and — the boy—band from pakistan finding international success with thanks to a former member of one direction. president biden has said the united states will respond to a drone attack on an american military base injordan near the syrian border, at a time and in a manner of its choosing. mr biden blamed the attack on radical iran—backed militant groups operating in syria and iraq. tehran has denied any involvement in the attack in which three service personnel were killed and 3a injured. it's the latest in a series of attacks against us bases in the region since the war in gaza began — as our world affairs correspondent, paul adams reports. the americans say the attack happened at a base known as tower 22, right on the

syrian—jordanian border. it's one of many american bases across the region. there have been dozens of drone and missile attacks in recent months, but no american personnel have been killed until now. joe biden, seen here attending church, was quick to point the finger. "we know it was carried out by radical iran—backed militant groups operating in syria and iraq," he said. it's not necessarily a tipping point into uncontrolled escalation between the united states and iran, but it's another very dangerous step because, as i say, the us will have to respond even more strongly than it's done to previous attacks. carefully cultivated over years, iran has a wide network of allies and proxies operating in countries across the middle east. they're all opposed to israel and the united states. it's sometimes called the axis of resistance. there are pro—iranian militias in lebanon, the palestinian

territories, gaza and the west bank, plus iraq and syria, and far to the south, there's also the houthis in yemen. over the weekend, the houthis have been launching their own attacks, hitting a tanker in the gulf of aden. british warship hms diamond used an air defence missile to bring down a houthi drone. with british help the us have been hitting houthi military targets for a couple of weeks. so far, the houthis seem undeterred. they say they'll stop attacking ships if and when there's a ceasefire in gaza. the problems america is dealing with across the region aren't all about gaza, but the war there has left the whole middle east a lot more dangerous. paul adams, bbc news. injerusalem told me more about the attack and the situation in the region. i think it was inevitable that something like this was going

to happen because us officials say that us bases in iraq and syria have been targeted in more than 150 attacks since the beginning of the war in gaza. and the americans have been clear that they believe that iranian backed militias in iraq and syria were behind those attacks. and i think we heard president biden, who said yesterday that iranian backed militias were behind this deadly attack. now, this attack is different because for the first time, american troops were killed. so obviously, this is a significant development here and it does show how violence has spread across the middle east amid this israeli military offensive against hamas in gaza. there have been these attacks in iraq and syria, also the houthis in yemen who have been targeting commercial vessels in the red sea and obviously that has led to air strikes by the us, the uk and other countries.

and as you mentioned, you know, there have been tensions along the lebanese—israeli border with hezbollah here in lebanon, carrying out attacks almost every day, targeting positions inside israel. and all those groups are connected through iran. iran supports those groups and they are part of what tehran describes as the axis of resistance. so obviously a major development here with this attack, a deadly attack. and the attention now is on president biden and how he's going to react to this attack. yeah, also, the iranian foreign minister has been speaking in the past few hours. what's he said about it, trying to distance his country from them? exactly. iran is saying that it had nothing to do with this attack, that these groups that are part of this alliance that is supported by iran do not receive direct orders from the iranian authorities.

and again, president biden has vowed to respond to this attack. and the americans have already been striking positions used by those groups in iraq and syria in response to those attacks that have been happening. but many may say that this strategy hasn't really worked because these attacks have continued. and i think the president will be, you know, under a lot of pressure now to give a more stronger response. and there have been some voices already from the republican party calling for attacks inside iran, which would be a dramatic escalation by president biden. unlikely to happen because, you know, president biden, american officials, have been trying to contain the violence here in the middle east and any kind of attack inside iran could lead to unpredictable consequences. hugo, thank you.

over the weekend, we were hearing increasing movement when it came when it comes to the talks to release those more than 120 hostages still being held by hamas in gaza. what's the latest on those talks? well, the israeli prime minister's office has commented on those talks, saying that they were constructive, but that significant gaps remain. it was, of course, the israeli intelligence chief who was meeting with the us intelligence chief, as well as qatari and egyptian mediators who act as kind of go—betweens with hamas to try to to come up with a new ceasefire and hostage release deal that would see the release of more than 100 israeli hostages still held by hamas, as well as increased aid going into gaza. we're told that these negotiations are going to carry on through the week. at the same time, though, we're hearing about very fierce fighting in the past 2a hours in gaza. the israeli military saying this morning that it has killed, in its words, dozens of terrorists. and it said that they include four gunmen who were trying to ambush

israeli troops close to a hospital in khan younis. and there's been a lot of concern on the humanitarian side about what's happening around these two big hospitals in khan younis in the south. really the two of the largest hospitals remaining in the south that are continuing to try to serve people there. but they have seen the fighting really encircling them. how tough might be the us response to the attack on the american base?

