hello and welcome to the programme. i'm catherine byaruhanga. america's top diplomat, the us secretary of state, antony blinken has arrived in the egyptian capital, cairo, where he'll meet senior ministers from six arab states and the palestinian authority, as the us pushes for a pause in the fighting in gaza. these are pictures of mr blinken arriving in cairo a short while ago. he's pushing for more desperately needed aid to enter gaza. it's mr blinken�*s sixth trip to the region since the war began and comes after a un—backed food security assessment warned that a man—made famine in gaza is imminent.

earlier, i spoke to our middle east correspondent yolande knell. she told me about this meeting. we know what he is planning to talk to these arab leaders about, he says he wants an immediate increase in humanitarian aid going into gaza, he's going to talk to them about the ongoing ceasefire talks, we have the egyptians and the qataris among those present, they have both been serving as mediators in the indirect talks between israel and hamas, and there is also a continued mention of the need to come up with a post—war vision for gaza that we are hearing from the americans on this trip, what they are referring to as the post—war architecture, an architecture for lasting peace in the region. they say that they want to prevent hamas from coming back into power, from being able to carry out the kinds of attacks that triggered the war back on 7th october.

also, they want to look at bringing back, it seems, the palestinian authority which was ousted from gaza by hamas some 17 years ago now. a revitalised palestinian authority. there will be a senior palestinian official among those present. the different arab countries, he is looking for the roles they can play in future for help with governance in gaza and reconstruction. this is a longer—term part of the plan which the arab states are very keen to push as well. yolande, he has also added an unexpected stop in israel. it comes as some senior us military officials and diplomats, former officials, calling for the us government to take a tougher line on israel. do we sense that america's approach to israel is changing? i think so. you can see how this is playing so much into domestic politics with this being such a sensitive year with the presidential election campaign, with mr biden, and how

this is hurting his campaign and a change in tune we have heard from the americans. they've said they want to come here, talking about some of the usual things, of course, the ceasefire and hostage release deal they so desperately want. they want to talk about israeli plans to go into rafah because washington has said they believe this would be a mistake with so many displaced people, more thani million of them now based down there right in the very south of the gaza strip, but israel insisting it needs to go in there to tackle the remaining hamas battalions. they will talk about aid with the israelis. we have heard from the us secretary of state is the us will be pushing, or put into the un security council a new proposal calling for an immediate and sustained ceasefire in return for the release of hostages and a big increase in aid going in to gaza.

this is different from what we have seen from the americans before when they have repeatedly blocked calls for some kind of a ceasefire in the un security council resolutions and mr blank and has indicated to the media they hope there will be support for the resolution that will now be put forward. that was the bbc�*s yolande knell. our correspondent tom bateman, who was travelling with mr blinken and sent this as he arrived in cairo. we have just landed in we havejust landed in cairo and we are waiting for antony blinken to come off the plane. here there will be a meeting with six ministers from arab countries. also president sisi of egypt and the palestinian authority. this is fresh from a meeting last night the secretary of state had with mohammed bin salman, the crown print of saudi arabia. what all of this is about is, yes, putting pressure on the ceasefire process, but largely about a post—war plan. arab leaders with the americans trying to come up with a way to govern and secure gaza when the conflict ends. a key part of

this is with saudi arabia that the americans would want to sponsor this plan. the saudis looking at potential normalisation of relations with israel in return for us weapons and a civilian nuclear programme that's backed by the americans. all of that was in the works before october seven. of that was in the works before octoberseven. it of that was in the works before october seven. it is back in the discussions now. you are talking about a much longer term project here. none of what gets agreed in cairo means anything, it is nothing more really than wishful thinking if there isn't a breakthrough in the ceasefire for hostage release negotiations that have been taking place between the israelis and hamas indirectly, in direct negotiations indirectly, in direct negotiations in doha. and although the qataris who are mediating that have said they are still optimistic, no signs of an they are still optimistic, no signs ofan imminent they are still optimistic, no signs of an imminent breakthrough. the bbc

