live from washington. this is bbc news. the us is set to deploy additional warships and fighter jets to the middle east amid fears of escalation over the killing of hamas political chief ismail haniyeh. the us defense secretary revokes plea deals with the accused 9/11 mastermind and two of his accomplices. eight people have been arrested and three police officers taken to hospital after rioting in sunderland in the north east of england. and the americans freed in a historic prisoner swap with russia are evaluated in texas, after an emotional homecoming. hello, i'm rajini vaidyanathan. welcome to this hour. the pentagon says it's stepping up america's military presence in the middle east, deploying additional warships

and fighterjets as regional tension grows. an aircraft carrier strike group led by the uss abraham lincoln is being sent to the region. iran and its allies have promised imminent retaliation against israel. an announcer on iran state tv said on friday night that "in coming hours, the world would witness extraordinary "scenes and very important developments". it comes after a funeral ceremony in qatar for the hamas political leader, ismail haniyeh, who was assassinated in iran on wednesday. officials from a number of arab and muslim countries attended, as well as prominent figures from fatah, the main rival palestinian faction to hamas. hamas and iran have vowed revenge for the strike that targeted mr haniyeh. although iran and its allies have blamed israel, the country has not claimed responsibility for his death. from doha, our senior international correspondent, orla guerin, reports. doha's largest mosque, the setting for funeral

prayers for ismail haniyeh. qatar has been his base for years. and in punishing heat, thousands came to mourn the slain leader of hamas. among the crowd, many had the same demand. we will look for revenge. yes, yes, i'm very honest with you, we will look for revenge. may i ask, do you fear now that there could be all out war in the region, that there could now be a bigger war taking place? yes we are... now it could be very danger and it could be the world war iii. but maybe that's what israel look for? and israel is widely accused of tracking him down in tehran and killing him. here he was on tuesday in the heart of the iranian regime. he didn't live to see the next morning. in hamas terms, he was

viewed as a moderate. in uk and us terms, he led a terrorist organisation. to many here, including these visitors from britain, he defended an oppressed people. i'm actually quite deeply saddened. he was a good man and he stood up for good as well. so it's a hard time for everybody. the palestinian cause is one that moves many, so it's a sad day for everyone. mourners are still arriving here, streaming in to say prayers for ismail haniyeh. his assassination has reverberated around the region. the question is, what comes next? there will be retaliation by iran, but how severe, and will things escalate into all—out regional war? for now, the main battlefield is gaza. israeli troops advancing, whatever the cost. palestinian sources say

haniyeh was pushing for a ceasefire deal before he was blown to pieces. today he was mourned, soon he'll be replaced. it's not the end of hamas. but it is one more escalation in a region nearing boiling point. orla guerin, bbc news, doha. meanwhile, as the threat of retaliation for recent strikes looms, it's causing unease and tension in israel — as jenny hill reports. it's quiet here on the streets of tel aviv, it's the sabbath so people are at home but they are uneasy. they know that potentially they are standing on the brink of a much wider regional conflict. it's worth pointing out that there have been a number of similar moments since israel launched its war on gaza following the attacks of october

the seventh, when it's look as though that war could explode into a much wider conflict. but this is without doubt a very dangerous, very significant moment, and we understand that urgent diplomacy is going on, most of it behind the scenes, to try to defuse the tension. people here will of course be keeping an eye on developments. many flights into israel and some into lebanon have been cancelled or delayed, it's reported that israeli ministers have been sent home with satellite phones for the weekend for use in the event of any kind of attack which takes out communication networks. it feels as though the world is watching the middle east right now and perhaps it's worth thinking about two groups of people whose voices have become perhaps somewhat lost on the vast geopolitics of all of this and they are of course people in gaza for whom the prospect of any kind of ceasefire now seems perhaps as remote as it ever has, and then