well, it is a very serious incident indeed. i mean, it's true that a couple of us navy seals have died in the red sea in the actions against the houthis. but nonetheless, this is the first sort of land based deaths that the us military has faced and president biden will certainly want to respond in a military fashion to these attacks. yeah, he has clearly blamed, accused radical iran backed groups of being behind this, as we were just hearing from our correspondent. iran is trying to distance itself from this attack. what could it lead to, do you think, in terms of a response from the us as we've been discussing, you know, the us and countries around the world wanting to contain what's happening in the middle east, but biden saying he will respond and clearly they have to. but they certainly have to and will have to respond strongly. but i agree with your correspondent that i do not think that the united states will launch an attack directly on iranian soil, because that would be a serious escalation. iran doesn't want that, but the united states doesn't want that sort of escalation either. so i would expect a very strong military response against some of these iranian—backed or affiliated anyway, shia militias based in syria and iraq. so i think we'll see that sort of response in the next 2a hours. but i wouldn't expect

an attack directly on iran. there have been fears since the october 7th attacks by hamas in israel of this conflict spreading across the region and possibly even further. as a former national security adviser what are your thoughts on how this situation is contained to stop it spiraling out of control? i think many commentators would have expected it to have escalated further than it has. it's been three and a half months now since the horrific attacks on the 7th of october. and what we have seen is that although there have been a number of serious linked incidents around the region, so far we have not seen a full—scale escalation to involve all the regional powers, and particularly iran and the united states. i think president biden did well early on to take some deterrent steps against the risk of escalation by sending a fleet into the eastern mediterranean, for instance, and giving very dire and direct warnings to iran not to escalate.

so although we've seen these incidents on the lebanese border in the west bank, the houthis, of course, attacking commercial shipping and these militia attacks on us bases in the region, we have not seen the full scale conflagration that many expected and i still think it is possible to avoid that wider escalation. i want to ask you about unwra and the fact that it suspended several of its staff over israeli allegations that they were involved in the october 7th attacks. and consequently, several countries, including the uk, have suspended their funding for unwra, which is the main charity, of course in gaza, supplying aid there. what are your thoughts about this investigation and these allegations and the future of unwra in gaza? well, the allegations obviously are very serious. it's fair to say that the israeli government has been gunning for unwra for 50 years.

but nonetheless, it looks as though the evidence of a few members of unwra being involved in the 7th october attacks looks to be well founded. otherwise, unrwa would not have been sacking these people and demanding an investigation. and the un secretary—general talking about this horrific news. having said that, there are 13,000 unrwa people working in gaza at the moment. over 100 have been killed in the israeli bombardment. and they are the main international operators providing support to the palestinian refugees in education, housing, humanitarian, social services, etc. so it is quite a damaging blow for the palestinians in gaza that the main funders, including the united states and germany, who are the two main funders of unrwa, have now suspended their aid. it's an understandable decision, but i think those governments that have cut off aid will want to ensure that

humanitarian support still gets to the palestinians in gaza by other means, not directly through unrwa, perhaps, but through the other un agencies working there like unicef, like the world food programme. they are in fact 23 un agencies working there. so it is possible to provide aid without using unrwa. you made the point that you said israel had long been gunning for unrwa, as you know, as a former uk ambassador to the un. israel has long contended that some of its staff that work in gaza had allowed anti—israel incitement in its schools and also alleged that some of its staff did collaborate with hamas. did you see those accusations, evidence of that when you were at the un? i never saw any evidence of that. but i did hear that israel was accusing some unrwa staff of those sorts of acts of proselytizing pro—hamas literature in schools and things like that. but i never saw any

evidence of it myself. a statement from unrwa singer funding is not a statement from unrwa singer funding is not resumed a statement from unrwa singer funding is not resumed they a statement from unrwa singer funding is not resumed they will a statement from unrwa singer funding is not resumed they will not be able to continue their work. also, breaking news coming in from syria, from reuters news agency, seeing that several explosions have been heard on the outskirts of damascus, according to local news outlet, and one witness. a source in iran's regional alliance said the strike... no immediate comment from the syrian authorities.

