the former president says he'll appeal to the us supreme court. high—stakes drama followed by another delay as the un postpones a vote on a ceasefire resolution for gaza. plus, dramatic pictures from iceland as officials warn that pollution from an erupting volcano could hit the capital, reykjavik. hello. i'm caitriona perry. you're very welcome. we begin with a major decision in the us state of colorado that could impact the 2024 us presidential election. the colorado state supreme court ruled that donald trump is disqualified from holding office and not eligible to appear on the state's republican primary ballot next year. the case was tied to the former president's actions onjanuary 6, 2021 — the day of the attack on the us capitol building.

the decision is based on a rarely used provision of the us constitution that bars officials who have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" from holding office. the ruling says he's ineligible to appear on next year's ballot because of his role instigating violence against the us government. the ruling only applies to colorado's republican primary ballot, but is on hold pending appeal until next month. the decision came down shortly before mr trump gave a campaign speech in iowa, where the first contest of the 2024 season will take place in less than a month. the former president did not explicitly mention the case, though he has discussed other legal cases against him before on the campaign trail. in a statement, the trump campaign said the court had "issued a completely flawed decision," adding they "will swiftly file an appeal "to the united states supreme court." in a moment we'll hear from one of the lawyers who brought the case against mrtrump. but first, here's my conversation withjosh gerstein, who's the senior legal affairs

reporter at politico. josh gerstein, thanks forjoining us on bbc news. what did the colorado state supreme court say about why it was making this ruling? it provided this ruling under the 14th amendment to the us constitution which has a provision in it that was basically designed to prohibit people that have taken part in civil war activity back in the 1800s from holding political office in the united states and there has been a growing movement among liberal groups across the us to try to use this provision to have trump kicked off the ballot as a result of his involvement in the activities that led up to the attack of the us capitol during the counting on the electoral votes on january 6, 2021. former president trump has already indicated that he is going to appeal this decision. what will the us supreme court have to decide on? it is mostly a question of how quickly they can decide this,

and whether they really think they can give full hearing into these issues in time to issue a meaningful ruling. as i understand it, the colorado ballot for the colorado republican primary is supposed to be locked in onjanuary 5th, which is only about two weeks from now, so it is really not a normal amount of time for the supreme court to take in any case that it considers, if you consider the fact that we have the christmas and new year's holidays also in here. this is going to be a very accelerated time frame for the court to have to make a potentially very politically sensitive decision. would the court sit over that holiday period? normally it would not. they are not expected to sit in person untiljanuary 5, which is the day they're supposed to meet for the next conference. the justices were all together earlier today for a funeral of retired justice sandra day o'connor,

but they could conceivably consult each other via e—mail, or over the phone maybe via zoom — these are all methods that they got used to using during the pandemic. would you expect pretty imminent notification if that is to happen? i would think so. trump has to officially bring the case to the supreme court. that would be the first thing that has to happen. the colorado supreme court seems to have given sort of a stay to their ruling for a couple of weeks so it will be interesting to see if the trump campaign tries to get a very quick action from the supreme court or if they try to drag out that stay in a way that might allow his name to remain on the colorado ballot. do you think that voters, cases in other states, might now seek to use this ruling from the colorado state supreme court for cases to challenge his place on the ballot in other jurisdictions? well, we have already seen a few challenges like that that have so far been unsuccessful. there are some that are not

in court but going forward in front of the chief election officers in various states. the real question here is whether he could be knocked off the ballot in a state where he has a significant chance of winning, which is a scenario we have not seen yet. this all puts the us supreme court in a very uncomfortable position, one they seemed to want to avoid. if the courts continued to rule as they had up to this point, that he could remain on the ballot, there was really no need for the justices to get involved but now it would seem like they're going to need to step in and addressed this question definitively one way or another. it is notjust a question for the primary ballot that start to take place next month but also, of course, if he wins that republican nomination, for the general election campaign that will run into november. we will have to watch this space closely. thank you very much forjoining us.