the families of the israeli hostages, still being held captive by hamas in gaza who know also that the chances of being reunited with their loved ones anytime soon right now seem greatly diminished. dr nader hashemi is associate professor of middle east and islamic politics at georgetown university. he gave me his assessment of the situation. i think there's going to be retaliation from iran and its allies, notjust against israel but against american forces in the region. how big of a retaliation and what form it takes, we don't know, but i think if we go back to april when we had a very similar situation, we can get a sense of what's coming. recall back then when israel targeted the iranian consulate in damascus killing several high level iranian revolutionary guard commanders. iran said it had enough of that type of behaviour and roughly two weeks later it

launched about 300 drones and missiles towards israel, most which were intercepted and they were telegraphed in advance because i think iran wanted to send a message, not expand the war, but this time i think they will have to go above and beyond what we saw in april and i suspect many of its allies in the region are going to be hitting targets as well and so that's why many of us are worried about where this is headed because we know that israel will respond and it looks like we're headed toward a major regional war. indeed, it feels like the region is on edge at the moment and as we were saying just earlier, the us says it will deploy more defensive military support for the middle east. what's your take on that? i think it represents a colossal failure of us middle east policy. i recall when biden came into power, he wanted to "reduce the american foot print in the middle east". he pulled out of afghanistan, he wanted to focus on china and other more important global

challenges, but as a direct result of the failure of us middle east policy, specifically the refusal or inability of the united states to put constraints on israel to rein it in, to establish redlines, it's being dragged back into the middle east and of course it's going to be american troops and perhaps even american citizens that are going to pay the price so this makes no sense from american national security perspective. and so it remains to be seen exactly how this is going to play out but i think the redeployment of forces by the united states into the region is essentially there to protect israel, does not bode well for stated american policy in the region and it recalls other moments — and i'm thinking of course about the iraq war when the united states entered this region hoping that it would be a short intervention but we saw the catastrophe that

that ensued, so these are the things that i'm thinking about and i think, you know, the sad thing is that in the united states where i live, none of this is really being debated. more on the developments on the bbc news website. the us defense secretary has revoked a plea deal agreed earlier this week — with the man accused of masterminding the september 11 attacks and two of his accomplices. the pre—trial deal had been reached on wednesday by the overseer of a war court at guantanamo bay. but on friday lloyd austin relieved her — saying in a statement that... the three men include khalid sheikh mohammed, who is accused of hatching the september 11 plot. they have been held at the us navy base, guantanamo bay, in cuba, for years without going to trial. according to us news outlets, the men agreed to admit

to conspiracy charges in exchange for a life sentence, instead of the death sentence. the cases against the three have been mired in decades—long controversy over whether their treatment at cia prisons compromised the evidence against them. earlier i spoke to barbara starr, senior fellow at the usc annenberg center. first of all, bring us up—to—date on how significant this decision by lloyd austin is. i think it's very significant within the national security community, and really, it is significant — it's been a lot of years since the 9/11 attacks but for so many people, for the families, for people who were at any one of those sites on that day, such as myself, i was at the pentagon, this is all still very fresh business. that plea deal came i think as a surprise. no—one had really known

about it in detail or expected it, so i think it's a move by austin to reassert his authority as the top official and i think it's really important that he's saying something like this is going to be �*my responsibility�* — his, as the secretary — to make. and he's going to do that so he moved very quickly when this all emerged. and barbara, khalid sheikh mohammed and others have been held in guantanamo bay for many, many years now. their trials haven't really been resolved. what comes next now? well, i'm not sure we know in detail because as you pointed out, one of the big questions has been, you know, and that's why i think it's been so difficult to even consider having a trial of any sort, in substance, is the quality of the evidence against them and what is admissible and what is not and how they were treated so they're in this limbo for many, many years now at guantanamo bay in cuba.

