this is bbc news, the headlines. a ceasefire�*s supposed to have come into effect in the gaza strip. it follows five days of violent exchanges which have killed at least 35 people — all but one of them palestinians. a series of airstrikes from israel aimed at islamichhad militants in gaza began on tuesday. pope francis and president zelensky have held talks at the vatican — with both men agreeing on the need for continuing humanitarian efforts to support ukraine's population. while failing to directly condemn russia — the pope stressed the urgent need for "human gestures" towards the most fragile people. the eurovision song contest grand final has got underway in the english city of liverpool. acts from 26 countries will vie for the title. the united kingdom is hosting eurovision on behalf of last

year's winners ukraine — who can't stage it because of the war with russia. now on bbc news it is time for amol rajan interviewing richard branson. hi. yes. hello. my goodness. wow. the shy schoolboy who became a global celebrity. sir richard branson is a very british bundle of contradictions. the dyslexic who set up a student magazine, the record label founder who didn't listen to music, the 60s hippie who became a multi—billionaire. today he's got his own island and his brand has dozens of companies to its name, from virgin atlantic to galactic. but after five decades in business, reinventing whole industries,

sir richard branson has been tested as never before, both financially and emotionally. the pandemic left the 72—year—old fighting to save his empire and his reputation. he's faced questions over how he's used women to promote his brand. and sceptics have asked why someone who campaigns on climate change is sending rockets into space. the original rebel entrepreneur continues to grab the headlines and confound his critics. i've come to miami to hear the whole story. sir richard branson, thank you so much for speaking to me and to the bbc. how are you? i'm good. i always think sitting down to do interviews like this is a bit like, i've never been in

a psychiatrist chair, it's a bit like being in a psychiatrist chair me of course, i'm nervous, but i see how you are in an hour. just to be clear. you've not seen or approved the questions in advance. nothing's off the table, right? i'm afraid. i'm afraid that's the case. i've got. no. you'd be much less nervous if it wasn't the case if you google richard branson, the thing that comes up in the author search is net worth. i mean, people are obsessed with the fortunes of the rich and famous. it's very rude to ask a man how much he's worth. so i'm not going to do that. so let me ask sid, how much did you lose through the pandemic? did you lose a lot of money personally in trying to save your companies? the answer is yes. i mean, obviously it cost us a big percentage of our net worth, maybe a billion and a half. and yeah, so there was a time where it really looked like we were going to lose everything. we had 50, 60 planes all on the ground at heathrow and gatwick and in sydney and melbourne and brisbane. and the health clubs all closed, the hotels all closed. and the worst would have been 60,000 people out in the streets.

we sold shares in companies that were public, and that was one way we managed to find money and most jobs were saved as a result. but personally, i was fortunate in that our kids managed to get to the island and our grandkids got to the island. and so although i experienced maybe a couple of months of what people must feel when they're pretty low, and i never experienced that before my life. do you mean that for the first time in your life you were depressed? yeah, i was certainly certainly a little depressed. but, you know, talking about net worth, i mean, you know, one of the things i suppose, if i resent anything in life is the tag billionaire. i think people don't address you by your net worth they call you by your name. yeah. and what i've spent my lifetime doing is building ventures that hopefully will make a really positive difference

to people's lives. in the past, you've written in your book that reputation is everything, and your reputation took a bit of a hit during that early phase in the pandemic because senior members of your team had written to the government saying that they needed hundreds of millions of pounds in a government loan to save the company and save your airline. and yet there was coverage, people saying, hang on, branson is a billionaire. he lives on an island in the caribbean. you know, surely he can find the money. i'd never really had any coverage, quite as painful as that, really. and it's complicated. so it's difficult to explain to people when everybody�*s hurting. i mean, there were pretty well no families that weren't hurting. but what we were concerned to do was try to get government support, as happened in america, as happened in france, as happened italy, not gifts from government, but underwriting loans so that the cost to the airline going forward was not