thank you. the suit was brought by six republican and unaffiliated colorado voters. i spoke with mario nicolais, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case. can you tell us a little bit about the six voters who took this case and what their reaction is to the ruling tonight? thank you for having me. they are thrilled. they're thrilled with the outcome. these six individuals, i cannot overstate how courageous they are to bring a lawsuit like this and to bring it out and basically say that the united states constitution stands for the fact that this country is a rule—of—law country and that is what they believed in. so our petitioners includes six people, four of them are republicans, two unaffiliated, unaffiliated that can vote in primaries in colorado. among the republicans we have our lead plaintiff — norma anderson is a former state and house majority leader in colorado,

so she served as a republican official, and a high—ranking official in our state and she has been adamant that she does not think that he is qualified, under the us constitution, to serve in the presidency again. we have a former of chief—of—staff for a republican governor. we have a conservative republican columnist for the denver post. we just have a great group of people who basically said, look, we think this is our duty as citizens in this country to stand up for our constitution and to say that when you cross the line into engaging in insurrection after taking an oath to protect that constitution, you are no longer eligible to hold office, you are no longer eligible to run for office. similar bids have failed previously in three other states. why so you think it is that yours succeeded? well, i think this is a fundamentally different case because none of those cases had any evidentiary hearing.

we engaged in a full five day hearing where we put on witnesses and we put on evidence and we made arguments to a court and went through that whole process, so we had officers who were there during the insurrection, who testified, we had experts who testified about what the meaning of the 14th amendment was. so i think the fact that we were able to have a full evidentiary hearing, which no other state has done, was very useful for us. i think also we had a team that was a very strong team, primarily from colorado lawyers here who were helping to push this through. we had help from a group in washington dc as well, a think tank out there. and we were able to make sure that we could win this case. i think that because we had that evidentiary basis it made the supreme court, the colorado supreme court, look at this and say, well, we know what you put on as a case and we agree with it.

so now the question is what will donald trump do... crosstalk. just to jump in there, the former president has said that he will appeal this, he intends bringing it to the us supreme court. how confident are you that today's ruling will be upheld there? i think we have a really strong argument. i think we have a very strong argument for it to be appealed there. while our decision here was 4—3, only two of the justices — only one of the justices really appealed, dissented on constitutional grounds. those are the grounds the supreme court will have to hear this on. they're going to have to hear questions of is the president an officer of the united states? or does he maintain an office under the united states? that is a legal question. was his speech protected under the first amendment? that's a legal question. those are the things they will be hearing. we think we have really strong arguments to move up there. in fact, one of the arguments

you can see is that the current supreme court quoted justice gorsuch, an opinion that he wrote years ago, denying a candidate to be on the ballot in colorado, saying that we could protect our ballot from people who don't belong on it. so i think there is a very good chance that when this court, even a court that does have what people would typically consider conservative justices, look at our case i think they will find it is incredibly strong and will let it go through. we're short on time, just want to ask another question. you mentioned neil gorsuch there, appointed by donald trump when he was president previously. in the ruling today the judges wrote that they hadn't reached these conclusions lightly, that they were mindful of the magnitude and the weight of the question that was before them. do you think the victory you have had in the colorado state supreme court might encourage other states, voters in other states

to take similar cases now? absolutely. and i think a lot have in other cases, there is one being heard in maine right now. i think what this helps them to do is to prove their cases. and i think it also it requires the supreme court to step in and say, ok, we need to make a decision for the country as a whole. there's been lots of diplomacy on the israel—gaza war, but no new deals yet. a vote at the united nations on a draft resolution calling for a cessation in fighting has been delayed again, and in the middle east, possible talks on hostage releases are making progress. it's the second time the un has delayed the vote with the language in the resolution standing in the way. in the latest wording, the un would be calling for a "suspension" of hostilities. that's watered down from the stronger language calling for a ceasefire in the original draft. the holdout is the us who has vetoed the previous resolutions.

