live from washington, this is bbc news. vigils are held for the four people killed in a shooting at a teenage birthday party in alabama. more fighting in sudan with 97 people killed and hundreds injured in battles this weekend. and countdown to blast off as spacex prepares to launch its mammoth rocket starship. hello, i'm carl nasman. great to have you with us. we start here in the us, where vigils have been taking place to remember the four people killed and 28 injured in a mass shooting at a birthday party in dadeville, in the state of alabama.

as of right now, there's no official confirmation as to what led to the shooting but president biden has described it as "outrageous" and "unacceptable". one of the four killed has been identified as philstavious dowdell by local media. he was a standout high school athlete and was planning to attend jacksonville state university on an american football scholarship. earlier, alabama police gave this update on the victims. some of those injuries are critical, they are in critical condition, and that's why it's so important we absolutely need everyone to continue to pray for those individuals to allow them to recover from what they're enduring, as well as their families. earlier, i spoke to our correspondentjessica parker, who is in dadeville, alabama. jessica, i understand you have just arrived there. can you give us a sense of how the community is reacting?

yeah, well, we arrived just as a vigil had been taking place just up the road from here in a kind of parking area and dozens and dozens of people from the local community were there, and you could really tell what a tight—knit community this is. it is a small town here in rural alabama and lots of people were talking to each other, hugging each other. we did see young people very visibly upset. obviously, a lot of people will have known the victims of last night's shooting. and that is the dance studio where, as we understand it, the shooting took place last night. i don't know quite how much you can see behind me but there's actually no police tape up there now — the door is sealed off and you can see some bullet holes in the glass there — but actually looking pretty low—key tonight after last night's terrible events,

where, as you were saying, we know four people have lost their lives and 28 people injured. the authorities earlier, when they were saying with regards those injured, some are any critical conditions, others they suggested have much more minor injuries. but what's also been quite striking is really the lack of detail we have been getting from the authorities about what happened here last night, how the shooting came to an end or where any suspects may be. certainly, a community in grieving tonight. and this is not, of course, the first shooting that we have seen this year — there have been a string of mass shootings in the united states. can you put this tragedy in alabama into context for us? yes, so, there have been an increasing number of mass shootings in the united states in recent years — well over 140 taking place in 2023 alone across america — and it has led to, again, that kind of soul—searching debate among some as to

whether more should be done in terms of gun control. but as you were just reflecting, the president, joe biden — of course, a democrat — has again voiced his frustration. he has wanted to push for more restrictions on arms but then, of course, there are people who are quite resistant to that idea. they believe in the right to bear arms as per the second amendment and are very against further gun control. but it is, of course, a debate we have talked about before, gets discussed before, it is something that is talked about after these types of mass shootings. but i think this community here tonight, from what i could gather talking to people earlier, that is not something they are particularly talking about right as of right now because they are still very much in the process of grief. our correspondentjessica parker in dadeville for us tonight. thank you very much. well, the governor of alabama, kay ivey, is a strong supporter of second amendment rights and last year signed a law ending the requirement to obtain a

permit to carry a concealed handgun in public. as part of her campaign to be re—elected as governor four years ago, she released this video. man, i'm sick of those dc politicians. me too. that's why i like governor ivey. she is honest. tough as nails. nothing dc about her. she sure cleaned up that bentley mess. protected our monuments. she's breaking records ofjobs creation. president trump said kay ivey is a great governor. the woman knows how to get a bang for her buck. straight shooter, that kay ivey. yeah, puts your aim to shame. yeah, look who's talking. a bit more context now. earlier, i spoke with faith in action alabama community organizer, muaath al—khattab, who shed some light on how the shooting has impacted the state. what were your thoughts when you first heard about what took place at this birthday party in your home state? thanks for having me, and i just want to say on behalf of faith in action

alabama, oursincere condolences to those who are grieving and those affected in dadeville. our prayers are with them and we pray they are consoled and they find closure. my first thought was, i mean, this is a horrible tragedy, of course. i really felt for the victims and those people who were traumatised from the shooting in dadeville, and i just felt really sad that this keeps happening and that they had to experience this at a time that it was supposed to be a celebration. we heard from our correspondent who is there, just talking a little bit about how the community has been coming together. this is a small town — 3000 people living there. in your experience as a community organiser, what do these sorts of shootings do? how do they affect a small city like dadeville? i would think that it — people are definitely shocked and traumatised and i think people are probably in a state of disbelief.

