hello and welcome to the programme. we begin in the united states where presidentjoe biden says he has decided how to respond to an attack on a us base injordan that killed three american soldiers. the drone strike was the first time us soldiers were killed by enemy fire in the region since the israel—gaza war began in october. speaking as he left the white house mr biden cautioned against a wider war in the middle east, but did not give further details about how, or when the us would respond. the us has previously promised a "very consequential response".

what could the americans do? here's our international editor, jeremy bowen. well, one of the president's officials said actions speak louder than words. what are those actions going to be? well, we can only speculate at this point, but what tends to happen is that the us military gives the president a menu of options that he can choose. and the lowest level, if you like, might be to hit back at iranian proxies operating inside syria or iraq. that might not be enough for the americans, and especially not forjoe biden�*s critics back home. so they might do something a bit more. they might go for iranian targets in those countries or they could go for maybe iranian targets in the gulf. the most extreme option, and i think this is highly unlikely, would be to attack targets inside iran itself, inside the territory of iran. that's something that the americans have not done. so we get to a situation now where the american secretary of state antony blinken,

says that the middle east is at its most dangerous point since at least 1973, when there was a major middle east war, when at that time as well, the superpowers, the americans and the soviet union went to a nuclear alert during that crisis. he said it is at least as dangerous as that moment. and as for what's going on here, the war in gaza, which back on october the seventh, this is where a lot of this is coming from. of course, what's happening is there is discussion about a ceasefire. but israel's prime minister, mr netanyahu, in a very fierce speech, appears to have ruled out the terms that they're discussing. staying in the middle east, cctv pictures have emerged of israeli forces raiding a hospital in the occupied west bank. the undercover unit entered thejenin hospital and killed three members of palestinian armed groups. the israeli military said the men were hiding there, and that one of them

was about to carry out an attack. our middle east correspondent, lucy williamson, has this report. a building with a mission to heal the sick. visitors with a mission to kill. israeli forces, in headscarves and medical coats filmed on security camera, at the heart ofjenin�*s iba sina hospital. guns in one hand, handbag, baby cot in the other. here to assassinate a patient and his two companions, fighters with armed palestinian groups. translation: at dawn today, a military operation _ was carried out inside the hospital. three people were martyred, including a patient who was injured a month ago and was being treated in the rehabilitation unit. they targeted his room, and all the occupants were killed. on the third floor, they killed basel ghazawi in his bed as he slept, his brother mohammed shot in a chair. both fighters in jenin�*s resistance groups.

a third man, mohammad jalamana, was a key hamas figure, wanted by israel, who says he was armed with this gun, and hiding in the hospital, and that the group had been planning an imminent terrorist attack. israel has also targeted hospitals in its war with hamas in gaza, arguing that hamas makes them legitimate targets by hiding there. and today, more detail from israel's government on its accusation that the un's palestinian refugee agency is a front for hamas, and that some of its staff took part in the 7th october attacks. six unrwa employees infiltrated israel in the attack. not only does the evidence show that unrwa staff were involved in the massacre, they were also directly implicated in holding hostages once they were in gaza. israel says the agency, its shelters, schools and food aid should be defunded.

aid workers say gaza's humanitarian crisis is already slipping out of control. miriam and her seven children are living without a proper tent or food on a beach at the southern tip of gaza. a roadside cart for sweets now beach side housing for a baby. adults and infants alike, dependent on others for food and shelter, dependent on others to stop the war. lucy williamson, bbc news, jerusalem. to thailand now where the country's constitutional court is due to issue a ruling in the coming hours on the opposition move forward party. the court will be looking at the party's campaign promise to amend the country's strict royal defamation law. if it finds it was unconstitutional, it could effectively disband the move forward party, which won the most number of parliamentary seats

