described as the architect of the modern eu — has died aged 98. hello and welcome, i'm samantha simmonds. we start with the latest on the israel—gaza war. the israeli military is keeping up its offensive across the gaza strip, with southern and central areas now the main focus of attack. over the past day, israel says it carried out strikes on at least 200 hamas targets in gaza. hamas — which is holding about 130 people hostage in gaza — is designated a terror organisation by the uk and us. the hamas—run health ministry says at least 195 people were killed as a result of those strikes. the united nations human rights office has said it's deeply concerned about the continued bombing of gaza's middle area. in a further sign of the conflict's

wider reverberations, turkey's president has lashed out, comparing israel's actions in gaza to atrocities committed by the nazis. in the red sea, the danish shipping company maersk says it is prepared to resume sailings, despite the threat of attack by houthi rebels in yemen who are supporting hamas. our first report is from our correspondent shamaa khalil. —— shaimaa khalil. a warning, you may find some elements distressing. no funeral, no dignified burial, no tombstone. a bulldozer carries their bodies into a mass grave. their final resting place. israeli forces are expanding their ground offensive into the densely populated urban refugee camps in central gaza. and this is the scene at the neighbouring al aqsa hospital. overwhelmed, they've had to treat the injured on the floor and in hallways. across gaza at the moment, health capacity is at about 20% of what it was 80 or so days ago.

so almost all of the hospital beds, almost all of the hospital services have stopped functioning. on foot, donkey carts are crammed onto the back of trucks. those who fled from northern gaza have come here for safety, but the war has chased them out again. heavy bombardment continues in the south, and there aren't many places left to go. israel says the war will last for months and insists the aims are clear. we can't destroy hamas's ideology, unfortunately. that's not realistic. but we can remove them from power. we can prevent them from having control over this territorial enclave, and that will do a lot to save lives and prevent future conflict in the region. in the west bank, an israeli air strike killed six palestinians. the military says they were armed militants. locals deny it. this, as the palestinian president, mahmoud abbas, has warned that the area could implode.

a new refugee camp has now been set up for those twice displaced, first from northern gaza and now from the centre. this man lost six family members. "our houses have been destroyed," he says. "this is what's left. "it's worse than hell here." more than 21,000 people have now died in gaza, according to local health officials. those who've survived are running out of places to flee. shaimaa khalil, bbc news, jerusalem. we mentioned incendiary comments from the turkish president, recep tayyip erdogan. at an event in ankara on wednesday, he said this about israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu. translation: all the values of humanity have been - destroyed before our own eyes for the last 80 days. we saw israel's nazi camps

in the stadiums, right? they are, in every sense, the way we were talking about hitler. how does benjamin netanyahu and hitler differ? is there anything that netanyahu does that is less than hitler? no. mr netanyahu hit back, saying mr erdogan was in no position to preach morality, accusing him of trying to commit genocide against kurdish people and imprisoning journalists. nathan thrall is the former project director of arab—israeli conflict at the crisis group. i asked him about the escalation of violence in the occupied west bank and northern israel. israel is now using drones to attack targets in the west bank. that is a development that we hadn't seen for some years, really going back to the second intifada. on the border with lebanon, we have a low—intensity war that has already broke out and is at risk of spiralling into a full—fledged war on a huge scale.

and, of course, everywhere in the region we see now that this war is threatening to expand. what is your assessment of israel, more specifically in gaza and how likely it is to reach its goals of the short and longer—term? we've heard from the idf in recent hours saying they think their operation could last several more months. we've also heard from marc regev there, netanyahu's spokesperson or certainly one of his advisers, now that the ideology of hamas can't be wiped out, that the aim on planning on wiping out its leadership. what is your assessment of the time that could take? it is a welcome development that mr regev has started to walk back the unattainable goals that the israeli government

has put forward. they keep repeating that they wish to eliminate hamas, and there is zero chance that they will achieve that. if you look at public opinion polls, hamas is stronger than it has ever been. hamas exists in the west bank, it exists in gaza, it exists in the diaspora. so no matter what israel does militarily to degrade hamas in gaza, hamas will remain a very powerful political force. and at the end of the day, israel doesn't want to occupy gaza indefinitely. and it will need palestinians to control gaza. and that means it will have to negotiate with hamas, one of the two largest political parties, over the future of gaza and the west bank. the united states' top diplomat, antony blinken, is having talks with the mexican president on how to deal with a surge in the number of people trying to reach the united states. mr blinken is accompanied by the us homeland security secretary for his meeting