boss mike tom — of an imminent breakthrough. the bbc boss mike tom bateman _ of an imminent breakthrough. the bbc boss mike tom bateman in _ of an imminent breakthrough. the bbc boss mike tom bateman in cairo. -- l boss mike tom bateman in cairo. —— bbc�*s tom bateman. could working in extreme heat increase women's risk of miscarriage and stillbirth? as our planet heats up, research shared with the bbc suggests working in extreme heat during pregnancy doubled the risk of stillbirth and miscarriage in india. india is one of the countries most exposed and vulnerable to heat — let's put that into context. over the past five decades, india has experienced more than 700 heatwave events. which have killed at least 17,000 people. climate experts say that india's extreme heat events could �*cross the survivability limit�* by 2050. researchers are now working with scientists in the uk to better understand how extreme heat could have an impact on advice for pregnant women globally. our global health correspondent tulip mazumdar has been to the state of tamil nadu to meet some of the women who took

part in the study. summer is coming. india is predicted to become one of the first countries where temperatures will top the safe limit for healthy people who arejust sitting in the shade. it's workers like these who will be, and already are, most affected by the heat. these workers start early in the morning to avoid the worst of the hot sun, around 28 degrees at the moment and very humid. i have been sweating quite a lot all morning. this is just one of three jobs that sandia has to help feed her two children. there was also a third child who she lost six months into her pregnancy. translation: i would work the whole day in the heat. l my legs would swell. i felt thirsty all the time and out of breath.

one day i was cutting the crops and i suddenly felt intense pain and i started bleeding. i went to see the doctor, and he told me my baby had died. most of us women who have miscarriages never find out why their babies died. but do you think that working out in the heat could have had anything to do with it? translation: i think so. i think standing in the heat for hours could have had an impact. sandia is one of hundreds of pregnant women who took part in a study about the impact of heat stress at work on pregnancy. 800 pregnant women took part and researchers found that those who worked in extreme heat faced double the risk of stillbirth, preterm birth, miscarriage and low birth weight. the study took into account the heavy workload but they still found that heat was a key risk factor. throughout their five—year study, the researchers would set up

this temperature gauge in women's workplaces. it is quite high now. it measures the various ways that heat affects our bodies. there is a long way to go in order to find the exact biological mechanism behind this. that may help to improve the reproductive health of women globally. much of the power to protect these low—paid workers rests with the bosses of these types of workplaces. thank you for inviting us here. the owner of this brick kiln on the outskirts of chennai says he is adopting to frequent hotter days by providing additional shade for his workers. before this was all open? open, open. the sun would be on the workers? making these and other changes, he says, is also making him more money. translation: women no longer have to toil under the sun. _ this kind of work can be very difficult for them. they used to have more health problems. but since we started

using the machinery and got these sheds, they do not offer as much. this kind of work mainly undertaken by women is only going to get harder as our planet heats up. and scientists investigating the impact on the most vulnerable warn the world must adapt now. tulip mazumdar, bbc news, southern india. you can watch the full documentary on the bbc iplayer, search for indian mothers: bearing the heat — as well as here on bbc news this weekend. to haiti now. the head of the united nations children's agency, unicef, says it is unable to get enough aid into haiti and that "many, many people" are suffering from serious hunger and malnutrition. this comes as gangs still control more than 80% of the capital port—au—prince and the country lacks a functioning government. our central america and caribbean correspondent will grant reports.

to describe some of the living conditions in port—au—prince as "precarious" is an understatement. this 20—year—old student and her family had to flee their home because of gang violence and now live in a temporary camp inside an abandoned theatre. on some days, she says, they do not eat at all. "i go to school with no food, spend the day hungry and then go to bed with nothing in my stomach," she says. now she sees no choice but to abandon her studies. the daily struggle to find enough food in haiti is nothing new. the difference now is the scale of the emergency in food insecurity. potentially millions of people are in danger of falling into malnutrition and already do not know when or where the next meal is coming from. there are some success stories.