going to be prohibitive. it's interesting, given the given your very interesting relationship with the media over 50 years, that you should say you've never had such sort of negative coverage. do you think that's just because you're the face of your airline in a way that british airways doesn't have a face? do you think that's why they said, let's go after richard? i think there's an element of that. i mean, i get you know, i would say that 99% of the coverage i've had in my lifetime has been fair. i mean, i've occasionally had criticisms, but i would say they were fair criticisms. and it's quite rare to have had a major knock. but i think i remember freddie laker once saying to me, the way to deal with press backlash is prove them wrong. and what we ended up doing was just getting on and proving that our teams were good enough to come bouncing back. someone who i who i spoke to, who you worked with said if you hadn't called the company virgin, you might have called it phoenix because you've often phoenix from the ashes,

like you have bounced back and you flew into space. three, two, one. release, release. release. in a life full of extraordinary experiences. where did that rank? i've had a lot of pinch me moments in my life, but that definitely culminated them all. that incredible moment where you just unbuckle and you just drift out of your seat and float up to the ceiling and look down. and there are other young people just going swimming, swimming through the air beneath you. and then beneath them is the earth. and that spectacular view through those spectacular windows. and obviously, look, we'd had 18 years to get to that point. we'd had tears. but this was definitely a day ofjoy and incredible moment, having spent so many years building it and realises that, you know, there will be in over the next hundred years, thousands of people are going to be able to have that same experience.

is that the thing? because i was going to ask you, why is space travel a good use of your time and money? prince william says when he launched the earthshot prize, he said we need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live. i've just been to kenya with bill gates, your dear friend. he's quoted on the front of your book, and he said that spending a lot of money on space travel, when you can save a kids life who's got malaria with $1,000, was not a good use of money. what do you say to them? and would you say also to those who say that given climate change is one of your top priorities, why are you sending rockets into space? i100% agree with them that we've got to concentrate on dealing with a whole lot of issues in this world. and most of my life is now spent on tackling a whole raft of different issues in the world. and i think some of those issues are made easier to deal with by the fact that i have been to space so i can now pick up the phone to pretty well

anybody in the world, get through, cut through the red tape and hopefully get things sorted. but having said that, space travel itself is incredibly important for this earth. communication between people is being transformed because of space travel and satellites up there monitoring things like the depredation of the rainforests or illegal fishing, has been transformed by satellites up there. all these, the kinds of benefits that come from space travel. critics say the environmental impact of space tourism could undo decades of work to repair the ozone layer and have a greater effect on the climate than the aviation industry. what virgin and our principal competitors have managed to do is bring the environmental costs of space travel down dramatically in terms of carbon cost. now, that is a thousand times less than it used to take nasa to put people into space, and that will come down even further.

you can't and shouldn't stop progress through progress. you get the breakthroughs. you can never be quite sure what breakthrough you're going to get, but you get these breakthroughs and that will benefit the earth. let's come down to earth then and go back in time to your to your childhood. you've often talked about its comfort, and i think maybe it's because you don't want to hide the fact that you were born into a comfortable and bucolic childhood. but your childhood did have huge challenges, didn't it? and you were sent away to boarding school at seven. you know, my son winston is seven in a few months and he could barely tie his shoe laces. i mean, he's a great kid, but the idea of him going off to boarding school at seven seems rather cruel in retrospect, doesn't it? i know that my parents sent me to boarding school because they thought that that was the best thing. best thing for me. and that was the way to bring us up tough. and my mother would say not to modelling you at home, but i think it was wrong. i mean, we would never do it with our kids or our grandkids. i remember distinctly, i was seven and a half throwing up

the first night and the matron coming in and telling me i had to mop up the sheets myself. and that is a bit much for a seven and a half —year—old. yeah, not good. fortunately, i think things have changed a little bit since those days. they have, notjust in terms of where we send kids away, but also our understanding of minds. when you were growing up, the word entrepreneur had barely entered the lexicon and the word dyslexia even less so. you talk now about your dyslexia as a superpower, which we'll get onto. butjust before we talk about it, as a superpower, people should understand when they're thinking about your story, that at school you were beaten, you received corporal punishment of beatings for being stupid. what happened exactly? oh, yeah, we got beaten all the time. and yeah, as a dyslexic, i thought, i must be stupid.

