this trial over the past week or so. much of that has been very detailed and sometimes difficult to listen to. the prosecution has laid out its case that hunter biden was addicted to crack cocaine, that he was using the drug on or around the time that he purchased that revolver on october 2018. and that he then lied about that on a federal form. of course, all of this evidence the text messages, the pictures, video, even some audio snippets from hunter biden s memoir has played out notjust for the jury, but also for the biden family itself. many members of that family were again in court today sitting just behind hunter biden in a show of support. among them was the first lady herself, jill biden. this is already an historic case, an historic trial. but a conviction here would also be historic. hunter biden would become the first son of a sitting president to be convicted in a federal courthouse. that would carry a maximum penalty of about 25 years. it s unlikely he would serve that amount of time the discretion would be up to the judge but, of course, it s in the hands of the jury now. they will continue those deliberations on day two here on tuesday. do elephants call each other names just like us? a new study into wild african savannah elephants suggests that they do. researchers from cornell university used al to analyse noises made by elephants and found that they used different names to call out for each other. let s speak to mickey pardo, a behavioural ecologist and postdoctoral associate who led this study. welcome to the programme. thank you for having me. i wanted to correct one thing, i was actually at colorado state university when i did this study so it was a joint study of colorado state university, save the elephants and elephant voices. ., save the elephants and elephant voices. . . ., voices. i m glad we clarified that was voices. i m glad we clarified that was did voices. i m glad we clarified that was did you voices. i m glad we clarified that was did you find - voices. i m glad we clarified that was did you find out? l that was did you find out? found that we identify, using a machine wording model, who and elephant cult was addressed to just based on the sound copies of the call itself that we found when we played those calls back to the elephants, that would respond more strongly to occult initially addressed to them than to a coal addressed to somebody else. that meant not only do the calls have some properties in them that identify the intended recipient, like a name, but the elephants can perceive this and they can tell if a call was made for them just by hearing that call. 50 just by hearing that call. so it is ust just by hearing that call. so it isjust how they just by hearing that call. so it is just how they talk to one another, which is fascinating? absolutely. another, which is fascinating? absolutely- absolutely. what else did you discover? absolutely. what else did you discover? other absolutely. what else did you discover? other elements - absolutely. what else did you discover? other elements ofl absolutely. what else did you i discover? other elements of the communication, for example touch? we are looking into that as well or was itjust verbal communication? taste as well or was it ust verbal communication?- as well or was it ust verbal communication? we were only lookin: communication? we were only looking at communication? we were only looking at verbal communication? we were only looking at verbal or communication? we were only looking at verbal or acoustic i looking at verbal or acoustic communication. we know that elephants also communicate by touch, by smell, by site and even by vibrations that they calls create through the ground but for this particular study we were only looking at vocal communication. communication. you are not tempted communication. you are not tempted to communication. you are not tempted to go communication. you are not tempted to go to communication. you are not tempted to go to a trip - communication. you are not tempted to go to a trip to i tempted to go to a trip to africa just to verify your research? africa just to verify your research? ~ , , ., ., ., research? we did spend a lot of time in africa. research? we did spend a lot of time in africa. i research? we did spend a lot of time in africa. i spent research? we did spend a lot of time in africa. i spent 14 - time in africa. i spent 14 months following elephants around in kenya. around in kenya. what a stunning around in kenya. what a stunning job. around in kenya. what a stunning job. are - around in kenya. what a stunning job. are you i around in kenya. what a i stunning job. are you living the gene? stunning job. are you living the gene? absolutely. it i stunning job. are you living the gene? absolutely. it is| the gene? absolutely. it is absolutely the gene? absolutely. it is absolutely fascinating. i the gene? absolutely. it is absolutely fascinating. l absolutely fascinating. living the dream. thank you for joining us. the tennis legend roger federer has attended a screening of his upcoming documentary, at the tribeca festival, in new york. the film which is called, federer 12 final days, follows the 20 time grand slam winner during the last 12 days of his career before his retirement. he said it was originallyjust meant to be for his family and friends but developed into the documentary. the film has its premiere in london on thursday. well, i think that is the beauty of this film as well, it shows you can be brutal rivals, tough competitors but then you can come out and get along and have so much respect for one another. it is a good message to the well, to the kids, all the competitors like juniors who take life so serious that when it comes to their matches, the aircraft and when they see that me and wrap nadal, yelling novak djokovic get along. coming up ahead on business today, do you use that fitness app today, do you use that fitness app strava because if you do that i do not but the people i spoke to who are using it a really enthusiastic and keen on the whole they are pretty positive about that. i have the chief executive of strava on this programme. we are