uk prime minister sunak says he is concerned about tensions in the middle east and urged iran to continue to de—escalate tensions there. yes, we are concerned and would urge iran to continue to de—escalate tensions in the region. we absolutely condemn what has happened over the past couple of days. my thoughts are with all of those impacted, those who have lost their lives, their families and those that are injured. we stand resolutely with our allies to bring stability and peace to the region and that is what we will continue to work towards. to discuss all topics related to this story, at 12:30 gmt today we will be holding a live question and answer session with the bbc chief international correspondent lyse doucet, parham ghobadi, correspondent at bbc persian and fawaz gerges, professor of international relations at the london school of economics. they will be here with us to answer your questions live. get in touch using the hashtag #bbcyourquestions — or email yourquestions@bbc.co.uk.

iran's foreign minister, hossein amir—abdollahian, was welcomed by his counterpart in pakistan today — to strengthen ties between countries. the visit also aims to ease tensions following the deadly cross—border attacks earlier this month that killed 11 people. the two top diplomats engaged in in—depth talks and agreed to work towards promoting the mutually desired goals of peace and prosperity, on the basis of mutual respect. the two countries declared that they would expand their political and security cooperation. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. the body of a baby girl has been found in a west yorkshire pub toilet, police have confirmed. emergency crews were called to the three horseshoes pub in oulton, near rothwell on sunday. police described it as a "traumatic

incident" and are urging the newborn�*s mother to seek "urgent" medical help. detective chief inspector james entwistle, from west yorkshire police, said: "we are urgently appealing for the mother of the baby "girl to contact us." thousands of spectators filled mexico city's bullfighting arena last night for the first fight there in almost two years, after the supreme court overturned a suspension of the practice in the capital. earlier a judge had ordered the indefinite suspension of the practice — which dates back to the 16th century in mexico — agreeing with animal rights activists. japan says its moon lander, which was shut down due to a solar panel malfunction, is now working again. the probe, illustrated here by computer generated images, has begun to explore the moon and is already sending back images of its surroundings. you're live with bbc news. there's been a substantial rise in the number of young children taking up vaping —

which the government says is one of the reasons why they've announced a plan to ban the sale of disposable vapes across the uk. the idea is to make the products less attractive to children — but manufacturers say that e—cigarettes can help people quit smoking. my myjob as prime minister is to do but i think is right for the country. you talk about any parents, the worrying rise a bit amongst children. children should not be vaping. we still do not understand long—term impacts of a vp. it is right that we take strong action to stamp this out. that is what we are doing, banning disposable beeps, taking powers to go after them, the flavours, the packaging, where feats are displeased in stores, also he is easier to levy on the spot fines. taken together it has a strong set of measures, we can improve our children's health. i spoke to andrej kuttruf, who is the chief executive

and co—founder at evapo, who gave us his assessment on the ban. disposables are already banned for kids, yet black market criminals are selling to kids without any consequences. so now to propose to ban these products for adults would really be an admission of the government that it can't enforce its existing laws and it won't tackle the black market problem. we have millions of vapers in this country who would now be at risk of falling back to smoking. these bans would just hand the regulated vaping market to criminals on a silver platter. i suppose the problem is that even though they're banned, two—thirds of 11 to 17—year—olds are still using disposable vapes. we don't know the long term health impacts of these and they are very much targeted at younger people, aren't they, with the way the products are designed and also the flavours? yeah. this is not really about flavours or colours.

but that is part of what the government's going to be looking at, isn't it, making sure that they don't target younger people? yes, yeah, and we welcome regulations which regulate some of the packaging or the colouring, but this is not about flavours, this is about black market criminals selling to kids. what really needs to be done is to introduce a licensing scheme which could raise upwards of £50 million, give trading standards the resource to actually go after these criminals, prosecute them and punish them. nothing will happen, any of these bans will have no effect and make no difference if we don't actually put money into enforcement of those laws. where do they sell to kids, these black market criminals? well, i guess it's an easy buck for them to make. no, where do they do it? because a lot of these kids just go into shops and buy them from behind the counter, don't they, even though they�* re clearly underage? that's what happens. yes, corner stores, i see barbers,

sun tanning studios selling these disposables and that should not be the case, really. that's why we need a licensing scheme which only allows specialized retailers to sell these products and there should be rules around age verification, there should be rules around not displaying vaping products next to sweets. these rules can can be implemented and this scheme can really raise the money to put towards trading standards and enforce the existing laws. king charles has spent a third night in hospital. earlier i spoke with our news correspondent greg satchell. there is the possibility that the king may be discharged today. experts say that, once you've had a procedure like this on an enlarged prostate, the normal recovery time