because, you know, they'd never heard of the word, dyslexia didn't exist. you hid those beatings from your mum, didn't you? i don't know. i may have. yeah. i don't think i don't think i would have mentioned it to her. most likely. greta thunberg told me that her asperger�*s was her superpower. why is dyslexia your superpower? with people who are dyslexic, they're apt to succeed at things that they are good at. and they become very good delegators at things that they're not not good at. for me, one of the best things about being dyslexic was that the things i was good at, ie finding out what was going on in the world, reading about the vietnamese war, the biafran war led me to decide

to start a magazine, which is quite strange for a dyslexic person to have done. launched in 1968, student was a national magazine for young people. to help overcome his dyslexia, sir richard would interview some of the most articulate people in the world, from jean—paul sartre to james baldwin, and then publish those recordings word for word. when the headmaster said to me, "you're either going to have to run "the magazine and leave the school or not run the magazine and get "on with your schoolwork." it was an easy decision. i decided to say, thank you. i'm off. so if i hadn't been dyslexic, i most likely wouldn't have left school at 15—16 years old, and my life would have been very different. dyslexia has become a superpower because i think i've become a really good delegator. i find great people. i surround myself with wonderful people. hello, how are you? nice to see you. more than 1,000 of branson�*s people were on board one of his cruise ships,

the valiant lady, when we joined him hours before the boat set off for the caribbean. good to see you. nice to see you. richard entered the cruise ship business in 2021 with the first sailing of virgin voyages. one of the big things that you've spoken about throughout your career is about hiring, well, you know, bringing together the right people. and you've got a very particular, i can see it walking round here, you've got a very particular philosophy of hiring that you hire from within. why did you do that? well, we look we look for character rather than, you know, somebody�*s cv. obviously, if you hire from within, you're going to know somebody�*s good points and bad points before you take them on. and there's a danger that if you bring somebody in, a so—called expert from outside, they will be a horrible mistake and they will be bad with people and they'll mess up a happy company. and that's the last thing we want.

it's so interesting you say that about cvs, because i think you may know i've got a big interest in social mobility and helping kids from poorer backgrounds try and get into elite professions. and the story they all they all feel that they're sold is that if you really want to make it as an entrepreneur, if you want to come to a place like miami, you need to pass ever more exams. you need to go to university, you need to graduate. that's not true, is it? i think it depends what profession you're trying to get into. obviously, if you want to become a doctor, you know you had to go to university. but if you want to be an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur is simply coming up with an idea to make other people's lives better and then getting on and. ..and doing it and trying it. and universities are not going to be able to teach you that that well. so people who can't get into university, a really good alternative for them is to just try setting up a small little

business, you know, see how it goes. if it doesn't work out, try again until they succeed. and the young people from all around the uk who say to me, because they're not from london and they've got strong accents and they're very paranoid about their accent, they may come from rural somerset or hull or mansfield, and they say that they're worried that if you sound like them, it's going to hold them back. honestly, will it hold them back? no, i really don't think so. anyway, my wife's glaswegian accent is half of what i found so attractive about the other half. i won't go into details of it. but anyway, i think honestly it shouldn't matter. i don't think it does generally matter. there may be some snooty british companies still left that that where it might make a difference. i doubt it. nice to meet you. good to see you. hello. how are you? have a great voyage for having us. yeah, richard. nice to meet you. this guy's a rock star. and is it any wonder? he's learnt from the best.

by the early 1970s, sir richard was immersed in the music world, first with a mail order record business and then a virgin store. before long, he had his own label and recording studio. the manor. mike 0ldfield's tubular bells was the first big hit, selling more than 5 million copies. in the following years, everyone from the rolling stones to culture club to janet jackson were laying down tracks for virgin records. just to evoke that era for us. would you? what was it like? mike oldfield turns up and the sex pistols walk in and phil collins and genesis are down the road. because it must have been exhilarating. it was exhilarating. it was. it was a wonderful era of bands could come and record all night and sleep all day. and that was just tremendously exciting. it was great to be to be young and alive at that time.

it was at the manor that sir richard met his future wife, joan, with whom he would have children, holly and sam living on a houseboat to save cash. he was on the hunt for something bigger, much bigger. in 1978, he bought necker island in the caribbean sea for $180,000. it would eventually become his home and a holiday resort. but it proved controversial, with some claiming that by making it his place of residence, sir richard has been able to avoid taxes. his critics argue he should pay. you've lived in the caribbean on your own island. necker island for some of the year, for many years. and you've also been open about using legal means. and they are legal means, to keep your tax bill down so that your companies remain competitive and you've contributed millions in tax over the years to many differentjurisdictions. but still, tax avoidance, which is legal, may not be illegal, but is it immoral?

