live from washington. this is bbc news. final preparations are under way for the first aid shipment by sea from cyprus — carrying vital supplies for gaza civilians, on the brink of famine. and food shortages in haiti's capital is port—au—prince is paralysed by gang violence. and we will speak to the first american woman to sail around the world by herself. hello. we begin with the ongoing humanitarian crisis in gaza. a ship carrying much needed food and medical supplies preparing to set sail to gaza from cyprus, the closest eu nation to gaza.

the spanish vessel hopes to use a new shipping route to arrive the next few days but where it will arrive is still up in the air. no functioning port in gaza so it is unclear where that boat will dock. the ship called the open arms will set off. it's taken an enormous effort to even get this far with this relief mission. but the real challenge will come as they get closer to gaza. it might take as long as 2—3 days for them to make the 210 nautical miles from here in cyprus to gaza. but when they get there, they are arriving at a territory that has no functioning port so they have to off—load that aid, and in the north of gaza distributing aid, it's the most badly affected, most desperately in need part of gaza. distributing aid there is extremely difficult. all law and order has broken down there, it's absolute chaos on the ground,

so they were also have to manage that. that will be a great success if they managed to open this first maritime aid quarter. there are others who say, in fact, maritime aid core and air drops by western governments are a sign of western failure because the west has been asking israel for months to send more trucks by land into gaza at the two crossing points in the south of gaza. it is the quickest and most effective way of getting aid into gaza, but still, israel refuses to budge. 100 or so trucks make it through a day, before the war it was 420 trucks. the need is much greater than that now. the british foreign secretary david cameron has been asking for 500 trucks, he's been asking for that for months, still israel has not been listening. so the situation in gaza tonight is desperate. people are going to sleep hungry, when they wake in the morning, in the north, they are scavenging for food. they are now having to make bread from animal feed and we've been hearing that children and the elderly are beginning

to die from malnutrition. the adults are losing their hair, they are losing their teeth because they aren't getting enough food. gaza really is on the brink. the un says that famine there is almost inevitable. as the aid ship departs from spain, another vessel left the us carrying equipment to build temporary floating piers used to unload humanitarian supplies. attempts to get more aid into gaza are progressing, talks of a ceasefire are not. the head of the us intelligence service accusing hamas a hardening its positioned in ceasefire talks. saying hamas was planning to escalate tensions during ramadan. hamas has blamed israel for a lack of progress in ceasefire negotiations that are expected to continue. in the us, president joe biden said earlier that israel would be crossing a red line if it goes through with its anticipated

invasion of southern gaza city of rafah. he also said he would never stop defending israel. the comments come days after his fiery state of the union speech which i discussed with former israeli defence force spokesmanjonathan conricus. thank you so much for being here. i wanted to start with some of the remarks made by presidentjoe biden in that state of the union address where he talks about the situation in gaza, take a listen. to israel i say this. humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration, or a bargaining chip. protecting and saving innocent lives has to be priority. as we look to the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two state solution over time. applause yeah, a lot in there, and we heard the president essentially warning israel against using aid as a bargaining chip. what's your response to what he said there? yeah, there were many very positive things from my perspective said

by the president, regarding up a specific statement, i think it is very much correct. humanitarian aid shouldn't and isn't used as bargaining. the only people who are bargaining humanitarian matters are hamas, keeping israelis hostage for more than 154 days. and they are the ones who on the humanitarian front are the cruel, the heartless and the terrorist. and i think that we will have to look forward, there are lots of people in gaza who probably are not affiliated with hamas and should get humanitarian assistance, it would have been great if these people would have been taken care of by the un facilities in gaza, un organisations in gaza, and put in humanitarian zones and provided their needs, that was a unrwa decided 3.5 — four months ago, not to do, not to provide that assistance and we are seeing it in the unfortunate

consequences... we have spoken to many people from unrwa, many leaders of humanitarian aid organisations and what they've been telling the bbc is they simply cannot continue with those humanitarian missions. they are not able to access areas, not able to get supplies in and they say it's simply too dangerous. the security situation doesn't allow them to do that. is israel doing enough to provide the conditions in order to actually deliver aid safely to those civilians that needed? definitely, yes. i think israel is doing far and beyond what any military in fighting, in combat is doing, while there is a clear and imminent threat to israeli citizens and there are still israeli hostages held in gaza. israel is transferring humanitarian aid into the very same combat zone and i would like to say that unrwa is a complete and utter failure of their mandates, they have failed the palestinians, they have failed in their charter, they have failed the values of the un, and they have