and it also is possibly something that will bring the community together, the bond together, and try to lean on one another in this tragic time. muuath, you are an anti—violence organiser. you are in a state, however, where the governor, as we just heard, is an outspoken proponent of gun rights. what is the discussion like in alabama when it comes to gun rights versus gun control? well, i will say from our perspective, for faith in action alabama, we concentrate on violence intervention and so, different people have their views on gun rights, you know, on both sides of the aisle. we concentrate on community violence intervention specifically, so anti—gun violence. from your perspective, is there anything that can be

done to try to reduce these types of shootings or also, just the day—to—day gun violence that is often seen in communities across the country? absolutely. i believe that really, what needs to happen is people need to come together, relationships need to be built and strengthened. there needs to be implementation of actual proven ways to reduce gun violence by intervening and interrupting that violence. we've heard many republicans recently, including former president donald trump, who was speaking at the national rifle association conference at the weekend, and they have been framing — many republicans — framing this as not necessarily a problem with guns but a problem with violent behaviour itself. what's your response to that? my response is our aim is really to reach the people.

there are ways in which people who are either at risk of committing gun violence or at risk of being affected by gun violence can be redirected. there may be some cases where there are some behavioural issues, some mental issues, so i think that is really what should be concentrated on in a way to reduce the shootings across the state and the nation. recently, the republican governor in tennessee approved stricter background checks on guns after a mass shooting in his state a few days ago. is there any chance of similar action happening in alabama, do you think? your guess is as good as mine. it's possible. imean... the... i will say anything is possible. what's probable is another story. so, probably have to reach out to the lawmakers and see what are their thoughts on this issue.

muaath al—khattab as an anti—violence organiser in alabama, where we are following the story of that mass shooting in dadeville. thank you forjoining us. thank you for having me. let's turn to sudan. the country's military is patrolling the capital khartoum, where a power struggle with a rival paramilitary force has entered a third day. so far, 97 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the violence. these two men are at the heart of it all — the head of the sudanese army and the leader of the country's biggest paramilitary group, known as the rapid support forces, or rsf. they're both now vying for dominance after leading the two main factions in the ruling military regime. but caught in the middle is sudan's population of around 50 million people. many are displaced and millions need humanitarian help. hamid khalafallah is a fellow at the tahrir institute for the middle east policy.

—— for middle east policy. he is based in khartoum and sent us this video earlier, describing what life is like for him and his fellow residents. as the fighting between the sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces paramilitary continues, sudanese people continue to live in very dire and difficult situations with, you know, tension and stress reaching very high levels. citizens are staying in their houses — for those who have access to that — and trying to seek safety and sheltering from all the bombing and all of the gunfire taking place out in the streets, even in residential areas. but also facing other difficult situations in terms of blackout — electricity has been out in most neighbourhoods for the past 30 hours or so — water is even also out in most

neighbourhoods, and so on, and food supplies are running low at different houses because it's difficult to go out and get food supplies, given the violent clashes taking place everywhere. situation continues to be very difficult for the second day and the news about international mediation on the way, it's very important and very needed for these initiatives to be well co—ordinated and also very urgent. live now to nairobi, and i'mjoined by bbc seniorjournalist, emmanuel igunza. thank you so much forjoining us. firstly, what is the latest your hearing about the situation going on right now in sudan? . sudan? yeah, the fighting continues. _ sudan? yeah, the fighting continues. there - sudan? yeah, the fighting continues. there was - sudan? yeah, the fighting continues. there was a . sudan? yeah, the fighting l continues. there was a brief

ceasefire that was negotiated by the un to allow for many hundreds of people who have been injured to get medical attention but that quickly collapsed dramatically as the fighting continued, particularly in centres in the capital khartoum, we've been hearing reports of heavy explosions and gunfire continuing overnight into today. this is the third day of violence. i heard many people are not prepared for the fighting, many people are stuck in their homes and do not have enough food or water, electricity has been cut off so quite a dire situation and we expect the death toll, what we're hearing from the doctors union there, that the death toll may rise even further because so many people are injured and so many people main unaccounted for because of this fighting which has now spread to other places outside the capital khartoum. watmore are ou capital khartoum. watmore are you hearing? — capital khartoum. watmore are you hearing? you _ capital khartoum. watmore are you hearing? you mentioned i you hearing? you mentioned about how the sudanese people are coping, there is difficulty

is even finding food and water and the people really did not seem prepared for what ended up waking up in terms of the level of violence. —— breaking out. it's a really dire situation and remember this is a country thatis and remember this is a country that is particularly in the horn of africa and the horn of africa silently is experiencing a severe drought, there are many people in need of humanitarian assistance —— currently is experiencing. it's now been cut off. some of the casualties include humanitarian workers. some of the humanitarian activities have been cut off and have been slowed down because there is simply no access because of the heavy fighting that is ongoing. there is of course a lot of international pressure on the leaders, the military leaders, albert hahn and takato to stop the fighting and to go into negotiations to try to put the country back on the path of course it had been going on for

