and scrutiny over his hospital stay. we have the latest on lloyd austin's absence from the job. hello, i'm carl nasman. police in ecuador have ordered the evacuation of the nation's government compound over security concerns. recent violence has reportedly left at least 10 people dead as the country remains under a 60—day state of emergency, on tuesday, a group of armed men broke into a television studio and threatened staff. this is footage was recorded during a live broadcast that the armed men interrupted. the country's police force says the staff were evacuated from the studio and several suspects were later arrested. it comes just days after a convicted gang leader vanished from his prison cell sunday. it is not clear yet if the storming of the television station is linked to the prison

escape, but with security rapidly deteriorating in the country, president daniel noboa signed an executive order declaring an "internal armed conflict." our south america correspondent ione wells has more. a moment of utter horror, broadcast live on television. armed men with balaclavas over theirface broke into the set of this public television channel in ecuador while it was live on air, brandishing guns and what appears to be explosives. it comes a day after the country's new president daniel noboa declared a state of emergency yesterday. ecuador has been rocked by a series of attacks after the apparent escape of a powerful gang leader, jose adolfo macias, from prison. police and military were ordered to intervene in controlling prisons in attempts to control violence but the violence has exploded further since then.

explosions in the streets, police officers carrying out stop—and—search, some reportedly being abducted. for ordinary people in ecuador, terror on the streets. translation: i hope this state of emergency yields results, - positive results for the population, not for the criminals. translation: we live | in constant fear because on a day—to—day basis, when we go to work we don't know if we will return or come back home in one piece. suspects tonight have been detained, but with ecuador still on high alert, fear for citizens there remain. the president, daniel noboa, has also announced in tonight that the country is now in a state of internal armed conflict. certainly strong words from the president this evening, ordering police and military to do all they can to try and stop the spate of violence that ecuador has seen in the last couple of days.

the picture is wider than this as well because ecuador has seen rising violence over the last few years. since the covid pandemic in 2020, gangs operating out of prisons took advantage of the state being weaker at the time, drug cartels gaining influence in ecuador have fuelled rising violence as has high unemployment. this is now the number one issue that the country faces and certainly tonight there is still fear on the streets, particularly in guayaquil, which has seen the country's highest rate of homicide in the last year. the us now says it's "extremely concerned" by the violence in ecuador. a state department spokesperson says the united states is monitoring the situation closely, adding that: for more on the developing situation inside ecuador, i spoke to pascal fletcher with bbc monitoring. thank you for being here.

it sounds like an extraordinary situation. what more do we know about the outbreak of violence right now in ecuador and who might be behind it? certainly, most people relate it to what is the source of much violence in latin america, which is drug trafficking in the sense that the cartels have been penetrating ecuador, the mexican cartels and suppliers in colombia and peru to the north and south have linked up with local gangs and these local gangs have become increasingly brazen and bold. they also have their headquarters. they operate from the country's jails and it is these outbreaks of violence in the jails which has rooted back if you like, the wider outbreaks of violence. these are posing a direct challenge to the authority of what is a very new president. ecuador�*s youngest president, daniel noboa, who has been in the role barely one and a half months. it is a direct challenge to the authority and state. he has responded quite strongly with the state of emergency and declaring an internal armed

conflict and basically bringing the police and military out onto the street. the obvious question would be, how much confidence to citizens in ecuador having in their young and relatively inexperienced president? that's the big question. certainly in ecuadorian media they have been questioning whether the state of emergency is enough. over the last few years, where we have seen this escalation of violence, a descent, or not so gradual descent, surges and outbreaks of violence, there has been numerous states of emergency — 60 days, 30 days and none of them have gotten to the root of the problem. a lot of the citizens will be looking to the new president to get a grip on this. there will be suggestions perhaps of a so—called bukele solution, recalling the president of el salvador, nayib bukele, who has had a really tough crackdown on these criminal gangs, particularly these kinds of criminal gangs. really tough. detaining 75,000—odd people, building newjails for 40,000. very tough crackdown, criticised of course

from the human rights angle. some people will be pushing for this and i think there will be eyes on the new president to see whether he goes down that route and how he gets a grip on this very serious gang and drug—related problem. just remind us, has ecuador always struggled with gangs and drug trafficking? we heard there in the piece — some of the routes stretch back to 2020 and the covid pandemic. it is true. but if you look back further it is a little new for ecuador. ecuador was always seen as a fairly tranquil country. certainly, an interesting country to visit for tourists. quito particularly popular, quiet. it has deteriorated over the past years since covid and the outbreak of violence. many people fearing it will go the same way as countries like mexico, which has a very serious drug violence problem. colombia of course and other countries. i think there are a lot of fears they really need to get a grip on this gang