also looking at apple, is it you have been hearing, apple is getting on board with openai and basically bringing chatgpt to iphones in its ai overhaul. apple has been seen to be behind end of this race. i will behind end of this race. i will be getting an expert view about this latest announcements and the rest of the business news next. hello, there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week, in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland, gusts of winds coming from the north, and in excess of 30 mph, at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story, further south and west. just look at anglesey beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west, so west will be best, through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers, certainly, are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so, sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature, 14 or 15 degrees, but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully, some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so, wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start, once again, to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but, hopefully, the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers, once again, to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures, generally, similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high, but the wind direction will start to change, as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part, a little a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant, because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england, we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. apple finally bites into ai or apple intelligence as it calls it teaming up with open al to make siri smarter. the uk has the highest housing costs in the english speaking world. we look at the challenges for those wanting to own a home and those trying to build them. singapore airlines sets aside over a million dollars to compensate injured passengers on this flight described as absolutely terrifying . and are you a strava user? it is one of the worlds most popular fitness apps. i ll be grilling its chief executive live on this programme. hello and welcome. this is business today. after months of speculation, apple has revealed its plans for artificial intelligence in a move that chief executive tim cook has called the next big step . the tech giant is to boost its siri voice assistant and operating systems with openai s chatgpt as it seeks to catch up in the ai race. it s part of a new personalised ai system called apple intelligence. here s our north america business correspondent erin delmore. the hardest abereaviation in tech these days is easily ai. now, apple is taking its shot at redefining artificial intelligence into apple intelligence. the company unveiled a series of ai related announcements at the world development conference on monday. chief among them
well, not necessarily. my guest is the renowned colombian novelistjuan gabriel vasquez, who weaves powerful stories out of fact and fiction. is there anything magical about colombia s current reality? juan gabriel vasquez, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it s a pleasure to have you. now you inhabit two different intellectual worlds. you are a political commentator. it is yourjob to have instant, strong opinions for newspapers. on the other hand, you re also a novelist who writes complex, nuanced novels that are sort of riddled with doubt and uncertainty. which of these two mental attitudes comes more naturally to you? well, i m first and foremost a novelist. iwas. i began writing fiction at a very young age, and it was always my ideal to write the kind of novels that i had grown up with. but in south america, a novelist is also a citizen. and so you develop very quickly the need, the compulsion sometimes, the feeling of obligation to comment on the political reality. so in a sense, there are two different and opposite ethics. erm. you write fiction out of uncertainty and doubts and questions. novels are written to ask questions, not to give answers. but at the same time, you re a political commentator who tries to have certainties, who tries to shed doubts. are you faking it when you come up with those certainties for your columns? no, but there are few. there are very few, very few moments during the week in which you are absolutely sure about something and you write to convince, you write to do a kind of proselytism. uh, you write to try to get answers. interestingly, you dig deep into your home country, colombia, and yet you spent a significant part of your adult life out of colombia. yes. would it be correct in a way to say that you became confident in your voice, you know, exploring your home country once you d left it? yes, yes, ithink that s quite accurate. erm, in a sense, also, i was following a very old latin american tradition of leaving our countries to write about them, to understand them better. this is something that has been happening since, uh. ..since the nicaraguan poet ruben dario lived in paris and madrid in the early 20th century. and then, of course, the generation that i grew up as my role models, the latin american boom, and. and garcia, gabriel garcia marquez. ..garcia marquez. yes. ..perhaps the most famous south american author of our times. yeah, yeah. he belonged to a generation that, erm, that wrote, that retold the history of our countries from abroad. so we have this very strange situation in south america where the best novel about colombia 100 years of solitude was written in mexico, and the best novel about peru by mario vargas llosa was written in paris, and carlos fuentes, the great mexican novelist, wrote in washington and london. erm, so it is a kind of necessity, perhaps, that we find to, you know, get a little removed from the places that we are discussing. it s interesting to just reflect on garcia marquez, cos. yeah. i know it s become a bit of a cliche, but this this phrase used about his work and, indeed, 100 years of solitude was magical realism . you do something very different. yes. you