tv BBC News BBC News January 7, 2024 7:00pm-7:31pm GMT
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speaking in qatar us secretary of state, anthony blinken, says israel must do more to protect civilians in gaza. partial results in elections in bangladesh show that prime minister sheikh hasina is on course to be reelected for a fourth term. rishi sunak confirms that the government is looking at legal options to exonerate postal staff wrongfully convicted of fraud. and — hollywood rolls out the red carpet for one of its biggest nights — the golden globe awards. hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. there's been a upsurge in the fighting in gaza over the past 2a hours, with israel stepping up its attacks. eyewitnesses in the jabalia refugee camp say many people were killed in an overnight israeli air strike. israel has yet to comment.
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two journalists were killed in a strike on their car in gaza. israel has denied targeting them. aljazeera, whose gaza bureau chief lost a son in the attack — has called for the international criminal court to hold israel accountable. there's also been violence in the west bank — nine palestinians and two israelis were killed on sunday. all this as us secretary of state, antony blinken, tours the region — hoping to start negotiations on gaza's future. meanwhile, at a cabinet meeting, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu pledged to continue the war in gaza until all of their goals are achieved. translation: we are not stopping until victory. - the war must not be stopped until we achieve all of its goals — the elimination of hamas, the return of all of our hostages, and ensuring that gaza no longer poses a threat to israel. i say this to both our enemies and ourfriends. this is our responsibility and this is our commitment. every other consideration must be set aside and we must continue
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until total victory. our correspondent wyre davies has been monitoring events for us injerusalem — he gave us his assessment of mr netanyahu's comments. some interesting points in that statement by benjamin netanyahu, a message both to our enemies and ourfriends. and that's the clear message to the americans, to european governments, who perhaps would like israel to show more restraint in its bombing campaign in gaza, to even call for a ceasefire. but that simply isn't going to happen. israel has two goals in this war which has been going on for more than three months now, and that is to completely crush hamas and to secure the return of all of israel's hostages. with that first point, completely crushing hamas, the bombing campaign absolutely continues. there have been some horrific scenes from gaza in the last 2a hours. there was one attack on a house, a building injabalia in northern
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gaza in which around 70 people were killed. the images are appalling coming out of there. people's bodies blown to bits, children, women, other civilians. similar scenes from khan younis in the south where 63 people are said to have been killed in israeli air strikes. the number of dead in gaza is now almost 23,000 according to the hamas—run health ministry in gaza. that's since the war began on 7th of october. so it's clearly a devastating picture. israel is showing absolutely no signs of restraint at all, and that is because it says its goals simply are not yet met. that was wyre davies. we mentioned the us secretary of state antoyn blinken and his diplomatic tour of the middle east. he's currently in qatar and said this at a news conference. the dilemma that's been posed
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from day one since october 7th, the dilemma that any country would face, is having been the victim of one of the most horrible attacks that i'm aware of, that i've ever witnessed in my 30 years, how to make sure it doesn't happen again. and any country faced with what israel had to face on october 7th would want to do just that, make sure it could not happen again. and that means dealing with the threat that hamas continues to pose. and as hamas leaders themselves have made clear, they would, if given the opportunity, do this october 7th, again and again and again. and that is not tolerable for any country, israel or anyone else. but as we've made clear also from day one, it's imperative that in dealing with this very,
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very difficult challenge, that it do so in a way that puts a premium on protecting civilians and making sure that people get the assistance they need. us secretary of state there. earlier, i wasjoined by frank lowenstein — former us envoy for middle east peace — who explained the threat of a wider regional escalation. i think we have already seen regional escalation to the point where this could spin out of control very quickly in yemen, iraq and lebanon. i think that's why blinken is going not only to israel but other countries in the region to get everybody on the same page in terms of preventing a regional escalation that nobody wants. he has quite a to—do list on this tour. which of his goals do you think he will achieve? i think preventing regional escalation is probably possible.