here's white house national security spokesman john kirby earlier. we don't support a permanent ceasefire at this time. it would simply validate what hamas did on october 7. it would leave them in power in gaza, which is unacceptable to us and to our israeli friends and, of course, it would give them a much longer time line to prepare and plan additional attacks. we do support smaller, more localised, more targeted humanitarian pauses to get hostages out and to get more aid in. another vote is set for wednesday morning in new york. negotiations seem to be restarting over a new hostage deal that might see a pause in fighting. reuters reports that a meeting between qatar's prime minister and the heads of both the us and israeli intelligence services was positive, but no new hostage deal is imminent. and a source tells the bbc that the leader of hamas is expected to visit cairo on wednesday, a sign that negotiations could be resuming between israel and hamas. 0ur middle east correspondent hugo bachega has more.

the members of the united nations security council are debating a resolution calling for a pause or an end in hostilities, much back and forward about the language involved which has caused this delay on the vote. what difference would a resolution in whatever form it comes back to the work that you colleagues are doing? we to the work that you colleagues are doing?— are doing? we need assistance to scale in _ are doing? we need assistance to scale in capacity _ are doing? we need assistance to scale in capacity and - to scale in capacity and immediately in time we are behind every sort of sustainable response. we really need every possible initiative that can enhance this humanitarian assistance and greater access, humanitarian assistance and greateraccess, but humanitarian assistance and greater access, but also safe access for humanitarians as well as for the pipeline to work massively to be able to complete the needs. every

single supporter we can have is crucial at this moment.- crucial at this moment. what is our crucial at this moment. what is your message _ crucial at this moment. what is your message to _ crucial at this moment. what is your message to the _ crucial at this moment. what is your message to the political. your message to the political leaders who are trying to hammer out a deal on the resolution currently? the situation _ resolution currently? the situation is _ resolution currently? the situation is critical, - resolution currently? the situation is critical, we i resolution currently? tue: situation is critical, we need a proper humanitarian space to be able to respond to needs and we need parties to abide to their responsibilities under international humanitarian law to reduce the suffering and escalate because at this stage we are not able to cope with their needs.— their needs. head of the delegation _ their needs. head of the delegation in _ their needs. head of the delegation in new - their needs. head of the delegation in new york. their needs. head of the i delegation in new york and observer to the un, thank you forjoining us on bbc news. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at some news out of the uk. the british prime minister has faced one final grilling from mps before christmas as he answered questions from the liaison committee of senior mps. the group is tasked with scrutinising the prime minister's work.

with a general election looming next year, rishi sunak will ask voters tojudge him on his record. bbc verify�*s nick eardley has been assessing whether the prime minister has achieved his goals, starting with inflation. as you can see, at the start of the year it was high, 10%, went up to just below ii%, but on this one the government is doing pretty well. you can see that inflation has come down. in the latest figures it was 4.6%, so it has more than halved. we are still waiting for the overall figures, the final three months of the year, and it's worth pointing out this is the job of the bank of england rather than the government. but it looks like this one is going to be achieved. on other matters, though, like the overall economy, wait times at medicalfacilities and migrant arrivals, our team has found the prime minister and his government have been less successful. you're live with bbc news. civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a new texas law that

would allow state officers to arrest people suspected of crossing the us—mexico border illegally. the lawsuit, filed by the aclu of texas and the texas civil rights project, argues that the measure is unconstitutional because the federal government has sole authority over immigration. it comes after the state's republican governor greg abbott signed the measure during a ceremony on monday. the number of illegal crossings at the border surpassed two million for the second year in a row this year. that's according to the us customs and border protection. abbott is blaming the biden administration for the surge and says it isn't doing enough to help. biden�*s inaction has left texas to fend for itself. the authors of the united states constitution foresaw a situation when the federal government would be in attendant to states that face challenges at their borders. and in response they inserted article one, section ten

to the united states constitution to empower states to take action to defend themselves. and that is exactly what texas is doing. to get an understanding of the lawsuit and what the organisations hope it will accomplish, i spoke to david donatti, senior staff attorney with the american civil liberties union of texas. thanks forjoining us. what is your primary reason and concern for challenging this legislation that governor abbott has introduced? the primary reason we are bringing this case is very simply that texas has no authority to police immigration under our constitution and under international law. we who are here in texas are deeply concerned about this legislation primarily because of the way it will impact our communities, it will impact our families, and so we find it is urgent to seek federal court relief against implementation of this law. your affiliated organisations in neighbouring states have issued a travel advisory for