use a lot of recent history, of facts, and you weave personal stories around those facts, and it s often quite brutal and it s quite violent and difficult. yes. was your writing a deliberate reaction against that sort of quote unquote magical realism ? no, no, my writing isjust the recognition that my world is different. my world view comes from a different place. i was born in a big capital city in the middle of the andes, so 2,600 metres over sea level. whereas garcia marquez was born in a very small town, caribbean town, with a very different culture and outlook. so his, his demons, his obsessions, his ghosts were quite different from mine. and you were also raised at a time of horrible violence, instability, chaos. yes. ..in your home city, bogota. yeah. i mean, did that. do you reflect on that and think, you know what, i was actually quite traumatised as a kid, as a young adult, by what was happening around me ? yes. well, when i left colombia in 1996, i was 23. erm, i thought i was leaving because i wanted to become a certain kind of writer, and that was the latin american tradition. with time, i understood that i was also fleeing the violence. i was also fleeing a, erm, a particular situation. this was the years of drug wars and drug related terrorism. erm. narco traffickers like pablo escobar were at the height of their power as you were a teenager and a young adult. exactly, exactly. napoleon says somewhere that, uh, in order to understand a man, you have to understand his world when he was 20. and i turned 20 in 1993, which was the year in which pablo escobar died at the height of his threats to the colombian system. so that s that. do you, do you think, when you reflect on it and of course, i m mindful you were writing in europe about this colombia of corruption, of chaos, of violence do you think you were, erm, expressing in a way, a sort of deep fear and anger about what had happened to your homeland? em, frustration in a sense, but mainly, uh, mainly uncertainties, maybe mainly the feeling that, the stories that were being told were not complete. i think i write out of a sense of darkness, of shadows in the collective story of my country, and i think of fiction as a way to shed some light, particularly, on that, on that very special place in which the historical meets private lives, in which private individuals, erm, as brothers and sisters and lovers and, uh, and fathers and, and siblings, they have. they suffer the consequences of politics and history and those forces that we have never learned quite how to, how to control, but that do change our lives. and this is the territory of our human experience that i try to tell in my novels. you call it fiction, but of course you fill your books with facts, sometimes very personal facts. yes. i mean, i m thinking of one of your most successful novels, the sound of things falling, which involves a plane crash. and in fact, you really did find, i think, the transcript of the recording of the last moments of a plane, which i believe was carrying a family friend, which crashed. that s right, yes. and you very literally took these horrific final moments and wrote about them. yes. you also included some other bizarre facts, like the hippo that escaped from pablo escobar s infamous zoo and which was then hunted down years later. and that was the beginning of your book. so i guess, you know, your audience might be sometimes quite confused about these blurred lines between fact and you re a journalist, so you deal in facts but then fiction, which is where you as a novelist come in. yes, i ve understood with time that in my work. my work always begins with meeting an actual person who has a story that seems to me interesting, uh, or who is hiding something, who has evidently some kind of secrets. and i start asking questions. so i always begin writing as a novel. as a journalist. i m a journalist first, and then, since my novels often deal with the colombian past, with our collective past, i turn into a historian ifind documents, i go into archives, and then the last, uh, the last person to come into the process is the novelist. and the novelist s only task is to try to say something that neither the journalist nor the historian has said. but in so doing, you twist and bend the truth. or do you not believe there is such a thing as truth? i do believe there is such a thing as truth. epistemologically i do believe that, but i don t think it s accessible through one story. i don t think one story can.interpret it fully. so you need several stories coming from several parts. and this is particularly true in my country, where we are trying to, uh, deal with a recent history of violence. and we are all trying storytellers, journalists, historians, novelists who are trying to open a space in which different stories about these last 50 years coexist, have the right to exist. but if, if your perception that, actually, truth is complex and it requires the understanding of different people s perspectives and memories. yes. ..and they can recollect the same event in very different ways. yes. where does that leave colombia s attempt to reach, you know, what in south africa was known as truth and reconciliation ? is it possible in colombia? that s what we are trying to do. the peace agreements that were passed in 2016, which i think is one of the great successes in the history of my country, these agreements between the colombian government ofjuan manuel santos and the farc guerrilla. yeah, it should be said it was with the farc group, which was the dominant insurgent group. only one of them. ..but there are many other rebel groups who have not made peace and who are not part of that agreement. exactly. but it was the biggest guerrilla, perhaps the oldest one, and the strongest one, certainly. so it was a success story to make peace with this guerrilla movement. erm, now, part of the. part of what the agreements created were two institutions, the commission of truth and the transitionaljustice tribunals. both of them are, among several other things, in charge of telling stories, opening spaces in which people can come and, uh, tell their story, be recognised as