in thailand's election last year. our correspondentjonathan head has more from bangkok. so for the second time in a week, the fate of thailand's most popular political party will be decided by the ninejudges of the constitutional court. this time, the court will be ruling on a complaint filed last year that the party's proposal to amend the famously harsh lese—majeste law, the royal defamation law, amounts to an attempt to overthrow the entire political system in thailand and is therefore unconstitutional. if the court agrees, that would lay the party open to being dissolved and much of its leadership being banned from politics move forward has argued that the lese—majeste law is widely viewed as excessively harsh. for example, earlier this month, one man was sentenced to 50 years in prisonjust for a few social media posts, and that as a part of the regular penal code, it can be amended by parliament. indeed, it has been amended in the not so distant past. the issue is also one move forward cares about

because some of its young first time mps are themselves facing lese—majeste charges. however, its proposal to amend it was used as a justification by the unelected senate last year for blocking move forward from forming a government. as one senator put it to me, the lese—majeste law can't be viewed as like any other law precisely because it deals with the monarchy, which is officially viewed as a near sacred institution here. if the constitutional court does find against move forward, it will be adding that youthful reformist party scalp to a long list of other parties and leaders who have been marched off thailand's political stage, largely because they were viewed as a threat to the royalist establishment. hong kong is to introduce national security laws, which will augment the measures introduced by beijing in 2020. the territory's chief executive, john lee,

said four new offences would be introduced, including that of insurrection, though he said those who criticised his government without criminal intent would not face punishment. he said the legislation was needed to counter threats, which were both external and internal. the democratic party, currently living in exile in australia. what are the key things to understand about these proposed amendments that have been announced byjohn lee? in short it is another draconian law on top of the party draconian national security law put out in 2020. so it is very arbitrary and it is trying to take away all of the basic fundamental human rights and freedom completely from home congress. they remain citizens and also maintain the hong kong system so that people do not speed up for democracy

any more —— hong konger. why would the hong kong chief executive want to introduce these measures considering that beijing has already implemented the national security law? not that it is not strong enough, but it is a gesture that the hong kong regime is showing loyalty to beijing. on the other hand beijing wants to take control absolutely in hong kong and is trying to kill the hong kong democracy and to make it totally in line with other chinese cities in terms of several rice and i think that would be the aim. of course it triggers another axis, people will move away and migrate to other countries that do not want to live in a country without a lot of civil rights. it has the effect of scaring foreign businesses away from

hong kong. iii foreign businesses away from hong kong-— foreign businesses away from hon: kona. ., . ., hong kong. if we could touch on that as well. _ hong kong. if we could touch on that as well. how _ hong kong. if we could touch on that as well. how is _ hong kong. if we could touch on that as well. how is this - hong kong. if we could touch on that as well. how is this going . that as well. how is this going to impact the perception of hong kong externally? externally i believe it will be perceived as an ordinary chinese city without its autonomy, without its freedom so that it is not an attractive city to foreigners as before. in that people outside would be very sympathetic to the hong kong citizens because they live in a city without freedoms. for example, hong kong people asking officials to step down, to resign from power and encourage them not to vote, they will be criminalised and they will be criminalised and they can easily be put to jail for 5—10 years. so that is hong kong today. do for 5-10 years. so that is hong kong today-— kong today. do you anticipate moral laws — kong today. do you anticipate moral laws to _ kong today. do you anticipate moral laws to be _ kong today. do you anticipate moral laws to be introduced l kong today. do you anticipate | moral laws to be introduced as china tightens its grip? i

believe so. i believe hong kong law will be changed in the long term very much in line with the criminal laws in hong kong. in fact in the so—called article 23 in the legislation this time, it refers to the chinese constitutions and chinese criminal law in this constitution paper. this is very rare. this is basically understands that if hong kong in the past was an autonomous under british rule but nowadays it follows chinese rules.- it follows chinese rules. thank ou ve it follows chinese rules. thank you very much _ it follows chinese rules. thank you very much for _ it follows chinese rules. thank you very much for your- it follows chinese rules. thank you very much for your time i you very much for your time today. for the first time in nearly two years it looks like northern ireland will have a devolved government and an assembly up and running by the end of next week. the announcement came 2a hours after a meeting of the dup executive — the unionist party that collapsed power sharing in february 2022 in protest at the post brexit trading rules and checks which they said undermined northern ireland's place within the united kingdom.