over time, there have been various discussions about moving even the so—called high—value targets to federal prisons, high security prisons in the united states but nobody has been willing, no members of congress have been willing to support that. we have seen dozens and dozens of guantanamo detainees released back to their home countries so we're down to basically a handful, they're now mainly elderly men, and it's hard to see what the road ahead is, how far this goes on. this has been going on for so long. i remember when i was based in washington many years ago listening to president obama saying that he was going to close guantanamo bay down. it still remains open and it's still quite a political issue as much as it is a national security one. i do think it is because it's not been politically possible to move them — and i emphasise politically —

to high security us federal prison. because in any one of those states, lawmakers, cities and towns, are objecting across the board and still object to having those people even in a high security prison in their community, so there's really been no movement on it. there had been hope that this was going to be a way to at least get the cases resolved but itjust doesn't look like that now because secretary of defence austin, i will tell you, he's a very thorough person and he'll have a very hard look at all of this. panama hasjoined the us in recognising the venezuela opposition candidate as president—elect. earlier mexico said america had gone too far by recognising the opposition candidate as the winner of the contested presidential race. speaking at a news conference, mexico's president, andres manuel lopez obrador,

said no country had the right to intervene in "an internal matter." he said the biden administration's stance risked creating instability in the region. venezuela's electoral commission declared mr maduro the winner with 52% of the vote. but the opposition says it independently collected results from polling stations, which show their candidate, edmundo gonzalez, far ahead with 67%. more than 1,000 anti—government protesters have been arrested since preliminary results were announced monday. maximo zaldivar, latin america regional director at the international foundation for electoral systems gave his insights to how this election will affect the political climate in venezuela. ican i can say that this has been the biggest fraud or recollection in latin america's democratic history. we saw this coming up, we saw how it was

leading as an uneven and unfair playing field for the field in venezuela, we saw candidates that got disqualified, there were limitations for people to register specifically overseas. uneven access to political financing and no international observation at all who could guarantee that the selection would be free. we saw this living up and then finally the result that we all knew that this was going to happen. if you go back to the 2018 election, those were highly questioned which was the first of maduro, if you go further backin of maduro, if you go further back in 2004 the president first recall referendum there was strong inclination is that they were invited numbers invented of the president. not only obstacles that were put in place but also the possibility that they would not respect the outcome and wreck the result. parties in lawsuits seeking damages for last years maui wildfires reached a $4 billion

global settlement friday. in a news release, hawaii governorjosh green confirmed the settlement amount and said it was reached after four months of negotiations. the settlement resolves 450 lawsuits filed by individuals, businesses and insurance companies in the state. the fires were the deadliest in us history in more than a century, killing 102 people and destroying the historic area of lahaina on maui. eight people have been arrested and three police officers taken to hospital, following violent protests in sunderland in the north of england. a police building there was attacked and the property next to it was set on fire. a mosque was also attacked. it's the latest in a series of demonstrations in a number of english towns and cities this week, after three children were fatally stabbed in southport on monday. dozens more protests are planned for this weekend in the wake of the stabbings. our correspondent, mark easton, was on the ground as protesters

caused chaos. yelling. as darkness began to fall in sunderland tonight, there were fears a violent far right protest could turn into an all—out riot. large numbers of police have been deployed across the city to deal with a wave of criminality. a police car in a side street — vandalised. around the next corner, a taxi overturned and set alight. about 400 or 500 protesters here in the centre of sunderland, we've got a police helicopter overhead, you can probably see the riot squads just getting out of their van, we've had police on horseback charging through the crowd to disperse them but it's a strange scene, to be honest, because you've got the hard right masked yobs hurling bricks at the police lines and then you've got families, all wearing england tops, cheering them along. i've seen babies in pushchairs, very small children on the march, and scores of teenagers — young boys and girls, all dressed up to their nines,