victims of violence, or as perpetrators who ask for forgiveness. the victims may or may not forgive, but the most, the most wonderful human situations have been created or allowed by this, by the institutions. and they all go through the same phenomenon of telling stories. but is it really healing wounds, or do those wounds still fester in your country? that s, that s a great question. you never know if remembering can be sometimes, erm, exciting new resentments or keeping hatred alive. erm, i do have i do have faith in the power of remembering correctly and accurately the past. carlos fuentes, the mexican novelist, said there is no living future with a dead past, and part of our role, i think, as novelists and storytellers in general, is keeping the past alive, trying to keep it true, keep it honest, so that we can understand it and move forward. ah. i mean, something pretty extraordinary happened in 2022 when the colombian electorate voted into power. yeah. ..president petro, who in a previous life, not so very long ago had been a committed guerrilla fighter in the m 19 group, and now he sits in the presidential palace. but that clearly sticks in the throat of many colombians. and ijust wonder, as you look at your country today, whether you fear that petro, who came to power pledging, quote unquote, total peace with all of the different armed groups in his country. yes. ..whether in fact his presidency is deepening polarisation. well, uh, i m very critical about president petro. i think he is a populist and a demagogue, uh, of a very old latin american tradition. but he had this unique opportunity of and this is why i thought his election was good news of implementing the peace agreements of 2016, which had been, uh, disregarded or actively sabotaged by the last conservative government of ivan duque. erm. he hasn t. it s not looking so good right now, is it? i mean, as i understand it, of the different armed groups. because he seems to be saying that he wants a, you know, an ultimate peace and a disarming of all the groups, including criminal gangs as well as insurgent rebel groups and paramilitary groups, he wants them all to be in this umbrella of total peace. yes. well, of the 20 or more different armed groups, only about five are currently engaging with the government. yes, and not only that, to me, the bad side of the whole project is that he is taking away from the 2016 agreements, all the attention and the resources and the rhetorical energy of the government. so he is forgetting them, leaving them to die a slow death through inattention, through negligence, concentrating on his own projects. erm, whereas we, we looked forward during his election to the first serious implementation of those wonderful agreements that we managed to pass in 2016 after much polarisation. it s not, it s notjust a question, is it, of the men with guns. it s also the politicians who for decades and decades, at the very least, turned a blind eye and sometimes were actively complicit in the violence, the murder, the chaos and the mayhem in your country. do you think there will be an accounting of those politicians one could say the old political elite in colombia will they be held to account? well, i certainly think they re one of the. one of the main objectives of the peace agreements and the peace negotiations has to be to find the truth, to have people speak the truth and, and accept some kind of truth as the only way for which we. a reconciliation of the country. but there has to be a reconciliation. it s absolutely no use to go through these difficult processes that have, uh, divided us and polarised us as a nation. so as you say that and you talk about your hopes for the future of your country i m just looking at my notes where i noted down that right now, opposition leaders in bogota are saying that they have plans to launch national strikes to paralyse the country if petro attempts to establish this talk of a constituent assembly, assembly to bypass parliament and the courts. there s allegations of corruption being bandied around involving close family and associates of petro, including charges that his son is facing of bribery with allegations that it was linked to campaign finance, which of course, he the son and indeed the president himself clearly deny all involvement. but nonetheless, it looks in a way like colombia is sinking back into something very dark and dangerous. i think we are not strangers to a certain kind of dynamics in the whole of the continent. 0ur continent, our continent in south america is being divided into different kinds of populisms right wing populisms such as bolsonaro in brazil some years ago and milei in argentina and the left wing populisms active in nicaragua and venezuela, which are turning their countries into failed democracies. in the middle, we have this negotiation between two kinds of extreme ideas, extreme erm, projects, political projects in colombia. and in the middle there are some looking for a way to create a new political centre of a progressive kind, and this is turning into one of the most difficult things of all. because of the current situation of that tension between what the government of petro is doing, a populist demagogue, erm. on that spectrum of latin american politics with the populism, as you describe it, of both the left and the right where do you see the greatest danger lying for colombia? which way do you believe it might. it s very clear to me that the greatest danger is that petro s government will open the way for a right wing or rather, extreme right wing populism, which is already in the making and gathering force as a reaction to what is going on from the government. that is the most worrying situation for me. underpinning much of the violence in colombia and we ve talked about politics and insurgency but underpinning much of it has been drugs. yes. narco trafficking. yeah. ..and the vast amounts of money and indeed the power that come with controlling the drugs. you have suggested that the only way out of this for a country like colombia is the full legalisation of currently illegal narcotics. yes, for any country, i would think. but