failed their humanitarian mission and they are just nothing more but a front for hamas, doing hamas�* dirty work and enabling the continued rule of hamas over the gaza strip. cease—fire negotiations which have been going on, i'm sure you have been paying very close attention, it seems that they have broken down and we are not long away now from the start of ramadan. how optimistic are you? because there had been goals to try and get a multi—day cease—fire in place before the holy month, how optimistic are you that that will happen? i think hamas�* plan is working out quite nicely and they are getting support and they are using the international committee and the us very cleverly. i think their plan all along was to bide time, spend time until the month of ramadan comes along, banking on or hoping that israel would not do major combat operations during that month, in fear of additional escalation in other

parts of the middle east and religious extremism bubbling over into general violence in the area. and sadly, that plan appears to be have been working. according to all the information and indications that i have, hamas never wanted to release israeli hostages and a real hostage deal wasn't in the works. they were playing for time in order to get close to ramadan and then to try to derail israel from continuing fighting, and they think that they are hoping hamas, that they will be able to wiggle their way out of the fighting here come out of the war and claim victory by existing and having some long—term unofficial cease—fire. i don't think it's going to have, i hope it's not going to happen and i hope that israel stays true to its mission which is to defend israeli civilians, to get the hostages home and to defeat the threat and the menace of hamas from gaza. former spokesperson for the israeli defence forces, thank you very much for your time. thank you for having me.

the crisis in haiti where the country's most vulnerable people are suffering amid a surge of deadly gang violence on friday, gang members attacked at least three different police stations of the capital port—au—prince. 0ur report bodies are piling up in the streets. food and water are in short supply. he was already considered the poorest country in the western hemisphere. more than half the country don't have enough to eat. and one point for macmillan are living and starvation levels. i spoke to an ambassador who served as us special envoy to haiti in 2021 following the assassination of the then—president. i want to ask you about your assessment of the situation in haiti.

i do not want to use the word coup but how close is the government to completely losing control of the situation? it already is. haiti has been a failed state since the assassination. the us appointed de facto prime minister, that has the entire country including gangs calling for his resignation and has done nothing for the haitian people. the united states has held him in power. at this point, it is not a coup or a protest, it is a revolution. i think the haitians are really reaching out for the sovereignty they did not gain when they defeated the french for their independence because ever since then, international countries and white people have been making their governmental decisions for them and they never had a social contract between the people in their government. let me ask you, what should the next move be for the prime minister? the us urging him

to step down to lay a path for new elections, does he still have any legitimacy left and what should he do? zero legitimacy left. there is a complicated factor. he is a suspect in the assassination and i am not sure he was involved in the planning or implementation but he certainly has obstructed justice to a large degree since the assassination. if he is no longer in power, he is going to have to face justice and he knows that. that complicates it. he is not getting back into haiti and surviving. i'm not talking about survive as prime minister, i'm talking about surviving alive. he is currently in porto rico. do you anticipate he will try to add to haiti again? he is not giving up at this point. the dominican republic called him persona non grata for

his repeated attempts. it is either go back or go to prison for the rest of his life. not an easy situation. there are very few elected officials left in haiti right now. zero, not one. the other people who appear to have power are gang leaders. is there even a good option in terms of holding elections or trying to find somebody else to lead the nation that is currently with the nickname barbecue? one of the top gang leaders that are leading the violence. the international community wants to get this right. we panicked. the us and france and canada did not care two weeks ago about the humanitarian disaster. which has gotten worse. but not markedly since this happened. it will continue to get worse. they did not care about and suddenly they care about it now. if they want to get this right, they need to let

the haitian civil society opposition political parties come together and find the haitian way forward, which has never been afforded to them in their years of independence. if the international community chooses another leader or government for them, it may get better temporarily but will continue its slide to anarchy. we have seen in the past some attempts at international aid efforts or security efforts not going well in haiti. i know you stepped down from your role as ambassador in 2021, over the deportation of haitian migrants from the us. how would you then gauge what the us should be doing or has been doing when it comes to haiti, which is only a few hundred miles away from the southern coast of the us. it is a one hour and a0 minute flight from miami to port—au—prince, pretty darn close and it has become a hub of illicit trafficking in the hemisphere. a great threat to us

national security. the last 2.5 years, despite me telling them what i thought was the right way and the consequences accurately of going with him, they stuck with him and the us created the situation. it is time for them to sweep it up and they will have to help security wise, whether president biden wants to or not because this intervention with police officers from africa is nothing but a pipedream at best and a suicide mission at worst. it is certainly a difficult situation. the citizens of haiti are caught in the middle. ambassador, formally the special envoy to haiti, thank you for your perspective. thank you. with super tuesday in the books it looks as if a rematch for the us presidency between donald trump and joe biden is set. both candidates are in georgia today, holding head—to—head campaign events —