this child was deemed dangerously malnourished a few weeks ago but a local ngo second mile was able to hospitalise him and he is thankfully putting on weight. over the years, their residential malnutrition centre has pulled hundreds of children back from the brink. mothers typically spend four weeks at the centre receiving urgent care for their malnourished children and instruction on providing high nutrition on a limited budget. the ngo says it's had huge success with just i% of children being readmitted after they leave. with aid still barely making it into haiti, this work is crucial, but the ngo fears mistakes of the 2010 earthquake disaster response could be repeated in this crisis. a lot of these larger ngos fly in and fly out and they are handed all of these supplies and all of this aid and suddenly all of these funds to now hire all of these people. you are actually hiring from all of these local ngos

when you could just help pay their staff members and help and give them the aid to distribute. tilling the land in haiti is dry, thankless work. climate change has meant crops of maize and beans often yield poor harvests or fail altogether. as haiti unravels, it is clear malnutrition is no longer a temporary passing crisis here and aid alone will not solve it. rather it is becoming the norm and are parts of the country's dire new reality. will grant, bbc news, haiti. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news.

you're live with bbc news. the uk government has suffered fresh defeats over its contentious plan

to deport some asylum seekers to rwanda. the house of lords proposed changes including a need to give due regard to international law. the legislation is intended to stop court challenges to efforts to send some asylum seekers to rwanda, by declaring the east african country to be safe. deportation flights were stopped by a supreme court ruling last year, which said the system could lead to human rights breaches. here is our chief political correspondent henry zeffman, and our africa correspondent barbara plett usher. we had yesterday the second time that the house of lords, the upper chamber, took a look at this legislation and for the second time in a row they said to the house of commons that they wanted to make various changes to it. so now it gets sent back to the house of commons, the elected chamber, they will look at it again, although not until after easter, so midway through april. i expect the government

to insist again on removing all of those changes, or almost all of those changes made by the house of lords. i think this bill is still going to pass almost in entirely unamended form, in almost the exact form the government wants by the end of april and then the question becomes about practicalities. can the government do what it was not able to do before which is get one of those flights off to rwanda with asylum seekers on it? and then, if so, does it act as the deterrent that the government hopes it will be for those crossing the english channel in small boats, or does it, in fact, as the labour party argues, turn out to be a gimmick which has no practical effect at all? how close is the government to achieving its goal of sending some asylum seekers to rwanda? i think most people now expect most people in westminster, expect that will happen at some point. the question is, how effective it will end up being because ultimately the goal here from the government,

the goal of this policy which, by the way, it's worth remembering, has been the policy of three successive conservative prime ministers. it was thought up by borisjohnson in 2022. the goal of the policy is not to send some asylum seekers to rwanda for the sake of it. the goal is to act as a deterrent to people arriving to the uk illegally. and whether it will serve as sufficient deterrent to achieve that, i think, is a much more contested question than the question of whether actually a plane will end up taking off to rwanda. most people assume that will happen in june but whether that acts as a deterrent i think is untested. there is a secondary question quickly which is also political. for lots of conservative mps, and remember this is an election year in the uk, for lots of conservative mps, they believe that getting a few flights off to rwanda will really reverse the political predicament that the conservative party is in where opinion polls show they are way behind the labour party. again, we may well find out injune

whether that's right or not. thank you very much, henry. we can turn to our africa correspondent barbara plett usher who is in kigali. what is the view there and what is the response to all the politics happening in the uk? speaking to people in the rwandan government here this week you get the sense they are quite happy and prepared to accept asylum seekers when they should arrive. but also happy to let the process play out in the uk. and so i think there is a really a sense of watching and waiting here. in the meantime they are taking their own steps to address some of the concerns raised by the uk supreme court which, as you know, was that it found rwanda was not a safe country for refugees. one of the reasons for that, it said, was there was a substantial risk that the asylum seekers could be deported back to their countries of origin. rwanda had already promised that that would not happen in a treaty