with president lopez obrador in mexico city. the meeting takes place as a reported new influx of migrants, estimated at around 6,000 people, are walking through mexico from tapachula to the us border. at stake for mr blinken�*s boss, presidentjoe biden, is securing some means of easing the wave of people trying to cross the us southern border. both democrats and republicans are calling for practical solutions. our correspondent shingai nyoka — who's in washington — is monitoring the talks. this is a high—level meeting between america and mexico, and it comes amidst this unprecedented surge in the number of migrants making their way from mexico into the united states. 2 million people so far have crossed this year, and in the last week also there were about 10,000, an average of 10,000 people, that were crossing. and that's double the number that were crossing during the pre—covid era. and so thatjust gives you a sense

ofjust how overwhelmed both countries are with what's happening at the border. and you've asked what it is that they want to come out of this meeting. well, the us has been trying to put pressure on mexico to do more to ensure that mexico stops the migrants before they cross the border into the us. and what has happened over the last couple of weeks or so is that several border crossings have been closed, including railway crossings, as the us has deployed patrol officials across this 3000—kilometre border at some of the illegal point to try to stop the migrants from coming in. on the other hand, mexico says that it's doing all it can, but it hopes that some kind of an understanding can be reached during the meeting that is taking place. but it also says that the us needs to look at addressing broader issues. many of these migrants are coming from countries

like venezuela and cuba, countries that the us has imposed sanctions on and which, according to them, have created economic crises. many of these migrants that are coming from latin america are economic refugees, and so this is where they stand, is that while the us would want to see mexico doing more, mexico also wants to make some demands in return. shingai nyoka there. let's get some of the day's other news now. police in the czech republic have confirmed that they discovered a suicide note in the home of the man who carried out last week's mass shooting in prague in which he confessed to an earlier double killing. they said he admitted to shooting dead two people in woods in the week prior to the attack on charles university, in which he killed 1a people before taking his own life. donald trump will be able to contest next year's presidential primary election in the us state of michigan. the state's supreme court upheld a lower court's order that mr trump be allowed to participate, despite accusations he led an insurrection. colorado's supreme court recently

ruled that he could not contest the primary in that state. wolfgang schauble, a key figure in german politics for decades, has died aged 81. the former finance minister played a big role in negotiating german reunification after the fall of the berlin wall in 1989. he survived an assassination attempt by a gunman in 1990 and was widely viewed as one of germany's most influential post—war politicians. one of the largest newspapers in the us, the new york times, is suing the companies behind chatgpt — openai and microsoft. the times alleges that the powerful artificial intelligence programme used millions of articles for training without permission. the newspaper is seeking damages, as well as an order that the companies stop using its content and destroy the data. the defendants are yet to respond to the lawsuit. for more on this story, i spoke to new york times technology reporter ryan mac,

who's in los angeles. the lawsuit was filed this morning and we reported it as of this morning, which is that the new york times believes that openai has been infringing on its copyright, as well as microsoft. and so, yeah, we reported this story this morning. and how long do you allege this has been going on? well, the complaint says that there's content that goes back to as early as the 19505 that has been used in openai's training models and chat bots to develop these new technologies, and the company is enforcing its copyright and pursuing claims under that argument. can you tell us a little bit more about how the us law operates in terms of your expectations for this case? is there any guidance on what kind of permissions ai companies are required to ask before they use this content?

i mean, that is exactly what is at the crux of this case, is that companies like openai, these companies with billion—dollar valuations, billions of dollars of funding, have essentially scraped the web and taken content — a lot of it copyrighted — forfree and used it in its technologies. and the new york times is going to court to argue that that wasn't legal. so is this effectively a test case in this arena? it's one of many, yeah. there are ongoing lawsuits from other creative industries. you look at something like, you know, actors that have sued openai, authors, fiction authors and non—fiction. and this is sort of the beginning. getty images has sued another ai company that uses its images to train generative ai that creates realistic images. so i think we're at the forefront of this, and it will remain to be seen what happens.

south african playwright, composer, choreographer and theatrical director mbongeni ngema has died. he was killed in a car crash earlier this evening, he was recognised internationally following the success of his musical sarafina, which depicted socio—political conditions of black people under the racist and murderous regime. in 1992, the play was adapted into a film starring whoopi goldberg. mr ngema was also a controversialfigure. in 2002, he made headlines over a song that accused south africa's indian population of exploitation and resisting change. here in the uk, the chancellor jeremy hunt will unveil his spring budget on the 6th of march, in what could be his last chance to introduce tax changes before a general election. our political correspondent helen catt has more. the budget is likely to be the last big fiscal event, as they're known — those moments when the government can announce big tax and spending plans — before a general election.

so there's already a lot of speculation about what the chancellor might choose to do with it. now, some of that has been around inheritance tax. there was a lot of talk around the idea that he might abolish inheritance tax ahead of the autumn statement, which he delivered last month. in the end, he didn't do that. but we are seeing that come back again, a suggestion that he's considering doing that in the budget. there are certainly conservative mps who would like to see inheritance tax go. they don't like it as a tax and they think it would draw a neat dividing line, as they see it, as a challenge to labour. but there are other conservative mps who are publicly saying to the chancellor, "no, this shouldn't be considered," that he should instead be focusing on things like reducing income tax. the total tax burden is, of course, at the moment at a historic high. so the budget will be the last opportunity, really, for the government to set out those big plans. what's in it is likely to shape the election campaign, although labour is saying that whatever the government does in march, it's not going to be able to repair the damage that it's done to the economy.