out on a friday night, just looking for a bit of excitement. there were some well—known figures from far right groups in attendance, as older men tried to co—ordinate youngsters in balaclavas, gathering missiles to throw at police officers. "head for the mosque", shouted one. hundreds of young muslim men were guarding the town's central mosque tonight as fears grew that the town might descend into major public disorder. mark easton, bbc news, sunderland. our correspondent simonjones has been following development from london. he told me what more the police have been saying about the incident. we've had an update from northumbria police. their offices were out on the street in numbers trying to quell the violence but certainly they were having trouble keeping the situation under control. officers coming under attack, people in masks throwing bottles, fire extinguishers at them, cars being set on fire. police say their officers came under serious and sustained

levels of violence. the police have described what happened in sunderland as being utterly deplorable. we know that three police officers have been taken to hospital. one has subsequently been released but the two others remain in hospital, and eight people have been arrested for things such as violent disorder and burglary. given hundreds of people were taking part in these protests, the police in the coming hours will no doubt be trying to track down others that were involved. though some of them were wearing masks so that may prove to be tricky. but certainly the police condemning what has happened and they say the protesters who were taking part in these demonstrations, that they are trying to sow unrest in society rather than trying to bring people together. and simon, we're hearing that more protests and demonstrations are planned across the weekend. just tell us more about what we know about those so far and who are the people behind

these violent protests. i think the difficulty is that it's difficult for the police to knowjust how big these protests are going to be because certainly it's been advertised on social media that there are going to be gatherings in several cities across england during the course of the weekend, and often those are being organised by far right protesters but sometimes we also see counter demonstrations, for example in liverpool in the past few hours, around 200 people surrounded a mosque saying they wanted to protect it from far right protesters. there are around 100 far right counter—protesters. but it's difficult to know how big the demonstrations are going to be, for example, one we were told was going to take place on friday morning in dover but that never materialised and then the protests we are seeing in sunderland in the past few hours, that has been very large involving hundreds of people. the message from the uk government is clear. we've had a tweet from

the british home secretary yvette cooper. i'll just read it out. she says, "criminals attacking police and "stoking disorder on our streets will pay the price "for their violence and thuggery. "the police have the full backing of government to take "the strongest possible action and ensure they face the full "force of the law. "they do not represent britain". the three americans released in a prisoner swap with russia have been flown to san antonio, texas, to undergo medical and psychological evaluations. it comes after the emotional scenes from late thursday night after they landed at joint base andrews in maryland. the swap was the largest between the west and russia in decades. after being welcomed back on us soil by the president, vice president and his family, the reporter evan gershkovich was met on the tarmac by his colleagues at the wall streetjournal, seen here with the editor in chief. on friday morning, he was of course the top story on the journal's front page, with the words:

"evan gershkovich is free." inside the paper — a message from the wall street journal. "freedom does not exist without a free press." journalist alsu kurmasheva was also freed in the deal. the head of the committee to protectjournalists is now warning that threats againstjournalists from russia are expanding beyond russia, to include reporters living in exile. most of the targeting of journalists is of domestic journalism, localjournalist, not just journalism, localjournalist, notjust inside russia but increasingly those who have gone into exile in order to be able to report freely and that is of major concern. russia has made no secret of the fact that it is prepared even to poison and kill its enemies abroad and thatis and kill its enemies abroad and that is a concern for us for journalists who are in act sale. paul whelan, the former us marine, was held in a russian prison the longest of the three, having served some 5.5 years. earlier my colleague carl nasman spoke with congresswoman haley stevens,

a democrat from michigan where paul whelan is one of her constituents. i have not spoken to paul but i am elated, overjoyed, that the community is rejoicing, certainly in terms of the family. respecting paul is probably inundated and at the meeting and you heard him yesterday say that he wanted to have a steak dinner. he's —— i am hoping that paul whelan got his steak dinner after 2048 daysin his steak dinner after 2048 days in detention in russia. it isjust days in detention in russia. it is just remarkable perseverance, we never lost faith and honest three is a go to the day i had a press conference with some colleagues in front of the capital calling out russia to release all and yesterday he was finally home and it was amazing to see him.