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i don't think lebanon or hezbollah want that war and i don't think iran wants a war so i think it's a matter of trying to calm everybody down. i think probably trying to put the dialogue with respect to southern lebanon on a trajectory to be able to solve that and finally demarcate the border and that kind of thing. i think that goal is most attainable for secretary blinken. king abdullah ofjordan has been speaking because secretary blinken was there. he left, travelled from jordan to qatar. the king warned secretary blinken against the catastrophic repercussions of continued aggression against gaza. just how much sway do these regional leaders have in trying to resolve this issue? i think they have a tremendous amount of sway and not only what happens in the present tense but what we do going forward, and that's very much what secretary blinken is working on, getting their input, not only how to bring this conflict to a reasonable conclusion but also what comes next. the problem is ultimately that the israelis don't really
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care what anybody else has to say on how they conduct their operations in gaza so the tension there is between the impact is between the input of the united states and all of our regional allies and what israel decides it wants to do irrespective of what anybody else says. does israel care about the united states? they do but only to a point, the main point of disagreement between us and israelis in the humanitarian situation, we would want to see a huge amount of humanitarian assistance going on and a pause in the fighting work going on and a pause in the fighting where hostages can be released and there is an opportunity to actually get humanitarian assistance to a lot of the people desperately in need. i guess that is something the israelis would be receptivite to but it's just a matter of timing. in terms of moving forward, we heard following talks with president erdogan, secretary blinken saying that i think from our conversations today it is clear turkey is prepared to play a positive and productive role in the work that needs to happen the day after the conflict ends.
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when is this conflict going to end? really good question. i think it will end not so much in the sense of stopping completely but in the sense of transitioning from one phase to another and i think that's very much on the mind of secretary blinken during this visit, pushing the israelis to change their tactics to do much, much more to prevent civilian casualties and allow humanitarian assistance in and the israelis have said they are doing it in the north now. their actions haven't really changed in the south so i think that will be a main point of emphasis for the secretary. 0n the israeli tactics, today they announced they dismantled hamas�*s command structure. what exactly does that mean? but also, mr hagari it was pointed out the of the approach for central and southern parts of gaza will have to change. have they done something wrong? i think what they are saying
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about southern gaza and central gaza is there going to try not to kill so many civilians and trying to do more on the humanitarian front. it remains to be seen whether they are serious about that. that's one of the things concerning the us the most, they say they will change their tactics but nothing is going to be any different on the ground. i think we are going to be pushing the israelis notjust for words but for actions on the ground on those two key fronts — civilian casualties and humanitarian assistance. frank lowenstein speaking to me earlier. now to bangladesh where partial results show prime minister sheikh hasina is on course to be re—elected. as according to the afp agency. voting took place amid tight security after violence on the eve of the poll. at least 14 polling stations were set alight. it is said to be a fourth consecutive term for prime minister sheikh hasina as prime minister sheikh hasina as prime minister sheikh hasina as prime minister bangladesh. the country's chief election commissioner described the violence as an attempt to sabotage the vote. meanwhile, the main opposition bangladesh nationalist party had asked people to follow them in boycotting it. and international
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observers including the un said the election had taken place in a repressive environment. 0ur south asia correspondent, samira hussain, has the latest from the capital dhaka. we are standing outside the election commission and the commissioner has told the bbc that the awami league, that's the ruling party, has won more than 50% of the seats, but to be clear, they haven't actually declared the election a win for sheikh hasina, but it is pretty much accepted that that will be the likely outcome because as you rightly pointed out, the main opposition party, the bangladesh nationalist party, did not contest in these elections. they accuse the government of being unable to hold free and fair elections. so with really no strong
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opposition to oppose ms hasina and her awami league party, it seems there was little doubt she was going to cruise through to yet another victory. samira, so the bnp did not take part, they boycotted the elections, there has been violence in the run—up to today. in terms of the legitimacy of the vote, should sheikh hasina be concerned? has she expressed any concern? i think there is a lot of questions being raised about the legitimacy of this vote which is why there was so much effort being made by the hasina government to make sure there were no voting irregularities and that they went through, that these elections, the voting process went through as smoothly as possible. yes, there was some reporting of irregularities at polling stations, those were quickly dealt with.