the liberal democrats likewise saying that it's too late for it to turn the tide on flatlining growth and public services at breaking point. now, there's been a lot of speculation, too, about what the date being announced here, the 6th of march, could mean. does that tell us there's going to be an election in may? well, i don't think it does that. but what it does do is certainly leave that as an option that is open for the government to do. one last thing, just talking about inheritance tax and the speculation around that — downing street has addressed that today. it was asked about this story. it said that it wouldn't comment on speculation and pointed out that it's only paid by a small number of households, so it feels like it might be slightly dampening that down. helen catt there. a major incident has been declared in scotland with long queues of vehicles stranded in the highlands. storm gerrit has been sweeping across the uk, bringing high winds and heavy rain. about 20,000 homes are still

without power in northern scotland. on the roads, trains, ferries and at airports, people are facing delays and hazardous conditions. shiona mccallum reports. as you can see, we are stuck on the a9 just south of dalwhinnie. thick snow and ice took grip of the a9, the main trunk road between perth and the highlands. a major incident was declared. richard was at a standstill with his wife and daughter for over six hours, trying to get home to bristol after christmas. so, yeah, when we set off from loch laggan, it was just raining and the snow was actually melting away, it seemed to be all right. and then as soon as we got to dalwhinnie, itjust was a complete white—out. the skies opened, and within minutes, it was just complete white—out. the traffic had come to an absolute halt, and we were going nowhere. away from the white—out,

and it was the rain that was causing problems in cupar in fife. some residents had to be rescued from their homes after severe flooding in the town. specialist boats were brought in to help. woke up and i could hear some rustling noises, and i looked out and there was two to three feet of water, up to my bed. i'm thinking most things in the lounge are going to be gone. so obviously not what you want to wake up to just after christmas. in aberdeenshire and angus, more than 20,000 people are without power. winds reached over 85 mph in some parts. storm gerrit has mainly impacted - scotland at the moment, with around 20,000 customers without power. access proving a real- challenge for our engineers, and weather is expected to be worse iagain overnight, so we are keepingl a very close eye on that. if you are in an area affected by a weather warning, - we would urge you to make preparationsjust now, - but know that engineers - and customer service teams, thousands of people, -

are working around the clock to reconnect power as quickly as they safely can. _ trains were hit, too. not only were services cancelled, but some passengers were stuck on board for hours. a tree fell on this line at dumbarton, and it remains blocked by flooding at bowling. our advice to passengers as always is to check before you travel. take a look at the scot rail website or download the app. disruption will continue into tomorrow in some parts of the country. two top—flight football games were postponed, including ross county's trip to ibrox. a series of met office yellow rain and snow warnings are still in place tonight. flood warnings and alerts will also continue into tomorrow. shiona mccallum, bbc news, glasgow. the former european commission presidentjacques delors — described as the architect of the modern eu — has died, aged 98. he helped create the single market, allowing the free movement

of people, goods and services within the eu. and he was also a key figure in the creation of the euro. adam fleming looks back at his life. he was the architect of modern europe. in the �*80s and �*90s, the president of the european commission thought the eu should come more closely together, socially, economically and politically. some british conservatives reacted in horror. no! no, no! born to a working—class, devoutly catholic family, jacques delors first became a banker. in 1981, president mitterrand appointed him finance minister. four years later, he headed for brussels. good friends, they certainly aren't... i margaret thatcher signed up to the single european act, which tore down barriers to trade. but delors then championed something she couldn't stomach. this government has no intention of agreeing to the imposition of a single currency. the iron lady saw him

as europe's new bonaparte. that would be entering a federal europe through the back delors. the sun said the same in less diplomatic language. in 1992, the maastricht treaty laid the foundations of the euro. translation: let's look. to the future, with economic and monetary union, the 12 member countries can hope to draw the greatest possible benefits of a common economic area, with its social dimension, too. arguments over that future led to the downfall of margaret thatcher and john major. tony blair and gordon brown disagreed onjoining the euro. in 2016, britain decided enough was enough and left. the british people have spoken, and the answer is — we're out. l at times, financial crises in europe have been blamed on the way the single currency was constructed, but the high priest of european