his incredible sister elizabeth who worked so hard and i cannot wait to see him with his family and we are going to continue to be here for him as he built his life. meanwhile president biden is facing criticism from the family of another american who was left out of the deal. mark fogel is a school—teacher from pennsylvania. he was detained at a russian airport in 2021, where he was found to be carrying medical marijuana. you can see his luggage being searched on the right. he is now serving a 14—year sentence. mr fogel�*s family said in a statement... president biden responded to reporters�* questions about mr fogel, saying the white house will continue to pressure russia on his release, but did not give any details. friday was a day of records at the paris olympics. great britain continued their most successful start to a summer olympics as they collected three gold medals on day seven.

they came first in trampolining, showjumping and rowing, meaning team gb have nine golds after seven days at the games — the most successful start at a summer olympics. french swimmer leon marchand won his fourth gold medal friday, setting an olympic record in the 200—meter individual medley. his time beat the previous record set by michael phelps at the beijing olympics. and team usa sprinters set a new world record in the 4x400 metres mixed relay during the race's opening heats. aerosmith are officially retiring from touring, as frontman steve tyler struggles to recover from a vocal injury he suffered last year. the band, known for hits including dream on and walk this way, cancelled dates on their farewell tour last september after tyler fractured his larynx. the band says it's now clear a full recovery is not possible and so they've made the heartbreaking decision

that's it for the moment, stay with us. hello there. much of central, southern, and eastern england yet again saw another warm and very humid day. but as we move through the weekend, certainly after saturday, it'll be fresher for all, with pleasant conditions in the south. but there will be rain at times, particularly across northern and western areas, thanks to atlantic low pressure systems. so, we start saturday off with this weather front that's been crossing the country, taking the cloud and any showers with it and the warm air. so, into saturday afternoon, it'll be much fresher across the south and east. a bright day for many with sunshine and blustery showers — these mainly across scotland and northern ireland, where it will be quite windy. mid—to—high—teens here, but much fresher across the south — 21—24 celsius with lower humidity. that takes us then into saturday night, which will be a cooler, fresher one for many. cloud building out west as the next weather front starts to approach scotland and northern ireland. it'll be a fresher night to come — 8—12 celsius across the south. now, this ridge of high pressure will build in for sunday —

that will bring fine weather for england and wales. next low pressure system will start to push into scotland and northern ireland through the day, the winds picking up here, the cloud building, outbreaks of rain pushing into northern ireland and western scotland. but for eastern scotland, much of england and wales will see variable clouds, some good sunny spells — best of the sunshine towards the southeast corner, and it will feel very pleasant, with 23—24 celsius here with lower humidity, high teens further north with the wind and the rain. we tap into some warmth and humidity again into monday — this moving off france into much of the midlands, southern and eastern england. so here, a warm and humid, rather sunny day — further north and west, very different, windy, cloudy outbreaks are pretty heavy and persistent rain for northern ireland, southern and western scotland. could give rise to some localised flooding in places, but a warmer day to come even further north — we could be up to the mid—to—high—205 again across the southeast. that weather front eventually starts to push across the country on tuesday, eventually reaching the east and southeast with a few showers as it weakens and moves off into the north sea.

and then, it introduces fresher air to much of the country once again. a bright day to come for northern and western areas with some sunshine — vast improvement to how monday is looking. 19—24 celsius from northwest to southeast. as we move through the new week, it looks like much of the north and west of the country will see the wind and rain at times — whereas, further south and east you are, tending to stay warmer, drier, and sunnier.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. hello and welcome to the media show, with me, katie razzall. on this week's programme... rupert murdoch's legal battle to keep editorial control of his outlets even after his death. also, the furore around the dance competition strictly come dancing, and the downfall of one of the bbc�*s most high—profile former presenters. rupert murdoch is locked in a legal battle with three of his children over the editorial stance of his outlets after his death. the up—to—now secret court case was revealed by the new york times. on the show, i spoke to claire atkinson, who's writing a biography of rupert murdoch, and first tojim rutenberg, the writer at the new york times

who broke the story.