is between one and three days. the king had his procedure on friday, we're now monday so there's a possibility that he may come out today. as you say, queen camilla has been to visit him every day. she was here twice yesterday and said that he was doing fine. we haven't seen her here yet today. it is interesting, i think, that the king has been so public about the condition that he's got. he did want to raise public awareness of prostate conditions and nhs england say that they have seen a significant increase in traffic to their website, which i think the king will be pleased about. catherine, the princess of wales, is also here in this building behind me. she had abdominal surgery on 16th january. again, experts say that the normal recovery time for a procedure like that is around two weeks. we are about two weeks on, so there's a possibility that either today or tomorrow we may see one or both members of the royal family leaving here and heading home. just imagine — you're

in a pakistani boy band, you've just had your first breakout hit — and then a global pop star calls up to say he wants to collaborate with you. well, that's exactly what happened — three young men from karachi — who are finding fame all around the world thanks to their urdu—language collaboration with zayn malik — the bradford—born superstarfrom one direction. our culture correspondent noor nanji has been finding outjust how it all came together. the song that won hearts around the world. tu hai kahan was already a massive hit in pakistan and india. but then zayn malikjumped on board, singing in urdu. suddenly, a whole new audience discovered the song.

for the three artists he teamed up with it's a dream come true. i asked them how they're doing. so what does it feel like to collaborate with one of the biggest stars in the world? i mean, some people have this dream that we have achieved. translation: previously, - we just had pakistani audiences. now we have people from the uk, brazil, china. so it's very good. very nice. so you're known around the world now. what has been the reaction at home from your friends and your family? translation: no-one was believing it. the reaction has been very good. notjust friends. the whole of pakistan has given us a great reaction. _ # you don't know you're beautiful.# zayn malik is better known for pop songs like what makes you beautiful

and pillow talk. but his fans were thrilled that the bradford—born singer is also fluent in urdu. the original version of tu hai kahan gained more than 100 million views on youtube. but the remake is catching up fast with more than 8 million views. aur say zayn was a delight to work with. translation: he is so down to earth. ok, so you've partnered with zayn malik. which western stars are next for you? well, i got 21 savage, and drake, the weeknd. translation: we will do it with anyone. _ and finally — a monkey is on the loose in the scottish highlands after escaping from a wildlife park.

the japanese macaque found a way out of its enclosure at the highland wildlife park on sunday and into a nearby village. the royal zoological society of scotland, which runs the park, said it had assembled a team to bring the animal home. members of the public have been urged not to approach the monkey — but to contact the zoological society with any information they might have. cold air across the north producing rain. that rain will be heavy in parts, affecting parts of southern scotland, northern england, wales, the south—west, the heaviest which.

sleet and snow on the northern hills. to the north of that in the sunshine as will be colder than it was yesterday and not as windy. in the south, temperatures above average for the time of year. rain continues to push steadily eastwards overnight. behind that, cloud, patchy light rain and drizzle. for scotland and northern ireland it will be a cold night. the risk of ice and some frost. no issues with frost in the south. tomorrow, a bit of cloud across england and wales, bits of that will break up through the day, brighter spells coming through. any showers in the north

west highlands could prove to be wintry on the hills. through the rest of wednesday low pressure in the north of scotland. it will be a very windy day in the northern half of the country on wednesday. deals, even severe gales, and this rain will be heavy as it pushes southwards, with some hill snow. furthersouth, pushes southwards, with some hill snow. further south, a drier day, blustery winds. temperatures starting to go up a little bit once again. beyond that, temperatures will be round about me this should be at this time of year. wet and windy at times, especially so in scotland. further south, drier, but windy also.

"enough is enough!" — chinese property giant evergrande is ordered into liquidation by hong kong's high court. also coming up: en route to record profits — ryanairflying high despite higher fuel costs and a row with online travel agents.

welcome to world business report. i'm marc ashdown. "enough is enough". those were the words of a high court judge in hong kong who ordered the liquidation of chinese real estate developer evergrande. the ruling comes after the struggling property giant failed to come up with an acceptable restructuring plan for its overseas creditors. its shares plunged more than 20% on the news, before trading was suspended. evergrande is the worst casualty of china's real estate boom and bust, with debts of more than $300 billion. duncan wrigley is chief china economist at pantheon macro—economics. he says it is going to be difficult for investors to recover their money from the chinese mainland. well, the next step is a hong kong court will appoint liquidators who will take over the running of the top level of the company from the management. the company has two sets of assets. offshore assets, things

like shareholdings and some other subsidiary companies, those assets are very