kicking off their battle president biden won georgia — a key swing state — by a small margin back in 2020. president biden delivered a fiery state of the union address on thursday. now his campaign is looking to capitalise on that momentum — a new ad out saturday gives a nod and a wink to what many voters see as biden�*s key weakness: his age. take a listen. iam nota i am not a young guy. that is no secret. here is the deal, i understand how to get things done for the american people. i believe thejob of done for the american people. i believe the job of the president is to fight for you, the american people and that is what i am doing. i amjoe biden, i approve this message. can we do one more tech? i am very young. _ can we do one more tech? i am very young, energetic _ can we do one more tech? i am very young, energetic and - very young, energetic and handsome, what the hell am i doing this for? mr trump immediately responded with his own attack ad — making fun of mr biden�*s age, with footage of a number of falls and slip ups made byjoe biden during

his time in office. where he is facing charges of allegedly interfering with the 2020 election results in the state. it is not an age thing, it is competent thing. i have to stop. they do the age thing and always have me as his age, i am four years younger. it does not matter, they do the age thing to try and get drunk, they never talk about his competence, he is grossly incompetent, don't you understand ? incompetent, don't you understand?— incompetent, don't you understand? , ., understand? gary o'donoghue sent does this _ understand? gary o'donoghue sent does this report - understand? gary o'donoghue sent does this report from - sent does this report from georgia. a pretty small audience, actually, a couple hundred people, very enthusiastic as you could imagine, very controlled. we did have one interruption from a gaza protester that was pulled out yelling and the president

didn't seem to be put off too much by that. he really hit a number of those points that he made on the state of the union address, and a maintaining of that energy level we saw on thursday. he was sort of punching it out today. we have eight months to go to till the general election, let's see if anybody can keep that up for that long. and also you know, the crucial thing here is georgia is the most marginable state last time around, 0.3%, he won it by less than 12,000 votes. we seen a bit of a dip in that support of african—american communities for biden. there were a lot of reinforcements of the message of things that have been done, things that will be done and also accusing donald trump of attempting to turn back race relations in this country. and therefore sort of trying to in a sense play that game against the former president

who wasjust up the road, as he said, at about the same time, making a speech and don't forget, mrtrump is also claimed in the past that black voters, african—american voters will support him because they understand what it's like to be invited. at stories making headlines, the mass kidnapping in nigeria with at least 15 students taken from their school.— from their school. alonso four women. from their school. alonso four women- days _ from their school. alonso four women. days after _ from their school. alonso four women. days after more - from their school. alonso four women. days after more than | from their school. alonso four - women. days after more than 280 students taken from their school. at least 20 people have managed to escape since their capture on thursday. join forces from the us, uk and france shut down dozens of drones in the red sea launched bias expected houthis. posting an imminent threat to ships. they attacked a commercial ship and a number of warships. the

group says it is targeting ships in israel and allies in solidarity with palestinians in gaza. the irish government has been defeated in its attempts to broaden the definition of family and alter language on women in the constitution. the prime minister admitted he failed to convince most voters taking part in two referendums held on friday. the first asked whether to expand family to include relationships outside marriage and the second would have removed references to women in the home. this is cole brauer, a 29—year—old who was the first american woman to sail around the world by herself. she completed his solo journey on thursday, avoid spending 130 days and 30,000 miles, about 40,200 kilometres. she started and finished in spain, coming in second place in the global solo challenge race despite suffering a rib

injury midway through. she was the youngest sailor, the only woman piloting one of 16 boats competing in the challenge and just 1.5 days after making history she spoke with me about the experience. thank you for taking the time to speak with us and welcome back to dry land. you sailed 30,000 miles around the globe, all by yourself. you are back now and you have had a little bit of time to reflect on this. can you believe you actually did that? it does not really feel real. getting onto land and seeing my friends and family and just way the they looked at me and everyone was crying. it was really beautiful but for me it felt like i had not been gone for very long. it felt very confusing of why they are looking at me so strange. this competition you did, more than half of the competitors actually did not finish the race. was there a moment where you thought this is so difficult,