taking suydam back to civilian rule but it's a very clear how this will happen because both sides remain inaudible in how they want to solve the crisis —— al—burhan and dagalo.. we fed regional leaders in south sudan, kenya and their counterparts will be heading to saddam and also the african union as part of the regional international efforts to try and bring out some sort of calm and bring out some sort of calm and bring out some sort of calm and bring the parties together —— heading to sudan. but at the moment the situation remains very, very fluid and many people are still stuck in their homes and there is concern that if this violence continues between these warring factions, the military factions, this could turn into a civil war. ijust want i just want to ask you, because you brought up the efforts by those regional leaders to try to put an end to this violence and get the country back on track to that process toward civilian rule. how effective

might those leaders be in terms of that effort to push for peace now in the country? it is not very clear _ peace now in the country? it is not very clear because - peace now in the country? it 3 not very clear because these talks to end the military rule in sudan have been going on for many, many months and a stumbling block has been these military factions. they have not agreed on the integration of the rapid support forces into the national army. 0n of the rapid support forces into the national army. on one end of they say it should be dissolved immediately and then over a period of maybe two years, but inaudible want that pillar to be ten years. there is also that big question of who will lead the military once it is unified. the army has different opinions that it wants a civilian to be in charge so there is a huge

gap between these two factions about how the security operators will operate once the military is unified but then also there is the concern that they've missed very many deadlines in terms of bringing the country back to civilian rule and if his fighting does continue then it will destabilise the country completely.— destabilise the country comletel. “ ~ , ., completely. bbc africa senior journalist. — completely. bbc africa senior journalist, thank _ completely. bbc africa senior journalist, thank you - completely. bbc africa senior journalist, thank you so - completely. bbc africa senior| journalist, thank you so much. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. helen gallagher was desperate for a child, but after years of trying she decided to put her attention to living her best life childless. we tried to have children and they put it down to unexplained infertility. we went for ivf but the marriage started to break down. she started a blog and podcast in hopes of finding other adults in a similar situation. you become really isolated,

you look on social media and there are accounts, but nothing for me. the podcast has led to an app connecting helen with other adults who also can't have children. connecting her to other adults around the world like tansy in new zealand. having people understand what it's like to go through that and understand that feeling of loss. how is helen getting on? now i've accepted it, it was a hard process and i deserve to be happy, i deserve to be moving forward and live a happy life, which is exactly what i'm doing now. you're live with bbc news. to an event in moscow — where china's defence minister has met vladimir putin. li shang—fu told the russian president china is willing to strengthen multilateral coordination between the two countries — and that both countries will work together to help the �*maintenance

of world and regional security. what should we make of that? certainly not going to be welcomed from the international community as you can imagine. this is exactly what they haven't wanted to hear and we've talked a lot about oil but this does seem to be an escalation when it comes to literary partnership. i have heard that it is going to be no limits to this and they are going to engage militarily when it comes to sharing information as well as completing joint exercises. they say this is already happening, the kremlin does, in europe as well as far asia and that this is occurring when it comes to naval exercises on the ground as well as air. vladimir putin for his part has lauded the relationship. we heard for example yesterday from russia that they are now collaborating

when it comes to the economy, social issues, even education, so this is really a stepping up in this relationship which has been so feared by the international community. it is a very interesting visit, it is the first that li shangfu has made since he was appointed defence ministerjust last month and it's the fact it's the first foreign trip he's made is really quite symbolic and won't be welcome news to the international community. it wasn't clear as he was going to go as high up as vladimir putin on this trip but we heard as well from kyiv on friday saying they are finding evidence of chinese shrapnel in warfare that they have found there, we have heard china has repeatedly denied supplying any weaponry to russia's effort but we have also heard as well from nato in the us that they have no evidence of this. so we are going to have to wait and see exactly what the extent of this military partnership is going to look like. you mentioned that this was actually the first trip by the chinese defence minister, just additionally since the war in ukraine began chinese

leaders have met personally with vladimir putin several times. they have yet, however, to meet with volodymyr zelensky. what should we make of that? yes, and volodymyr zelensky are remember called on china's leader as well saying he would like to meet xi jinping. it does seem that china is marking where it stands quite clearly. we saw for example last month a three day visit to moscow by xijinping and there they inked more than a dozen agreements across everything from trade to propaganda, and they called each other, indeed, "dear friends" and talked about the importance of this relationship for both. this comes at a bad time really when it comes to the international community's pressure on china. just last night and here in asia we had the meeting of the foreign ministers for the g7. that is a three day meeting. we heard from the eu's top foreign—policy executive joseph borel. he called on china, really,

to mark its place in the sand saying that china can choose if it wants to be friends with the us and international if it wants to pursue partnership or instead take a more aggressive route when it comes to aspects such as taiwan and it seems this provocative announcement that comes at such a fraught time does seem indeed that china is perhaps choosing its path. katie silva, thank you so much. dissident farc rebels who rejected a peace deal with the colombian government in 2016 have said they are ready to begin negotiations to end decades of conflict. the leader of the group estado mayor central — representing more than 3,000 leftist rebels — said the talks would begin in a month's time. he suggested norway as a site for the negotiations after its role in the original peace deal. colombia's left—wing president, gustavo petro, has promised to bring total peace to the country through dialogue with its remaining rebel groups.