particularly. what do you think that would do to colombia? erm. i think drugs are a double problem. you have public order problems linked to the violence and the corruption and the instability created by criminal gangs who try to vie for control of the trade. and on the other hand, you have public health problems linked to consumption of drugs and what that does to. the burden that places on health systems. if you legalise, every experience tells us that legalisation would get rid of the first problem violence, corruption, mafias, criminal gangs are a product of the illegal character of drugs, not of drugs themselves. and we saw that during prohibition in the united states only during prohibition did we have not only alcoholism and private problems, but also mafias and corruption and violence, which are the results of illegality, of the criminal world that is built around the protection of an illegal business. you legalise, you get probably rid of all these things, and you can devote the insane amounts of money that we use in drug wars to prevention and education and treatment of addiction. when you, as a journalist, write about the narco traffickers and the scourge that drugs represents in your country and you write about corruption and the corrosive nature of corruption you re in very dangerous territory. journalists and writers get targeted in colombia. yes. some of them occasionally get killed. do you worry about that? well, this is. this is a trend in the whole of the continent. journalists are being persecuted and imprisoned in venezuela and nicaragua. there are networks closed there. they re being actively persecuted by the government. i m interested in your personal story because we discussed you moving to europe to get a distance where you could write about colombia, but you then moved back in around, i think, around a decade or more ago. 2012, yes. yeah, so you have a presence inside colombia now. do you feel constraints on what you can say? i d rather not think about that maybe. erm. surely, you have to. well, i, uh. i do believe there s a kind of, erm.obligation i have as an intellectual, as an observer, and as a novelist. we have a certain kind of take on colombian life, novelists, erm, and it is, it is very difficult to. not to do what albert camus, who is a big figure for me, said it is the role of the journalist to say things are so when you effectively see that things are so, and this is what i try to do. and i know you are friends with many writers around the world, including salman rushdie. when you see what happens to writers who take on, uh, those who don t want their voice to be heard on certain issues, does it make you become more careful about what you say and write? well, salman, salman rushdie is a great example of somebody who has spent the last 30 years defending the freedoms the rest of us take for granted and thriving. i think he is an example of, of courage and of resilience. erm, and it s. .. for me, it s a source, it s an inspiration and a source of admiration in many senses. and you will continue to write about your country from inside your country? i have never, except for one book, i haven t written a page of fiction that is not obsessively about my country, about trying to understand its violence and trying to, uh, explore it and illuminate it. and as a journalist, i only try to defend our right our right to peace, to have a peaceful country. which is, you know, hopefully in the making, but not there immediately. juan gabriel vasquez, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. it was a pleasure. thank you. hello, there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week, in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland, gusts of winds coming from the north, and in excess of 30 mph, at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story, further south and west. just look at anglesey beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west, so west will be best, through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers, certainly, are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so, sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature, 1a or 15 degrees, but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully, some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so, wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start, once again, to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but, hopefully, the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers, once again, to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures, generally, similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high, but the wind direction will start to change, as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part, a little a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant, because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england, we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. live from london, this is bbc news. the united nations security council adopts a us resolution supporting an immediate ceasefire in gaza here in the uk, campaigning continues as the conservatives launch their election manifesto today. jurors have started deliberating in the trial of president biden s son, hunter. later in the program, we ll be finding out how elephants call to each other using their names. and coming up in business strava is one of the worlds most popular fitness apps. i ll be speaking to its chief executive on this programme. hello, i m sally bundock. a very warm welcome to the programme. the united states is making a major push to pause fighting in gaza, with diplomatic efforts taking place both in the region and at the united nations. the un security council endorsed a ceasefire proposal for gaza on monday. it is the first time the council has passed a resolution demanding a stop in fighting, after eight months of war. the resolution urges both hamas and israel to fully and quickly implement the three phase plan. 1a countries voted in favour, and russia abstained. us ambassador to the un linda thomas greenfield says the resolution shows hamas that the international community is united. colleagues, today this council sent a clear message to hamas. accept the ceasefire deal on the table.