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and yes, there were some incidents of violence, 14 polling stations were set ablaze, but they didn't have an impact on the voting process. and there were some other small incidents of violence. but by and large, what the prime minister wanted to show to the international community is that the country is able to hold an electoral process under the democratic principles. these democratic principles. however, these elections are coming during a climate in which there has been a severe crackdown on freedom of expression and freedom of protest. and any kind of dissent against the government has received quite severe backlash. so if you speak to members of the bnp, they will say, well, look, we couldn't even contest these elections because thousands of our leaders and our supporters are either in prison or injail, or in hiding. samira hussainthere. the british prime minister says the government is looking
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at legal options to clear the sub—postmasters wrongly convicted in the post office scandal, which he called �*an appalling miscarriage ofjustice'. more than 700 people were convicted of charges including theft and false accounting, because of a faulty computer system — fewer than 100 of them have been exonerated. rishi sunak, in a wide ranging interview with laura kuenssberg, also said he was committed to the plan to send some migrants to rwanda. 0ur political correspondent, damian grammaticas, reports. for rishi sunak, this is set to be a decisive year, issues crowding around. first, the growing calls to exonerate those caught up in the post office scandal. the prime minister was asked if he would act to clear the hundreds wrongfully convicted or have government, not post office, lawyers handle their appeals. the justice secretary is looking at the things that you have described. it would not be right to pre—empt that process. obviously there is legal complexity in all of those things but he is looking at exactly those
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areas that you have described. it is right that we find every which way we can do to try and make this right for the people who were so wrongfully treated at the time. next up, one of his signature but stalled policies, focused on this place, rwanda, and his attempts to deport asylum seekers to have their cases dealt with by the east african country. government documents seen by the bbc suggest that, as chancellor, mr sunak thought the policy won't work as a deterrent, but as prime minister, he is pushing ahead with it. i absolutely believe in the value and importance of having deterrents. in terms of the scheme, i was chancellor at the time. myjob is to make sure that we get value for taxpayers, value for money for taxpayers, to ask questions whenever anybody wants to spend taxpayers�* money. i would expect the same thing of the chancellor now. across london, in another tv studio, the labour leader, keen to put pressure on the prime minister over when an election might be called. mr sunak has tried to quash speculation suggesting it might be autumn.
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sir keir starmer says the sooner the better. it is very hard to see how him continuing in government improves the lives of anybody in the country, so there is this drift. i can't help feeling that all he really wants to do is to get two years clocked up of his own premiership and that means he is putting vanity before country. mps will be back in westminster tomorrow. some conservatives are already gearing up to challenge mr sunak over his rwanda plan. just the start of what is certain to be a testing political calendar for the prime minister. damian grammaticas, bbc news. here in the uk, the environment agency is warning that more properties could flood over the next week — as river levels rise. more than 1,800 properties have already flooded after prolonged wet weather and intense rainfall. currently there are nearly 350 flood warnings and alerts
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in place in england, and five in wales. jessica lane has the latest from collingham in nottinghamshire. the water came to the high here, you can see the line on the door and across, above the electric socket. started coming in on thursday, up through the floors and walls. the clear—up begins after the floods. all the sofas are not usable now, the fabrics soaked the water and that will never be right so they will all need replacing. erica has had to move in with her neighbours as homes and gardens in nottinghamshire are still underwater. it is starting to go down here but a lot of the fields in the area are still underwater and in fact there are some houses over here and the people in those houses are isolated. the fire brigade has had to send boats out filled with bottles of water and tins of food to make sure they have enough
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provisions to keep them going for the next few days. they have also been checking on other isolated people cut off by the sheer amount of water. elsewhere, people alongside the river lambourn in berkshire were monitoring water levels all last night after some homes flooded. over the last 12, 2a hours, although we have had a considerable period of dry weather, and it was even sunnier yesterday, and it was even sunny yesterday, water levels have continued to rise. the prime minister met the environment agency earlier in oxford the government has been accused of being asleep at the wheel by labour in its response to the widespread flooding chaos. ministers say effective communities in england will be able to apply for funding to help them through the challenging times and things should start to brighten up. even though we have dry weather coming up, it will take a while for