they now believe they have the assurances they need from westminster to return to government, with the nationalists, sinn fein. our ireland correspondent sara girvin has this report. last night was a night of high stakes and high drama for the democratic unionist party. there were protests and the leak of a private meeting to contend with. it is understood a party member wore a wire to record proceedings which were then live posted on social media. but despite all the noise, there was a breakthrough, and news of a deal negotiated between the dup and the government that could see the return of devolved institutions in northern ireland after almost two years. the details will be released tomorrow but today sirjeffrey donaldson was confident. i believe that what we have delivered is significant, and on the basis that the government continues to deliver, then we will be in a position to convene a meeting of the assembly and proceed with the restoration

of the political institutions. the dup walked out of power—sharing in 2022 in protest at trading arrangements brought in after brexit. the party says those arrangements saw northern ireland treated differently from the rest of the uk and it has been negotiating with westminster for measures to remove what it sees as economic barriers. the secretary of state for northern ireland said he would fulfil his side of the deal. i believe that all the conditions are now in place for the assembly to return, and i look forward very much to the restoration of the institutions at stormont as soon as possible. the assembly may be recalled as early as friday or even saturday but whenever the power—sharing institutions do return, they will do so with a nationalist first minister in the shape of sinn fein�*s michelle o'neill. it will be the first time in northern ireland's existence — more than a century — that the top job will be held by a leader who wants a united ireland. power—sharing is the only show in town so i am finally glad -

we are getting to a juncture where actually that may be | possible once again. i believe in power—sharingl and i believe in life you get much, much more donej when you work together as opposed to working apart. after two years of uncertainty, frustration and division, it looks like the stormont stalemate will soon be at an end, but it is not done yet. and so people in northern ireland must do what they have done for nearly two years now — wait. sara girvin, bbc news, belfast. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. the bbc has released around 3,000 emails linked to the martin bashir scandal. an independent inquiry in 2021 found that mr bashir had been deceitful and had faked documents to get his famous interview with princess diana for panorama in 1995. the corporation has now been compelled to release

correspondence revealing how it dealt with the issue. the bbc said many of the emails were largely "irreleva nt". the serial killer nurse lucy letby has lost the first stage of the process to appeal her convictions. ajudge refused her application. letby, who's 3a, was given 14 whole life sentences for the murders of seven babies and the attempted murder of six others. police have shot dead a man in south—east london who was reportedly armed with a crossbow and wearing body armour. they said the man, in his 30s, was trying to force his way into a building in surrey quays just before 5 o'clock this morning. two people inside the property are understood to have received minor injuries. you're live with bbc news. pakistan's former prime minister imran khan has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, after being accused of leaking state secrets. imran khan is already serving a three year term, after being convicted of corruption.

our correspondent caroline davies reports from islamabad. his face is on the election posters, but imran khan is already behind bars. the former prime minister has not been seen in public since he was jailed almost six months ago. this is the closest we have got to imran khan, the outside of adiala jail. all of his court appearances now happen inside the four walls of the prison, and the verdict today suggests he will not be appearing in public any time soon. today's conviction is about this rally. in march 2022, mr khan appeared on stage waving a piece of paper he said showed a foreign conspiracy against him. he did not say the name of the foreign power but was heavily critical of the united states. prosecutors argued this was leaking state secrets and damaging diplomatic relations. the latter can lead to life imprisonment or the death penalty. the trial lasted several months but the results came fast today, taking even some of his legal team, outside

giving a press conference at the time, off guard. translation: just now we have heard that imran khan _ and shah mahmood qureshi were sentenced to ten years in prison. imran khan's sister said outside islamabad high court that they will appeal. translation: do i look worried? no. this is a fight. imran said this is aboutjustice, that is why he is injail. they will not break any law, they will stay put and fight all the cases. people should not turn to violence, we will use the legal ways to fight this. pakistan is about to go to the polls, imran khan was already disqualified. there are candidates standing supported by his party, but will the verdict today break their and their voters' morale, or boost it? caroline davies, bbc news, rawalpindi. an australian state mp has accused a local news channel

of misoygny after it edited an image of her to give her larger breasts and more revealing clothing. georgie purcell posted this message on social media — showing the altered image and the real one side by side. she told me how she felt when she first saw that doctored image. (tx sot) look, i was confronted to see my body altered live on the news. i actually had just had a really catastrophic day at work and it only just made it worse. i think that many young women like myself struggle with negative body image, and we need to do better for women in public life, particularly with the emerging threat of ai and other forms of editing. i want to come to ai injust a bit.