hello and welcome to sports day with less than seven weeks ago until the olympics, some contenders have been an action ahead of the global extravaganza in paris. our reporter natalie pirks rounds up reporter natalie pirks rounds up the stories from the italian capital. up the stories from the italian caital. l, up the stories from the italian caital. a, , capital. another busy night environment capital. another busy night environment with - capital. another busy night environment with yet - capital. another busy night i environment with yet another gold for host italy to keep them on top of the metal table. on a british point of view, there were two medals, a silver for charlie dobson in the men s from a hundred metre and a bronze in the women s pole vault finals. charlie, another personal best in what was a fantastic season so far. that he was over the moon could not be happier to take silver in what was his first individual major 400 metre final. the race was won by relevant alexander dugina with a new championship record. molly codger came into the pole vault with the world leading height and rolled indoor champion but fell a little short by her standards and had to settle for bronze. the gold was won by switzerland, the only athlete tim clear phonic emitters and 78. she was a little disappointed after quite literally setting the bar high for herself but is dreaming about her first olympics this summer and cannot wait to get there. the women s pomegranate amid the final was a thrilling head to head down the back straight to poland atalla cataract and islands rashida at a lanky. it was close but the pole just fell clear when it mattered to win gold. the fastest time from anyone in the world this year. setting a new personal best to come second. d5 is the personal best to come second. 05 is the penultimate day and ds is the penultimate day and we have the women s 200 metre final. that is the women s 10,000 metres and women s and men s racewear pomegranate emitter hurdles and it means this crowd will get a chance to see a bone a bona fides die. start. i could not be happier with that. i think executed the race perfectly. exactly the way me and my coach wanted. unfortunately it was not the gold but more than happy to take silver exposure with like that. around for selection and once that is done, stay fit and healthy and we will be in paris. two make it with the top quys paris. two make it with the top guys especially once i have watched in the past is incredible. teams have arrived in germany today as euro 2024 draws closer. after acclimatising to their surroundings in their resort, the first training session for the first training session for the team will take place onto tuesday and kickoff tournament sunday against serbia. their welcome party were very excited for them to arrive. first, we are really proud to have such a team here, and i think all the people around living here in the small town are very proud to have the english team here. and my staff is quite excited, but even the english staff is now excited because they will arrive today, and everybody is waiting for the resurrection of the team, if they are satisfied and everything is ok, and it is a really big thing for us here to have the british team here, the english team here, it is really fantastic. italy arrived for their campaign on monday. italy come into the competition without the weight of the favourites tag over and come having enjoyed a tricky qualifying campaign. they have since had the misfortune of being placed in arguing the toppers group alongside heavyweights spain. experienced side creation and perhaps the dark horses. tracer are croatia began their campaign against spain in a tantalising tie in berlin on saturday. followed by the defending champions italy. portugal and cristiano ronaldo haven t quite left for germany yet they are continuing preparations for euro 2024 at their their training camp outside lisbon, after losing 2 1 against croatia on saturday. portugal has one more friendly against the republic of ireland on tuesday before they start their competition against the czech republic onjune 18 in leipzig. three valencia fans have been sentenced to eight months in prison, in what is the first conviction for racism at a football match in spain. it comes as a direct result of a complaint filed by la liga. brazilian forward vinicius jr was subjected to the chants at valencia s mestalla stadium in may last year. as well as facing prison sentences the three fans were also banned from la liga matches and spain internationals for two years. la liga presidentjavier tebas called the verdict great news for the fight against racism in spain. real madrid and manager carlo ancelotti have clarified that the champions league winners will compete at next year s club world cup despite the italian earlier saying the club would refuse the invitation . carlo ancelotti made the comments in an interview with the italian newspaper il giornale, where he also claimed other clubs will refuse to play in the enlarged 32 team competition due to be held in the united states. ancelotti now says his comments were misinterpreted while real madrid say they ll play with pride and with the utmost enthusiasm . our chief football news reporter simon stone has more he gave an interview in italy in which he said that real madrid would have 12 european clubs do to play in the club world cup at the end of the 24 25 season would not be participating in it because basically, they had not been offered to play in it. i spoke to the european clubs association not long after her and said they did not understand where the comments had come from, 11 of the european clubs apart from real madrid who are competing in america next year are in the eca and as far as they were concerned, they were all competing and they did not understand the comment. then real madrid put a statement out in which they said that they had never spoken about not playing in the competition and that as far as they were concerned, they would be involved and then a few moments after that, and