texas, warning of a possible threat to civil and constitutional rights while passing through texas. in a practical way, can you describe what your concerns are? absolutely. we partly lived this reality for the past two years as the state of texas has implemented its own vision of immigration. we have seen heightened instances of racial profiling, targeting of communities of colour, people whom the state believes do not belong here. we have seen increased incidences of deadly vehicle chases, and from the perspective of migrants themselves, the sheer bodily damage and risk of mortality that texas has imposed upon them by things like laying concertina or razor wire at the border and forcing people to go back into treacherous waters of the rio grande. governor abbott would say that these laws are needed because of security and national security, security in the state of texas, that it is at risk because of the record numbers

of migrants that are crossing over the border. what do you say to his point on that? i disagree with the governor's assessment of the data in the first instance and i disagree with his assessment of the problem. the problem is a humanitarian crisis where people are forced to leave their homes, and the problem is that rather than honouring our international obligations and federal laws that empower people to seek asylum and refuge in our country, we are responding by spending billions of dollars to cause them harm. there has not been reform to the federal immigration system for many, many years now. would reform at a federal level solve the problems that the governor has, as he sees them, and also ease your concerns? i can't speak for the governor. my instinct is that the governor would claim that there is an issue whether or there is one, and we would certainly disagree as to what the problem is. but we would also welcome federal reform and we believe that it is absolutely critical.

we have people in united states that have been undocumented since the 1980s when there was last ronald reagan's asylum programme in 1986 and that is a situation that's forced people to live in the shadows in our community and is a situation that is inhumane and untenable. given that the federal government has traditionally had jurisdiction over immigration, as we havejust been discussing there, how confident are you that your lawsuit will succeed? i want to emphasise it's not merely a matter of tradition as in they've done it before and so they should continue doing so, it's actually baked into the very idea of sovereignty itself. since immigration controls existed and international law, they have always been a prerogative of the federal government and there are over 100 years of supreme court cases in this country that attest to that very fact. the system that texas proposes where each of the 50 states gets to design its own systems of immigration, of who gets to belong, and who gets to execute its own deportations,

would not only imperil the united states' unified system immigration but certainly harm our international and foreign relations which texas' actions have already done. david donatti, senior staff attorney with the aclu of texas. thank you forjoining us on bbc news. thank you. let's turn to some important news around the world. ukraine's president wants to mobilise hundreds of thousands more soldiers for the war and has rejected suggestions the country is losing the fight against russia. in an end—of—year news conference, volodymyr zelensky said he is confident that the us �*won�*t betray�* ukraine, after republicans in congress blocked a $60 billion military aid package. a ukrainian general warns troops may have to be scaled back due to a drop—off inforeignfunding. france's lower house of parliament passed a bill on tuesday that would tighten rules on immigration. the french government says the law will make it easier for migrants working in sectors facing labour shortages to get

a residency permit. however, it would also make it easier to expel illegal migrants. human rights groups denounced it as the most regressive immigration law in france in decades. sudan's army has acknowledged that it has lost control of the central city of wad madani to the paramilitary rapid support forces. the city had been sheltering hundreds of thousands of people displaced by a war that is now in its eight month. the united nations says at least 250,000 people have fled the safe—haven. a resident tells the bbc that many fled the city without having anywhere to go. mourners paid tribute to the late supreme courtjustice sandra day o'connor on tuesday. all nine sitting justices attended tuesday's funeral at the national cathedral, as did retired justice anthony kennedy. presidentjoe biden was among those who spoke. 0'connor was the first woman to serve on the nation's highest court. she provided the decisive vote in dozens of cases including

a 1991 ruling that re—affirmed a woman's right to an abortion. she died earlier this month in arizona at the age of 93. a volcano in iceland is still active following a dramatic eruption on monday. the flare up is gushing lava and smoke from the mountain filled with magma. more than 4,000 residents of the nearest town, grindavik, were evacuated after a spate of earthquakes last month. reports say lava is flowing at a rate of around 100 to 200 cubic metres per second, despite iceland's meteorological office saying the power of the eruption is decreasing. there are concerns of gas pollution in the region as fumes could reach reykjavik between tonight and wednesday morning. iceland's last major volcanic eruption was in 2010, which caused an ash plume to rise several kilometres into the atmosphere. this led to several days of international air travel disruption. experts told the bbc there would not be the same level of disruption as 2010. to understand the difference