but first i want to ask if you accept the explanation that nine news gave blaming the automation by photoshop for creating the image and photoshop developer adobe says human intervention and approval would still have been needed. yeah. look, i have accepted nine's apology. i guess my position on this is complex. i'm satisfied with every other way that they have dealt with this scenario, and they did apologise to me unreservedly. however, i'm not sure i totally buy their reasoning behind it. i'm not an expert in photo editing and i won't claim to be. and i've left that narrow narrative up to the people who know it best. however, i do think this question is raised now that adobe have responded and said at the very least it would have required human intervention and ijust hope that they have learnt a lesson from this. now singer taylor swift has also been subjected to altered images recently in her case explicit in nature, and ai generated ones of that. what concerns you most about this and what you've experienced? what concerns me the most is that our law is notjust here where i am in victoria or in australia, across the entire world, is that al is moving at such a rapid pace that our laws are not

equipped to deal with it. obviously this has happened to myself this week. it's happened to taylor swift. but my biggest concern is that it will happen to other women who don't have a public profile, who are without a voice to call it out, and that people will think these images are real. it's very, very damaging. we've done a lot of work to stop image—based abuse and image based exploitation of real images. and we've done some work here in victoria around so—called deepfa ke pornography. but this is moving at a pace that i don't think we've kept up with. and we need to seriously consider how we are going to. to play devil's advocate, there may be some people that have seen this story, seen the pictures that have been altered in your case and thought, "so what? no big deal." why is this a story? what would you say to them? i would say that for women it is a big deal when our bodies are altered without our consent. it raises a broader issue misogyny, sexism and mistreatment of women in public life. as i said, this is something

that would never have happened to a male politician, and we were held to a higher standard. our looks are constantly under the microscope. again, that doesn't happen to men. and this deters women and young girls away from a career in public life, despite having a valuable contribution to share. and that is the last thing that i want. and particularly as more and more young people moving to the political ranks like i have. i'm the youngest woman in our parliament here. we're going to see more of this and we need to do better. and what do you think needs to happen then in order to bring about meaningful change and address this misogyny and double standards in the media? we've come a long way on this issue, but we this showing that there's still more to do. we need to make politics and public life a safe and welcoming space. there needs to be equality and respect that our male counterparts receive. and i think particularly here in australia, we have done a lot to overcome the really obvious out there forms of sexism and misogyny that was happening in politics.

in the parliament i'm in, we've actually got gender parity, there's an equal amount of women mps and male employees. however, it does feel that we still have to work twice as hard to get in there and then have to prove our right to be there when we get there. and that is just because of misogynistic views within our society. and i think editing a woman's body to meet conventional beauty standards is a really subtle version of that that speaks to a bigger issue. now — to an unusual discovery on the east coast of canada. a shipwreck has washed up on a beach in newfoundland. it's thought to have been built in the 19th century... but the ship's story is still a mystery. courtney bembridge has more from our newsroom. ona on a remote snow—covered beach in newfoundland should delete to have been built in the 18005. a to have been built in the 1800s. a very little is known about its history and officials are now trying to piece that together and consider what remains. the biggest mystery of all is how it ended up here. but it is thought this could have something to do with it. these pictures are from last september when hurricane fiona that are the canadian eastern coastline. these pictures show the damage it left behind. here is another aspect seeing from

the air. these pictures showing before and after the storm. you can see the extent of the coastal erosion. now this could have been what to slosh the ship from where it had been lying. at the time, hurricane fiona was described as a historic storm, but no one could have predicted the history it would unearth. the renowned broadway actress, singer and dancer chita rivera has died, aged 91. she started her career before she was 20 and continued all the way into her early 80s — winning two tony awards along the way. rachel mcadam looks back on her life. # all the time there is... known as a triple threat chita rivera was known as a sensation for rules she mostly performed on broadway. she trained in music and ballet from a young age, she was