integration never had a doubt. more than 50 french actors, writers and cinema producers have signed an open letter in support of the actor gerard depardieu, who faces accusations of sexual assault. there've been calls for him to be stripped of his legion d'honneur. the letter denounces what it calls the "lynching" of depardieu, one of france's most famous, and most divisive, actors. he denies any wrongdoing. meghan owen has more on this. gerard depardieu is one of the most famous faces of french film. the oscar and bafta—nominated actor is famous for his work in over 200 films and tv series. but since 2020, he's been under investigation for rape. he also faces allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment from over a dozen women. and a documentary released in december revealed sexual comments that he'd made to and about women. now, he strongly denies

all of the allegations and there's no court ruling against him, but it's continued to spark controversy across france. now, the french president, emmanuel macron, came underfire for a tv interview he did in december where he defended the actor, saying that it was all a manhunt. and most recently, over 50 french actors and other a—listers have written an open letter to le figaro, which is a french newspaper, saying, "don't cancel gerard depardieu." they say that it's a case of lynching. now, here are some of the famous faces who have signed the letter, including former first lady and singer carla bruni. yannis ezziadi is one of the other actors to have signed the letter. translation: gerard depardieu is part of the history _ of french heritage. he has left an indelible mark. so whatever you do, you won't be able to erase it. and we don't want to cancel him and we don't want to do without him. he's essential to the artistic history of our country. the letter has sparked backlash from feminist critics and has divided opinion,

including on the streets of paris. translation: why should he be protected just because he's - an important figure? translation: it's notjust one person making accusations, - there are quite a few, so i don't think it's a lynching. i think there are real questions to be asked about depardieu, who was a brilliant, sublime actor in the '70s and '80s and who's become a real wreck. translation: as long i as he hasn't been judged, we cannot attack him and take him down. i but on the other hand, i we have to stop it taking too many years for him to be brought to trial. _ depardieu himself has called the signatories "courageous" and has praised the letter. but mounting accusations against the actor suggest he won't be out of the spotlight any time soon. meghan owen there. with just a few days to go until new year's eve, the design of the iconic ball that will drop in new york's times square to welcome in 2024 has been revealed. organisers say the new design features a bow tie pattern.

it's made from two triangles shining together to make the shape. times square was once known as "the bow tie." the ball is the new year's eve ball is just over three and half metres in diameter and weighs nearly five and half thousand kilos. and i'm sure we'll see pliny more of it in a of days. that is it for me. thanks for watching —— see plenty more of it in a couple of days. hello. storm gerrit has certainly made its presence felt across the uk with a combination of significant snow, flooding, rain and some exceptionally strong winds. just a selection of the gusts recorded during wednesday and on into the evening. wind gusts of close to 90 miles per hour in the northern isles. now on the satellite picture, this storm looks beautiful — this swirl of cloud here. the main body of the wet and windy weather is now sliding away north—eastwards, up towards scandinavia, but low pressure is still firmly in charge.

lots of isobars on this chart. that means it is going to stay windy for many of us during thursday and there will be lots of showers. those showers heavy, possibly thundery, wintry over hills in the north of the uk. across england, wales and northern ireland, some very gusty winds, gusting to 40, 50, maybe 60 miles per hour around some irish sea coasts, but certainly not as windy as it has been across scotland. temperature—wise, well, five or six degrees in the north of scotland, 12 or 13 in south wales and southern england. and then as we head through thursday night, there will be further showers or longer spells of rain. still some wintry showers mixing in across the northern half of the uk with this northerly wind kicking in. that will bring a somewhat chillier feel. in fact, i think we'll see quite a lot of rain, sleet and snow developing in northern scotland by the start of friday morning. that is a sign of things to come. we'll see this showery and at times wintry weather continuing to affect northern parts of scotland with a strong northerly wind. pretty windy in other areas as well. a band of showers across northern

ireland into northern england, something wintry mixing in here over higher ground. sunshine and showers further south. a slightly chillier feel to the weather on friday. and then into saturday, here comes our next weather system. some heavy rain in places where we really do not need it. some snow developing over high ground in northern england and scotland. we could see some snow to quite low levels for a time in scotland. 5 degrees for aberdeen, 12 degrees for plymouth. and so low pressure will be firmly in charge of our weather as we head towards the end of the year, towards the new year's eve celebrations. in fact, this low could well bring another bout of very windy weather indeed. so this is the forecast through new year's eve and into new year's day. it looks quite unsettled.

this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk from washington. i'm stephen sackur. this is a city of power and politics, but also of secrets and spies. in the cold war, the us built the best resourced intelligence agency in the world just down the road at langley. now, the cia has had a chequered history — involved notjust in spying,

but assassination attempts and coup plots as well. but now intelligence seems to have entered a different realm of cyber hacking, big data and electronic surveillance. my guest isjonna mendez. at the end of the cold war, she was the cia's chief of disguise. is human intelligence still a vital asset? jonna mendez, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. pleasure. well, it's great to have you here. what do you think are the qualities you possess that made you a good spy? no—one's asked me that before.

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