situation and there would be a lot of attention on just how they do it. pascal fletcher with the latest from bbc monitoring, thank you so much. us secretary of state antony blinken says the cost of the war on civilians in gaza is "far too high". he made the remarks in tel aviv after meeting israeli leaders on tuesday. he is on his fourth trip to the country since the war began. blinken said regional leaders shared the us�*s concerns about the "dire humanitarian situation" in gaza. he also said israel needed to allow essential aid into the territory. we know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians, who it hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals, makes this incredibly challenging. but the daily toll on civilians in gaza, particularly on children, is far too high. mr blinken also delivered a message to israel from its arab neighbours to normalize relations

and create a path to a palestinian state. our international editor jeremy bowen has more. he must be getting pretty exasperated because that message, that one about israel, "take care," is something he has repeated and repeated and it still is not happening to america's satisfaction. a few things have come out of the day, i think. first of all, something blinken said which echoed words in bbc today programme interview this morning by the saudi ambassador in london, prince khalid bin bandar, who said essentially there is a regional path out of this crisis potentially. in other words, the saudis could offer recognition to israel, which before 7 october israelis really wanted, in return for concrete progress towards a palestinian state. the problem with that is the current israeli government is resolutely opposed to a palestinian state, and a lot of arabs are resolutely opposed to offering israel anything after all the events in gaza.

there is something going back to that sense of exasperation i mentioned that there is a lack of us leverage over israel. it is clear, despite enormous military aid, diplomatic help at the un, blocking ceasefire resolutions, this message that the americans keep giving to them, which is, you are killing too many civilians, you are destroying too many houses in gaza, israelis continue to do it. jeremy bowen there. now two united nations human rights officials have urged full accountability for alleged crimes against civilians during the october 7 attacks in israel. the experts say armed palestinian groups may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. they say thousands of people — most of them civilians — were subjected to "targeted and brutal attacks". and the "growing evidence about reported sexual violence is particularly harrowing." first responders gave testimonies in the wake of the attacks —

and continue to live with the trauma. yossi landau is with zaka, an israeli volunteer civilian emergency service organization. he spoke with me earlier. thank you so much for being here to speak with us on bbc news. you were one of the first humanitarian workers to witness the atrocities in the aftermath of the october seven attacks, three months past now. how are you coping with the impact of what you saw? it is not easy, especially when we have the hostages still not home and we meet the families almost on an everyday basis and we talk to them, and we feel the pain, because we were there, we were there in the pain when it happened and we saw everything and we felt it. there is still unidentified victims, that is what we do in our organisation, to make sure that everybody should be identified

and honoured and respected the remains and the families and to give them the full dignity. and we will keep it up. i know you're actually right now in the united states meeting with us lawmakers. given how difficult this must be, why is it so important to you that you continue to speak out about what you saw in your experiences? our message is that we respect, we try to respect, each and every god creation and this is my message, that we have nothing against arabs, muslims, or christians. we have in our organisation that is fully volunteered, we have all kinds, muslims, arabs, jewish people, bedouins that we have everybody in our organisation but hamas, what they did,

and like isis, were condemned by the world, same thing as hamas must be condemned by the world. we will finish thejob, that means we will try, or make sure that everybody that lost their life should get the proper burial and they should be honoured and the family should be respected. you have been working in your role with zaka for more than three decades now. you responded to several different terror attacks. obviously the attacks on october seven as well. what needs to happen to at least reduce the need for yourjob? for sure, yes, first of all i want to respond, yes, we were all over the world for natural disasters,

terror attacks. only 7.5 two months ago i came back from turkey after an earthquake and helping and saving my team, our team saved 19 muslims, 19 people, and, yes, they are muslims and we save their lives. now, they are against us. i have no idea. i am not a politician, i'm not in politics, ijust know we have to respect every god creation and in order to reduce ourjob, yes, we have peace, we need peace. we need — we need to get rid of the bad people and there is most of the muslim countries, yes we have peace with them, and we can live with them,

we go visit them, they come and visit us. but there is the radicals, like hamas, jihadis islami, we need to make sure to condemn them and demolish them and then i see that we will have peace but we hope and pray we should be jobless or terror attacks. head of operations for the southern command of zaka which specialises in recovering victims bodies after mass casualty event. we thank you for taking the time to speak with us. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at another story making news. last year was the hottest year ever recorded for the world. that's according to a report by european union climate monitors. the average global temperature was almost 15 degrees celsius — or about 59 fahrenheit. that's dramatically higher

than the last record set in 2016. bbc analysis shows that almost every day sincejuly has seen a new global air temperature high for the time of year. here's our climate editorjustin rowlatt. now, the grey lines on this chart show temperatures for each year since 1940. the red line, you can see it coming on there shows last year's temperatures, and you can see it started off pretty unexceptional, in terms of global temperatures, but from around july onwards, the world began a remarkable, and look at that, almost unbroken streak of daily air temperature records. bbc analysis of the copernicus climate change service data shows that more than 200 days saw a new daily global temperature record in 2023. scientists say the change has been driven by man—made climate change, along with the natural el nino weather phenomenon. you're live with bbc news. us secretary of defense lloyd austin is battling prostate cancer. his prognosis is good,