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the peaks in the rivers to move down through to the sea and take the pressure off communities like those we have seen in recent days. back here in collingham, they say they are already seeing signs of hope. water is going down. this road side was not visible this time yesterday. but with the river trent having reached record levels over the last few days, the floods of early 2024 will be remembered for some years to come. jessica lane, bbc news. police in lincolnshire say two people have died, after their car became submerged in water. it happened on saturday in tetney lock, in the early afternoon, near grimsby and the mouth of the river humber. police say there was a collision, and a blue mercedes 300 left the road. a 16—year—old boy and a ao—year—old man were pronounced dead at the scene — their next of kin have been informed. in the last hour of the us aviation agency has said 171 boeing 737 max 9 aeroplanes will remain grounded
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until it is satisfied they are safe following the incident with an air alaska plane that had to make an emergency landing after losing part of its fuselage. some air alaska planes had returned to service after safety checks but the faa decision means that they can't now fly again for now. leigh milner reports. this video footage was taken by a passenger on board flight 1282 shortly after take—off. look closely and you can see a hole in the side of the plane — a panel has been blown out. just 20 minutes after take—off, flight 1282 made an emergency landing back at portland international airport in oregon. luckily, no—one was injured. we are very, very fortunate here that this didn't end up| in something more tragic. no—one was seated in 26a and b, where that door plug is. -
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these pictures show the full extent of the damage in what was a terrifying experience for those on board. there was a kid in that row, whose shirt was sucked off him and out of the plane. his mother was holding onto him to make sure he didn't go with it. last night, the uk's civil aviation authority said it had written to all foreign owners of boeing 737 max 9 aircraft demanding that inspections are carried out before they can operate in uk air space. there are no uk—registered max 9s. and the us federal aviation administration has ordered the temporary grounding of 171 boeing 737 max 9s as investigators try to work out exactly what happened. this is the latest incident involving boeing's best—selling model that was launched back in 2015. in october 2018, a 737 max operated
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by indonesian airline lion air crashed shortly after take—off, killing all 189 on board. five months later, in march 2018, an ethiopian airline 737 max was involved in a similar crash, killing all 157 passengers. that led to all boeing 737 maxes being grounded by the us regulator, the federal aviation administration, for the next 20 months. after this latest incident, alaska airlines grounded their 737 max 9 fleet. boeing has said it will cooperate with any investigation. leigh milner, bbc news. here in the uk, some parents believe the covid pandemic has shown that it's not essential for children to attend school every day — according to a new report. the centre for socialjustice says more support is needed to tackle school absences. 0ur education editor branwen jeffreys has the story. bell rings
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it's part of the legacy of covid, a broken contract with school for some families. last year, almost twice as many children missed 10% of lessons. mental health issues, the cost—of—living crisis aren't helping. this report suggests parents' attitudes have shifted. almost a third agreed the pandemic showed going every day was not essential. to repair the missing link between school and families, it suggests mental health support for every school, expanding the use of mentors forfamilies, creating a right to sport for secondary pupils, to have five hours of extra activities every week. also looking at how fines are working and investing in youth clubs. some of the solutions can be quite straightforward. it's not necessarily wholesale reform, so i think government needs
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to think about kind of the wider offer and schools need to be thinking about building a really constructive relationship because parents and schools both have the children's interests front of mind. the government has tried mentoring in a few areas and may extend it. labour will set out its plans this week. school absence isn't simple. many reasons lie behind it. but everyone agrees parents play a key role. hollywood's award season gets under way in la in the next few hours — with the golden globes award ceremony. barbie and 0ppenheimer are tipped for success — as emma vardy reports. hi, barbie. hi, ken. it was neverjust about a plastic doll. barbie, a satire on a female's role in society, became a sensation last summer... hi, barbie. ..as audiences dressed in pink and headed to the cinema, making director greta gerwig the first female to make a $1 billion movie.