between the 2010 eruption and the current one, i spoke to dave mcgarvie, volcanologist at lancaster university. the lather is very fluid so what happens is the gas carries the particles out when these beautiful curtains and fountains of fire which are fantastic to see the footage being shown around the world. when the lava coming out of the ground a small sticky and does not allow the gas to pass through so readily it breaks apart into ash particles, that is what happened in 2010 when a volcano erupted. the type of material there is much more resistant to the gas passing through it, it blasted into ash particles, it was an ash dominated eruption, this current eruption and current ones in this part of iceland are lava dominated eruptions and they do not produce very much ash at all.

and finally — scientists in the uk have used dna evidence to retrace the steps of a man who travelled from what is now southern russia all the way to the english countryside some 2,000 years ago. it's the first biological proof that these people came to britain from the furthest reaches of the roman empire. the remains were discovered during excavations to improve a main road between cambridge and huntingdon. the scientific techniques used will help reveal the usually untold stories of ordinary people behind great historical events. they include reading the genetic code in fossilised bone fragments that are hundreds of thousands of years old, which shows an individual�*s ethnic origin. you can keep up—to—date with all of the news on our website. that's all from us, thank you for watching. i'm caitriona perry. stay with us here on bbc news. hello. wintry weather does not feature heavily in our forecast between now and christmas day,

but cloud, wind and rain will. 0n the earlier satellite picture, you can see this stripe of cloud that brought rain in the south on tuesday. then a zone of clear skies not lasting long. more cloud rolling in from the atlantic in association with a warm front bringing a rather grey and quite damp wednesday in many locations. also, quite a windy day out there, so any early brightness across england and wales will be replaced by cloud spreading from the north and the west with some outbreaks of rain. northern ireland and scotland just having a generally grey and cloudy day with some bits and pieces of rain and drizzle. it's going to be a breezy or indeed a windy day, but a mild one for most. just a little bit colder in the far north there in shetland. and then through wednesday night, extensive cloud cover, some mist and murk, splashes of rain, heavier rain pushing into scotland and the winds really picking up. gales likely across northern scotland, but we could see gales developing elsewhere by the start of thursday morning. it's going to be a mild start to thursday, but a really windy

start to the day, with this deep area of low pressure passing to the north of the uk. this frontal system bringing cloud and a little bit of rain as it slides just a touch further southwards. behind that, some sunny spells, but some showers which could be wintry over high ground in scotland. and it is going to be very windy. particularly gusty conditions to the east of high ground — say, to the east of the pennines, northern and eastern parts of scotland. we could in places see gusts of 70—80mph, very rough seas and maybe even some coastal flooding around some north sea coasts. temperatures, well, just 2 degrees by the middle of the afternoon in lerwick, 12 there for cardiff and plymouth, so staying mild in the south. quite a messy weather picture for friday. it looks like we'll see a band of rain trying to push northwards and eastwards. that could run into some cold air to provide a bit of snow over high ground in scotland. temperatures are 4 degrees in aberdeen, 12 for london, 12 for plymouth. now, mild air will win out

for most of us over the weekend and as we head towards christmas day. just a little bit colder in the north. and it is over higher ground in the north of the uk, particularly in scotland, where we do have the chance of a little bit of snow.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. no doubt israel has the military capacity to keep up its ferocious assault on hamas in gaza for many more months. but is its political and diplomatic room for manoeuvre narrowing? getting the hostages still held by hamas home is one key consideration. so too is the growing international criticism of the human cost of the operation, some of it coming from israel's key allies. my guest is former israeli prime minister naftali bennett. did israel set itself objectives after hamas's murderous october 7 attack that it cannot meet? naftali bennett in ra'anana, israel, welcome to hardtalk.