but he underwent a surgery to remove cancer, and suffered painful complications that left him hospitalized on new year's day — where he is still recovering. the cancer was discovered in early december, but the white house and president biden were left in the dark for about a month. they were only notified on tuesday. the pentagon is now facing questions over the timeline and the lack of transparency. in response, the pentagon says they could have done a betterjob, and that secretary austin is not planning to resign. the white house says the president still has confience in his defense secretary, but acknolwedged the situation was not ideal. it is not optimal. for a situation like this to go as long as it did without the commander—in—chief knowing about it or the national security adviser knowing about it, orfrankly other leaders at the department of defence. that's not the way this is supposed to happen. some us lawmakers are now demanding answers. for more i spoke

with barbara starr — former pentagon correspondent who's now senior fellow at university of southern california. it is great to see you and thank you for being here. what do you make of the criticism right now of secretary austin, especially from republican lawmakers? how secure do you think hisjob is right now? the think his “ob is right now? the white think his job is right now? the white house _ think hisjob is right now? tue: white house has think hisjob is right now? tte: white house has said throughout the last few days and earlier today that the president has confidence in secretary austin and that there are no plans to replace him. so we take them at their word as of today and there is no indication he is going to be replaced. i think there are a few things on the table and first and foremost his own personal health. this, apparently, is much more serious than had initially been indicated to anybody. will he be able to fully recover from the infection and complications

and fluid buildup that he experienced that led him to be taken back to the hospital after his initial procedure by ambulance and what the statement calls intense pain. he is a 70—year—old man and he has had quite a knock so there will be that. can he recover and do the job? will be that. can he recover and do thejob? and will he be able to recoverfrom able to recover from any political fallout? there are now reviews of all of this both from the republican on capitol hill and reviews at the pentagon that people may not have a lot of confidence in the white house and today the white house said that the one thing it does want is for cabinet secretaries to tell the white house when they are incapacitated and unable to carry out duties. apparently thatis carry out duties. apparently that is just the starting point of what did not happen here. t of what did not happen here. i want to read now some of the criticism from lawmakers, this from a congressman in florida.

he said" you have covered the pentagon for a long time. can you put this incident and some of those details there into perspective? how unprecedented is this lack of transparency, notjust in terms of government but also when it comes to the military? the secretary, of course, is a civilian right now even though he spent decades on active duty in the important thing is that he knows, he knows exactly what the procedures are and what needs to be done to keep the flow of information and decision—making and authority in place. the pentagon says that things were never interrupt it in a day or so but a day he had delegated some duties to his deputy but it was

days before they told the white house just how ill he was and that he was out of the picture. it was not until today that the white house was even told he had suffered from prostate cancer. this is not an insignificant issue because, you know, the bottom line in washington is there are two things a cabinet secretary never wants to do, they never want to surprise the president of the united states and they never want to cause the president a political problem. secretary austin is a private man but now he has done both those things to decay her surprise the president and caused the white house a political problem and we will have two see where this goes. i do think a lot of it will depend on his health. barring an kind depend on his health. barring any kind of— depend on his health. barring any kind of health _ depend on his health. barring any kind of health issues, - any kind of health issues, barbara, politically if president biden did decide to replace secretary austin, what do you think the fallout will be? also in terms of the two

major global conflicts currently going on? think of this first- — currently going on? think of this first. it _ currently going on? think of this first. it is _ currently going on? think of this first. it is going - currently going on? think of this first. it is going to - currently going on? think of this first. it is going to be i this first. it is going to be difficult to replace him this late in the first administration, whether biden wins again or not we are now coming to an election and coming to an election and coming to an election and coming to the tail end of this administration and you have a pretty strong republican position in the us senate that would have to confirm a new secretary of defence so will he have a knack thing secretary, kathleen hicks, quite competent, but perhaps not ideal to not have a confirmed secretary of defence on the world stage, exactly as you say with two conflicts going on. it may be that the white house is benefiting keeping austin that it is washington and when the political price gets too high in most cases that is when you begin to see a change. it is hard to say. begin to see a change. it is hard to say-—