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i got us both ice cream. cool i don't know if we can be trusted. for best drama, 0ppenheimer, the three—hour epic about the american physicist who developed the atomic bomb, is battling it out against martin scorsese's killers of the flower moon. leonardo dicaprio is up for best actor, but it's his co—star, lily gladstone, who may become the first native american to win best actress. i didn't realise this was a race. he's on the floor, tom. explain to me what he's doing. and succession, the drama about a media dynasty is predicted to be the big winner in the tv categories. studios are hoping for a boost from the awards, as the globes are the first major event since actors' and writers' strikes saw hollywood productions grind to a halt, costing the industry dearly. so there's a lot at stake. but the globes are also known as the biggest party in town. throughout the night, the champagne will be flowing, because this event has something of a reputation for being one of
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the most raucous of awards season. getting ahead is popular here because winning a golden globe can help influence the oscars in two months' time. emma vardy, bbc news, beverly hills. you can keep up—to—date with who has been nominated who will be presenting the golden globes and all the stories behind the lovely pictures as well, just head to our website, bbc news, and you can follow all the latest developments on the story. a big year of course for the globes. it's been quite a turbulent time for them. it is there for you. stay with us here on bbc news. good evening. high pressure has brought a welcome change to much drier weather for most this weekend, but there are still numerous flood warnings in force, around 170 during the day today.
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as ever, there is more detail on those on the weather website, including a warning for ice for the night ahead. but the high pressure that has brought the drier weather this weekend is staying put, as you can see, through the working week. there will be quite a keen wind in the south accentuating the chill, but for most, little rain in the forecast. it looks much drier, therefore, but it is already colder and it will remain so. and we've had some stubborn fog this weekend. in fact, during sunday across parts of northern ireland, scotland, northern england and wales, and indeed that will thicken up as we go through the coming night, there could be the odd pocket further south as well. what we will find is more showers coming into east anglia and the south—east. widely frosty, i think, even where we see the towns and cities just above freezing, the ground will still turn potentially frosty and icy because we have had a lot of rain. but overnight we are going to see those showers, and into monday, popping up across the east anglia region and the south—east of england, and there will be snow even at lower levels,
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it is cold air. with a few centimetres potentially over the downs, that will make things very slippery potentially because they could wash off the salt. ice certainly an issue in the south and east but also elsewhere because it has been so damp. the fog again for central and southern scotland, northern ireland, northern parts of england and wales, it might well linger. but we will see some brightness and some sunshine as well. the wind is a little stronger again across southern parts compared to today, pushing those wintry showers across other southern counties through the day. and making it feel colder still. we will see a smattering of snow in those showers further south, particularly over the hills and the channel islands. into tuesday, the high pressure system stays towards the north, those keen east winds or north—east winds, continue in the south. but that might benefit, pushing the showers out of the way and breaking the cloud up a bit more for more sunshine. but still again plenty of it for north—west scotland,
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gaza, with at least 70 people reportedly killed in the jabalia refugee camp. the us secretary of state, antony blinken, says isabel must do more to protect civilians in gaza. partial results in elections in bangladesh to show that the prime minister is on course to be re—elected for a fourth consecutive term. rishi sunak confirms that the government is looking at legal options to exonerate some postmasters wrongly convicted of fraud because of a faulty computer accounting system. and stars in the entertainment world are preparing for the golden globes awards ceremony being held in los angeles. barbie and 0ppenheimer are the favourites, with nine and eight nominations respectively. now on bbc news, it's sportsday.
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