a spoke earlier to the former us ambassador to colombia, kevin whitaker. this is a recurring pattern in columbia and one that actually i think is a laudable ambition, and the idea is to come up with a comprehensive solution that brings in all of the armed groups. it has really been going on since the 80s and through the 90s, practically every president of columbia over the last a0 years has embarked on this kind of negotiation. the problem is that the underlying conditions which have resulted in this kind of criminality, especially in the countryside, continue to exist. this is the lack of government presence, the lack of infrastructure and economic opportunities, and a lack of the basic services provided by government including health and education. without those, the basic conditions for criminal groups to move in and undertake these kinds of activities will continue to exist.

elon musk and his spacex team are preparing to launch what is described as a mammoth rocket named starship into space on monday. the stainless steel machine is 394 feet tall — more than twice the height of a nasa space shuttle. the rocket and spacecraft combination can hold more than 100 people. i spoke with former nasa astronaut and chemical engineer leroy chiao to get a sense of what to expect during tomorrow's launch. first of all, spacex have launched rockets before stopping what makes this one in particular so exciting? well, this is by far the biggest rocket that will ever attempt to fly. it actually generates much more thrust, more than twice the thrust of the satin moon rockets from the apollo programme long ago and it is going to carry as its payload the first starship prototype to fly and it's going to make it almost all the way around one orbit but then it is going to

come back down and splashdown near hawaii so this will be the first all up test of the starship cosmic system including the falcon super heavy booster so it is really exciting, 33 clustered engines in the first stage. this is going to be pretty historic. so this is historic, it's a powerful rocket, it is a large, enormous rocket. what is it designed to do? why does it have to be so big and so powerful? spacex has designed the starship to be fully reusable, that is really an important point and also elon musk of course, he says he started spacex all those years ago because he himself wants to travel to mars and wants to establish human colonies on mars, therefore that is what starship is designed for. it is being designed so that a version of it in the future would be undertake about 100 people at a time to mars. so this is the first launch of this vehicle, nothing else like it has ever been attempted

before so a very exciting thing to be happening hopefully tomorrow. thank you very much for watching, stay with us right here on bbc news. hello. it was a drier weekend for many. still quite a bit of cloud around, but in the sunshine we saw temperatures reached just about 19 degrees celsius in northern ireland. that's the warmest day of the year so far. and we could see the high teens again during the day on monday, the start of the week, certainly a little warmer with some sunshine. and on the whole, it's a drier week ahead, but there will be some showers around. and as this high pressurejust drifts a little bit further northwards, we introduce more isobars, tightly packed lines here, stronger winds and one or two showers as well. and that keen easterly wind coming off the chilly north sea will be noticeable,

particularly across the eastern half of the country. but as we go through the remainder of the night, its low cloud, mist and fog with generally light winds and a few showers here and there. so largely frost free, just a little bit chilly where we keep the clear skies and they could, as i say, could well be some fog around first thing on monday morning with some fog over the hills as well as that. so generally quite leaden skies, but brightening — the april sunshine strong now, pushing the showers away, breaking the cloud up, butjust enough still for the odd shower here and there. but where we see the lengthy spells of sunshine, 17 or 18 on the cards, again, perhaps central and eastern areas up towards northern scotland, northern ireland once again. but as we go through the evening and overnight, we start to pick up a bit more of an easterly breeze, as you can see, coming off the north sea, just ushering in some lower clouds, some sea air and fret on the east coast and foggy conditions around first thing on tuesday morning under this slack ridge of high pressure in the north. and it's the north, scotland, northern ireland, where we keep that high pressure for longest. in the south, we've got this little weather front starting to make its way across from

the low countries to increase the risk of cloud on tuesday showers on wednesday, but it's that keen north wind, sorry, that keen east wind coming off the north sea that we are going to notice because at this time of year our sea temperatures are about as low as they get. so while inland, we'll see temperatures getting up into the mid possibly high teens, you can seejust on the coast, they'll be pegged back because of those cold waters of the north sea. into wednesday, we've still got these tightly packed bars, brisk winds pushing in, a few showers as well. and that risk continues, particularly across the southern half of england, wales through the rest of the week. so after warmish start, still a lot of dry weather, but temperatures just tapering off a little. more online.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. west africa's the hell region has long faced enormous challenges, poor governance, extreme poverty and environmental degradation, to name but three —— sahel. but it also has a proud tradition of giving cultural riches to the world and my guest