begin to see a change. it is hard to say. we will see how this plays — hard to say. we will see how this plays out. _ hard to say. we will see how this plays out. great - hard to say. we will see how this plays out. great to - hard to say. we will see how this plays out. great to see i this plays out. great to see you, barbara and thank you for joining us. let's turn to some other news around the world. french president emmanuel macron has named gabriel attal as the country's new prime minister. at just 3a years old, mr attal becomes the youngest person to hold the post in modern french history. he's also the first to be openly gay. attal caused controversy last year when he announced a ban on the abaya, a covering worn by muslim girls and women, in schools. the head of boeing has said that his company must acknowledge its mistakes after a number of its planes were found to have loose parts. investigations began after the cabin panel of a 737 max 9 jet blew off during an alaska airlines flight last week. addressing employees, dave calhoun said boeing would approach the issue with complete transparency. former president donald trump was back in court in washington, dc on tuesday. he appeared before a threejudge panel, who heard his legal team's argument that trump

is immune from criminal prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election. trump is testing the limits of what's known as presidential immunity: a legal defense that a us president cannot be prosecuted for most actions taken while occupying the oval office. here's our north america editor sarah smith. donald trump is arguing that the us constitution gives presidents complete immunity from prosecution, notjust when they are in office but forever afterwards, so he says he cannot be tried for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result. his lawyer in court even suggested that, hypothetically, a president could order the murder of a political rival and still escape a criminal trial. and then on the other side, prosecutors are arguing that acts that they want to try donald trump for, election interference, were not official presidential actions and therefore not covered by any kind of immunity. donald trump himself of course has always insisted this is a purely political prosecution that it is designed simply to stop him being re—elected to the white house later this year.

i think they feel this is the way they're going to try and win, and that's not the way it goes. it will be bedlam in the country. it is very bad thing, it is very bad precedent, as we said, it is the opening of a pandora's box, you know, it's a very sad thing that's happened with this whole situation. that was donald trump speaking here in washington. he didn't have to come here to attend this court hearing. he chose to do that, and he did that because he has made his efforts to fight his various criminal indictments a very central part of his political campaign. that is a strategy that has been very successful thus far, and we are now waiting for the court to rule on this case, but whatever decision they come up with it is almost certainly to be appealed to the supreme court who will then have to make a definitive ruling on whether or not donald trump does have immunity from prosecution. and before we go, we

want to show you one of the most—watched videos from our website. a double decker school bus lost control on an icy road in the uk on monday. it knocked into a few cars as it spun around, before sliding to a stop on the grass. emergency services were called to the scene. police say no one was hurt. a spokesperson for the bus operator confirmed that there were no passengers onboard at the time. the road was closed as the incident was investigated, but has since reopened. a close call there but luckily nobody was on board. that's all from the team in washington. i'm carl nasman. thank you for watching. hello, there. this time last week, low pressure dominated the weather story, and it was all about relentless, flooding rain. this week, high pressure controls the story, and a quiet, colder theme, but also a sunnier one. in fact, the western isles had the lion's share of the sunshine on tuesday. still plenty of sunshine around today, as high pressure

dominates. clear skies across central and southern england, that's where we will have the best of the sunshine, but it will be another cold start, with temperatures below freezing. not as widespread, the cold, as we had this time yesterday, and there's certainly more cloud. now, the cloud is thick enough across eastern scotland and northern england for the odd spot of light drizzle. there could be some icy stretches, first thing. south of that, we will see more club pushing into north wales, where we will keep some sunshine, and we will also have some sunshine once again in the far north—west of scotland. now, temperatures around five to seven degrees, it might be a degree or so warmer underneath the cloud, but it perhaps won't feel like that, because you've lost the sunshine. now, we keep that cloud, as we go through wednesday night, and once again, it could be thick enough for a little bit of drizzle, particularly on exposed north sea coasts. the best of the clearer skies further south of that, that is where we are likely to see patchy frost and fog forming, as temperatures again dip below freezing. so, as we move into thursday, it will be a similar story. we will have some clearer skies into sheltered western scotland, and also some sunshine across central and southern england, but cloud will tend to come and go into northern ireland, northern england, for a time, and some of that cloud may well

just push that little bit further south, as the wind changes to more of a subtle, north—easterly by the course of thursday. once again, temperatures between five and eight degrees, our overall high. now, as we move into friday and the start of the weekend, we keep this quiet theme. it is still going to be on the chilly side, but again there will be a lot of dry weather around. but as we go into next week, there are signs of the weather story changing. the wind direction coming to more of a northerly, we could see some wintry showers, even at lower levels, in scotland, and look at this — towards the middle part of next week, there will be a frontal system, as it bumps into that cold air that has been sitting with us now for over a week, there is the potential, on the leading edge, to see some snow. a lot of uncertainty about that at the moment, but it's an early heads—up, something to look out for.

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.

politicians in the west scanning the 2024 horizon see storm clouds gathering. war in the middle east could easily escalate. putin's determination to crush ukraine's resistance is undimmed. taiwan's coming election adds to fears of china's intentions. and in america, democracy itself is going to be tested in the presidential race. my guest is alicia kearns, conservative mp and chair of the uk house of commons foreign affairs select committee. is the weakness and vulnerability of liberal democracy about to be exposed?