dancing unto you new york stage before she was 20 and kept at it all the way until her early 80s. the first to appear in the role of a nida in the 1975 regional production of westside story it made chita rivera a star and earned her the first of many tony award nominations. after the enormous success of the musical, she would go on to work with other broadway legends like choreography bob again being the first to play the role of velma kelly in the 1975 smash, chicago. in august 2009 she was awarded the presidential medal of freedom. highest honour the us can give a civilian. speaking some years afterwards and while still performing, she said, i would not know what to do if i was not know what to do if i was not moving or telling a story to you or singing a song. that is the spirit of my life and i am really so lucky to be able to do what i love.

chita rivera died at the age of 91. that brings us to a close here on bbc news. i will be backin here on bbc news. i will be back injust a moment here on bbc news. i will be back in just a moment with more. hello. a fairly potent area of low pressure is going to move to the north of the uk. it's been named storm ingunn by the norwegian metservice. the southern half of the uk is going to be bright and breezy on wednesday, but that storm will bring some strong winds and heavy rain across northern parts of the uk, particularly so for parts of scotland, where the strongest winds could reach around 85 mph. here's the storm system, you can see it developing here. it is moving well to the north of us. but just look at all those

isobars heading our way through the day on wednesday. so that's the active front that's bringing the strong squally winds and heavy rain. first thing wednesday, i think temperatures are going to be nearfreezing, perhaps even a little below through central parts of england and wales. but i think frost free further north where we've got the cloud, the winds — gales already during wednesday morning and the rain moving in. so that rain willjust shift its way gradually further eastwards across parts of scotland through the morning. this line here could produce some really heavy bursts, perhaps some hail and thunder,. and those gusts of wind could reach 85, possibly close to 90 mph up towards the western isles. but widely, we're looking at gales across scotland, parts of northern ireland and northern england as well. so gusts 55, perhaps 60 mph across this zone, enough to cause some significant disruption, particularly when combined with the heavy rain. further south across england and wales, you should stay dry for a good part of the day, not as windy as further north, but still blustery. 8—11 celsius towards the south, a touch colder in the north with that fresher air moving in. and some wintry showers

follow on overnight into thursday across the high ground of scotland. but eventually the cloud and the rain clear away, so it's going to be another fairly chilly night, actually. we're likely to see a touch of frost in a few prone spots, certainly as we head on into thursday. but thursday does look like a much quieter day because we'll lose the tail end of that storm system. and this ridge of higher pressure builds its way in for thursday. so that's going to squeeze away most of the rain and it will bring lighter winds. still quite a breezy day across northern and western scotland with some rain arriving later. best of the sunshine for central, southern and eastern parts of the uk. and here temperatures perhaps down a touch on recent days, 9—10 celsius, so a slightly fresher feel to the weather. but then it looks like we see things turning milder once again. so looking ahead for friday into the weekend, some rain in the north and the west, drier towards the south, but it is looking mild for all of us. bye— bye.

alphabet and microsoft turn in their quarterly report cards amid an intensifying race to deliver new ai applications. plus, boeing tells all — the aviation giant is set to unveil its quarterly earnings.. weeks after an embarrassing mid—air incident. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm steve lai. we begin today with a focus on microsoft and alphabet, which have just reported quarterly earnings. microsoft beat wall street

estimates for fiscal second—quarter revenue, as new ai features helped attract customers to its cloud and windows services. quarterly revenue grew 18% to 62 billion dollars, compared with the average analyst estimate of just over 61 billion dollars. now, all that investment into ai from microsoft is putting the heat on its competitors. that's the case for google's parent company, alphabet, which reported results that disappointed investors. it came short of expectations for advertising revenue, recording 65.5—billion—dollars in the fourth quarter, while analysts on average had estimated just over 66 billion dollars. those results overshadowed the company's efforts in artificial intelligence and the cloud. now, ai is increasingly becoming a central theme in the quarterly results presentations of major tech companies as they compete to place ever bigger bets on the technology. so, is all that investment starting to pay off? i spoke to ubs' tech equity strategist sundeep gantori a little earlier.