signed with britain. but it is now revamping its asylum law. there is a new asylum bill here as well in kigali and the parliament is going to be voting on that fairly soon, we are told. more broadly, the rwandan government has always objected to this view that it is not a safe country for refugees. it consistently says that it's one of the safest countries in the world. if you look at crime indices, it is the safest country in africa when it comes to crime. but the more broad criticism which has been going on for years is that the government strongly represses descent. strongly represses dissent. that was what we heard again from an opposition figure here that we interviewed. and even the uk expressed concern in 2021 about restrictions on civil and political rights and on media freedoms. something the rwandan government denies and something that this british government, it seems, would go ahead with its plan whatever the case. so, barbara, this plan

is expected to go ahead. is rwanda ready to receive migrants from the uk? it is very ready. they have been ready for almost two years now. we have just visited the hope hostel, the place where the migrants would be taken. like many other journalists before us. it is pristine, it is neat, it is well supplied, it is actually staffed but it is empty. and so the person who was showing me around the said if we knew today people were coming we would be ready today to receive them. so they make a point of saying they are super prepared. the package they say that will be given to the refugees is they will get full board, accommodation, health care and support for at least the first five years. of course the british government is paying for this. it has already spent £2110 million, around $300 million on this project, so they are ready. some of the other criticism that had been mentioned locally is rwanda is a developing country,

it should be focusing on helping its own people with their problems rather than refugees. but again, the government says it has much experience with giving refugees, helping refugees, and it wants to help. that was the bbc�*s barbara plett usher in kigali and before her we had our chief political correspondent henry zeffman. millions of women here in the uk born in the 19505 who were affected by the government's decision to raise their state pension age in line with men's, will find out whether they could be entitled to compensation. the campaign group women against state pension inequality — also known as waspi — says the change plunged tens of thousands of them into poverty. our reporter azadeh moshiri has more. # heigh—ho, heigh—ho. ..# could this be the day they have been fighting for? waspi have been demanding compensation for years after their retirement plans collapsed. for many, the wait has been painful.

suddenly knowing i wasn't going to get it for another six years dramatically affected my standard of living and it is money i will never get back. but i have accepted that. but i do feel that the government should have let me and the other women know that this delay was coming down the tracks. we had no notice at all. the state pension age used to be 60 for women and 65 for men. but since 2010, women's state pension age was raised and brought in line with men's. it has risen again since. and today it stands at 66 for both men and women. yet, thousands of women born in the 19505 argue the changes happened at too short notice and were badly communicated. waspi argue this affected 3.8 million women, and that many didn't even know they would have to wait longer to receive their state pension. they say they didn't get

a chance to plan for it. # today's the day we finally get our pension.# the parliamentary ombudsman has already ruled government officials were too slow to tell them. today the final report and its recommendations are expected. but the ombudsman has no power to refund lost pensions. # we'll keep on fighting till the end...# the department for work and pensions has said ministers are unable to comment until after the report has been published. the government has previously argued though that as people continue to live longer, state pension ages had to go up. but these women say they went about it the wrong way. and they're ready for their payday. azadeh moshiri, bbc news.

we have some breaking news on that story. and that report from the parliamentary health service ombudsman. the report said that thousands of women may have been affected by the department for work and pensions to adequately inform them that the state pension age had changed. this is breaking news coming in from the parliamentary and health service ombudsman that thousands of women may have been affected by the department for work and pensions' failure to adequately inform women that the state pension had changed. you canjust see that the bbc website. we have a live page on this breaking news. you can of course turn to that on the bbc website and on the app is breaking news that thousands of women may have been affected by the department for work and pensions' failure to adequately inform them that the state pension age had changed.

with more on this our reporter nicky schiller. this news has just this news hasjust come this news has just come through. this news hasjust come through. i want to show you the website from the ombudsman. this is where we have got the news. it is a very key part, as you have been saying, the ombudsman is saying that the women affected should be compensated. but the key thing is they are saying that the department for work and pensions has already said that it won't take action to rectify the failings. so we were expecting may be a figure to be in this report that was out about how much compensation each of the women should be allowed but there isn't any figure in here because the ombudsman is saying that already the department for work and pensions said that it wouldn't pay out. so what it is saying is it's is now down to parliament to decide what figures should be given to these women to be compensated. ijust want to read the statement from the chief executive at the ombudsman, this is what she says, the uk's national