szilagyi himself put a statement out saying, his comments had not been interpreted the way they thought he would be. i m not sure what he thought the interpretation would be putting on them but that is what he said so real madrid along with the 11 other european clubs will be playing in the club world cup at the end of next season. the t20 world cup now. bangladesh came close to a surprise victory. bangladesh s bowlers putting on a superb display south africa to 23 4 at one stage. on a tricky pitch reaching 113 for six of their 20 overs. bangladesh make a decent run chase and slight favourites heading to blast over. this is how close they got, the six required off the lost two balls, caught on the boundary ensues away from the win. south africa in the end taking the match by four runs on the brink of qualifying for their group. and it s official, history made on monday. jannik sinner is the first italian to become men s world number one in tennis. sinner won the australian open earlier this year and secured his position at the top of the atp rankings by reaching the semi finals of the french open, where he was beaten by eventual champion carlos alcaraz. sinner replaces novak djokovic after the serb withdrew from roland garros before his own quarter final. the 22 year old say there s plenty more to come. i was happy and it was some relief now of what i have dreamed of since i was little kid, it was only a dream that day and now i know i can say i am world number one, it means a lot to me. it took some time, that is for sure. but it was a very nice feeling. the meaning of world number one i think is the biggest meaning we have in our sport. it is the best number you can have and as a set already, this is everyone s dream to be in this position and obviously it is an important grand slam and masters event and to be number one in the world is an achievement, what you build in one year time and now obviously we see how much you can stay there. that s all the time we have for now. you can get all the latest sports news at from the bbc sport app, orfrom our website that s bbc.com/sport. from me and the rest of the team at the bbc sport centre, goodbye. hello there. for most of us, it has been a disappointing start to the week in terms of the weather. a frequent rash of showers, particularly across scotland. gusts of winds coming from the north and in excess of 30 mile an hour at times. temperatures struggled to get into double figures, but it was a slightly different story further south and west. just look at anglesey, beautiful afternoon, lots of sunshine and temperatures peaked at around 18 or 19 degrees. high pressure is continuing to nudge its way in from the west. so west will be best through the course of tuesday. there s still likely to be a few showers around, but hopefully few and further between. most frequent showers certainly are going to be across eastern scotland and down through eastern england. so sunny spells and scattered showers going into the afternoon. that will have an impact with the temperature 14 or 15 degrees. but again, with a little more shelter, a little more sunshine, 17 or 18 celsius, not out of the question. a few scattered showers moving their way through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully some of these will ease through the afternoon, but you can see those temperatures still really struggling, ten to 15 degrees at the very best. now, as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this little ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. so wednesday is likely to be the driest day of the week and make the most of it, there s more rain to come, but it will be a pretty chilly start once again to wednesday morning. single figures right across the country, low single figures in rural spots. but hopefully the showers should be a little bit few and further between and more favoured spots for those showers once again to the east of the pennines. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures generally similar values to what we ve seen all week, 10 to 18 degrees the high. but the wind direction will start to change as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, this low pressure will take over. we ll see further spells of rain at times, some of it heavy. but the wind direction will play its part a little. a south westerly wind means that we will see temperatures climbing a degree or so. don t expect anything too significant because we ve got the cloud and the rain around. but it s not out of the question that across eastern and southeast england we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. live from washington, this is bbc news. the un security council backs a gaza ceasefire proposal, as us secretary of state blinken makes a diplomatic push in the middle east. the far right advances in the european union s elections, prompting fresh questions about europe s future. and jury deliberations begin in the gun trial of the us president s son, hunter biden. how do you feel today when? i think it went well. thank you. i m sumi somaskanda. thank you forjoining us. the us is making a major push to pause fighting in gaza, with diplomatic efforts taking place both in the region and at the united nations. the un security council endorsed a ceasefire proposal for gaza on monday. it is the first time the council has passed a resolution demanding a stop in fighting, after eight months of war. the resolution urges both hamas and israel to fully and quickly implement the three phase plan. 14 countries voted in favour, and russia abstained. reactions to the resolution between the two parties have been mixed. hamas says it welcomes the endorsement, and that it s ready to work with mediators. a senior israeli diplomat said her country would continue to pursue its objectives. us ambassador to the un linda thomas greenfield says the resolution shows hamas that the international community is united. colleagues, today this council sent a clear message to hamas. accept the ceasefire deal on the table. israel has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today, if hamas would do the same. i repeat, the fighting could stop today.