i am not sure i will be able to do this? no. for sure, no. when we first started preparing for this race, the entire goal was to have enough spares, have enough food, enough tools to pretty much repair or build anything that we really needed to do without stopping. if we are going to put all this money, time, energy, take people away from their families for months on end, to do this project we wanted to make sure we were very serious about it and so we had so much supplies on board that we really hoped that would be a last—ditch effort to stop. you were the only woman in this race. how significant was that fact to you? it was a little strange. we all know is a male—dominated

sport but there are so many really amazing offshore sailors and i really hope now that women see this and see that this is what i have done, and one out of 16, that is a terrible percentage. we really need to get a better one next time around. i hope that women in the offshore world or even not in the offshore world and mainstream media see this and go 0k, well, she can do that too. i know you documented a lot of this trip on your social media. if you go there there is just incredible pictures and videos. tell me about the response you have been getting because i know you have about 500,000 followers on instagram now. it was really shocking. i really do not think sailing was going to get this much mainstream media coverage. it has been really cool. so many people,

men and women, we have 50/50 followers right now for men and women, the response is overwhelmingly positive. usually on social media to get some negativity and it is a mixed bag and it is overwhelmingly positive. i found this particular fact just crazy. at some point you were in such remote waters that the nearest human being to you was likely the astronauts above you in the international space station. what was it like to be so alone in the ocean and how do you make sure that you keep a healthy mental state during that? it was really good. i had starlink. this was the first time that starlink had gone around the world. their customer service was fantastic. i would definitely use them again. it never really felt

like i was completely alone because i always had my team on call and if i got sad or if i needed — i facetime my mother every single morning, that is how close, and the quality of that service was better than i have in this hotel room right now. i never felt alone and i think it is super important that we keep going in the sailing world, trying to open this up because the ocean is so beautiful and i would like to continue to show it to the world. you have been backjust a a few days now after 130 days at sea. was there anything you missed the most when you came back onto land? what was the first thing you did? the first thing i did... i hugged my parents, i wanted a cappuccino, i wanted a croissant. a bottle of champagne.

i miss the ocean, that is still the only time so far that i have really cried since i have been back on land and it was when i was asked what do you miss the most? i started remembering the smell of the ocean and how pure the ocean is and how clean it is and there are no cars. significantly less pollution. that is something that you cannot really buy, and the ocean and nature is so beautiful. i will miss that every single day until i get back out there. it sounds like an incredible experience and an amazing achievement. cole brauer, the first american woman to race solo non—stop around the world in a sailboat, congratulations and welcome back. thank you so much, thank you for having me.

more soon, goodbye. hello there. cloudy skies will remain a dominant feature with the weather story as we continue through the weekend. so mothering sunday, a rather grey start for many of us and there will be more in the way of rain around at times. now it really is quite a messy story, but we're still under this influence of low pressure, despite itjust sinking a little bit further south towards northern spain. the isobars open up, lighter winds across central and southern england. but this trailing weather front will introduce cloud and showery bits and pieces of rain. a relatively bright start across wales and south—west england. but the rain will tend to drift its way westwards as we go through the afternoon. so sunny spells and a few scattered showers, potentially, across cornwall, devon and parts of south wales. a line of more persistent rain moving its way slowly eastwards, cloudier skies remaining behind. quite a lot of clouds

to the east of the pennines, some showery outbreaks of rain moving into northern ireland and always along that east coast. it will stay cloudy, cool, breezy and wet at times. so that could have an impact once again on the feel of the weather — 6—8 degrees here. but further west where we may well see the best of the brightness, 11—12 celsius. now, as we move out of sunday into monday, that low pressure is going to drift its way over into central europe. the trailing weather front still producing quite a lot of cloud and a few bits and pieces of showery rain across parts of london and towards kent first thing on monday morning. so monday, again, a grey start. we've got this easterly feed continuing to push in cloud and maybe some outbreaks of light drizzle along exposed east coasts. so sheltered western areas potentially seeing the best of any brighter weather. and that's where we'll see the best of the warmth. 10—11 degrees, always cooler on those exposed coasts where the cloud and the drizzle

may remain all day. now, as we move through the middle part of the week, there is another weather front. but on the whole, a quieter story until we get to the end of the week where we could see weather fronts starting to push in from the west, but the wind direction will change to more of a southwesterly and we will tend to see it turning a little milder. so it is going to stay pretty messy throughout the week, a greater chance of seeing more persistent rain by the end of the working week, butjust that little bit milder.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. hello from hollywood. i'm tom brook, and welcome to our special talking movies preview of the 96th annual academy awards. in today's programme... this is a matter of life and death. just how many 0scar trophies do we think 0ppenheimer will win?

oppenheimer is definitely going to win at least seven oscars, if not more.