ombudsman is finding of failings by the dwp, the department for work and pensions, in this case it has ruled that the women affected are owed compensation, the dwp has clearly indicated that it will refuse to comply. they say this is unacceptable. the department must do the right thing and must be held to account for failure to do so. she goes on to say complainants should not have to wait and see whether dwp will take action to rectify its failings given the significant concerns that we have that it will fail to act on our findings and given the need to make things right for the affected women as soon as possible, they say we have proactively asked parliament to intervene and hold the department to account. parliament now needs to act swiftly and make sure a compensation scheme is established. we think this will provide women with the quickest route to remedy. to remind you what the ombudsman has said, basically they have said that the women should be entitled to compensation but that

the dwp, the department for work and pensions, has already said it won't compensate the women. it is now saying that is unacceptable and is now asking parliament to intervene to set up a compensation scheme for these women and for it to decide how much that compensation should be. under the scheme the ombudsman has at the moment, and this applies to all of the things the health ombudsman looks at, the top tier of compensation is something known as level six. that is £10,000 or over. a lot of the women involved in this case were hoping that they would get that top tier of compensation. but what we have got from the report here today is that there isn't a figure in there and that the ombudsman is pushing it back to parliament. thank you very much, that is the bbc�*s nicky schiller. let's get more on this with our reporter ben woolvin. what do you think the likely reaction will be to this report? the women who _ reaction will be to this report? tue: women who have reaction will be to this report? tte: women who have been campaigning on this issue now for more than 80 years are going to be very

disappointed. they were expecting, they were hoping for a figure to be included in this report. as nicky was just saying, they thought it might recommend compensation of as much as £10,000 for each of the women affected by this. but because of all those things nickyjust explained, it seems this has been pushed back to parliament. i've spoken to a communications officer at the parliamentary has service ombudsman who says there is no timescale for what happens next, it isn't clear how long it will take —— parliamentary health service ombudsman. not clear how long it will take for parliament to look at this. as we have been hearing, this is about a group of women born in the 19505 who have seen the age at which they can expect their state pension increa5e which they can expect their state pension increase from 60 — 65, or 66 in some cases depending on the date of birth, campaigners say there are as many as 3.5 million women in this group, a group of around 300,000 have had to wait for an extra 5ix

have had to wait for an extra six years for their money to arrive. and for some people that has meant £42,000. ., ~ ,., for some people that has meant £42,000. ., ~ _, , for some people that has meant £42,000. ., ~ _, y a for some people that has meant £42,000. 2, ~ y a a, £42,000. thank you very much, are re orted £42,000. thank you very much, are reported ben — £42,000. thank you very much, are reported ben woolvin _ £42,000. thank you very much, are reported ben woolvin with _ £42,000. thank you very much, are reported ben woolvin with this - reported ben woolvin with this story. you can go to the bbc website where we have continuing coverage on this breaking news about state pension compensation for women in the uk. you're watching bbc news with me catherine byaruhanga. our question is, what is fairfor the waspi women? we have heard in the waspi women? we have heard in the last few moments, finding that thousands of women may have been affected by dwp failure to adequately inform than the state pension age had changed. just taking something else from the press release for you, in addition to

paying compensation, we have made it clear that dwp should acknowledge its failings and apologise for the impact it has had on complainants and others similarly affected. if you have been similarly affected, do get in touch. no level of compensation suggested that it is knocking the ball back into the court of dwp while underlining and emphasising their failings. court of dwp while underlining and emphasising theirfailings. we have got angela madden. chair of the women against a state pension inequality campaign. you had the report a few moments ago, what is your response? t report a few moments ago, what is your resoonse?_ report a few moments ago, what is your resume?— your response? i am pleased the re ort is your response? i am pleased the report is finally _ your response? i am pleased the report is finally out. _ your response? i am pleased the report is finally out. this - report is finally out. this investigation has gone on for five long years. three years ago, the ombudsman found there had been ombud5man found there had been maladministration. he has been considering the evidence on injustice for a long time. i am pleased he has recognised there has

been injustice. we certainly