just your question, i slightly resent. to tell you exactly as it is. i started with £200 from a necklace that my mum found and we sold. i have paid literally billions and our companies pay billions in taxes over the years and we've created over the whole time maybe a million and a halfjobs. and obviously a lot of those people have moved on to other otherjobs. but a lot ofjobs. the reason i live on necker was i fell in love with a lovely lady when i was 28. and i fell in love with a beautiful island. and i live on necker because it's the most beautiful place in the world to live. i've worked extremely hard for many years, and i now now use necker as a base. the personal money that i earn, i give all to charities, you know. so, like, all i can say is we have paid billions and billions in taxes over the years and we'll continue to do so. and our companies pay taxes in whichever country and whichever

jurisdiction they're based. you've taken on some very powerfulfigures. how does somebody know when you dislike them? is itjust that richard branson comes after their business and sort of really pursues them very aggressively? how does someone know when richard branson is coming after them? we're a fairly open book. i think they'll know that we're coming. and generally speaking, i think you'll find that the bigger business benefits from the smaller competitor coming after them, because they have to respond. they have to react. i remember, you know, british airways once sent out a memo saying whatever virgin does, we must we must copy it within a month. and, you know, i respect that. i mean, that's good business sense because we were innovating all the time. i mean, like, you know, seat back videos. we were the first to put seat back videos on our planes. but it wasn'tjust innovation that got sir richard branson attention tonight with richard branson back in london after his record breaking transatlantic run, the virgin publicity bandwagon

is under full steam. from speedboat crossings to record breaking balloon attempts. his adventures secured him headlines and more than a few brushes with death. good evening. richard branson's transatlantic balloon flight has ended - in high drama tonight. he and his co—pilot, per lindstrom, had abandoned the giant _ virgin atlantic flyer and landed in the sea off the west - coast of scotland. why are you so addicted to danger? i'm certainly not addicted to danger and i'm certainly not craving death. richard, how can i put this to you? i mean, it was at the back of your book, you've got 75, no, 79 near—death experiences. i think that's the first thing you say, which i'm going to actually go so far as to say i disagree with and i am going to correct you on that. someone who flies air balloons across oceans... i don't need to tell you, but somebody does. some of the things that you've done and that you're famous for is a bit addicted to danger, with all due respect.

so i will still take issue. i'm not addicted to death and i'm not addicted to danger. what i am addicted to is to actually say yes to things. and i'm addicted to challenging myself and seeing what i'm capable of. and if somebody comes along to me and says, "nobody has crossed the atlantic in a hot air balloon before," there aren't any world records left. and, you know, i've neverflown a hot air balloon before. you know what fun it would be to learn to fly a hot air balloon and then to see if we could across the atlantic in it. and then you try to work out all all all the things can go wrong and you try to make sure that you can come back to tell the tale. today, branson's adventures might just be for fun, but for decades, they played a vital role in promoting and growing the virgin brand. as too did women. his publicity stunts, often involving women partially clothed, were highly effective at getting him media attention.

but times have changed. just recently you said in the early days of virgin society it was very different. i doubt you'll see me turning girls upside down or picking up ladies today. whereas 38 years ago, if i didn't do that, i wouldn't get in the newspaper. when you look back at some of those campaigns, it's very dangerous to judge historic periods through modern mores. but when you look back at some of those campaigns, do some of that stuff make you wince? would you just think it was fit for the time? i think it would... it would make me wince if i felt the women would be were uncomfortable at all. i don't think that i ever made anybody feel uncomfortable. it was just in those days... in those days, it made them smile. like kate moss, for instance. she laughed. she knew what was coming. but today, obviously, i think people would feel uncomfortable or something like that. so it's changed and i fully accept that. and i've changed along alongside everybody else.

and what advice would you give to a billionaire in his 70s who's having trouble slowing down? my own feeling is that i'm in an extraordinary position and not to waste the position i find myself in. there are a lot of issues this world needs dealing with. you've got politicians who can do so much, but then there may be only two years maximum in a particular department before they've moved on to something else. i've had 55 years of experience as an entrepreneur and businessman and travelled the world and i think i'm in a position to help politicians and try to address some of the bigger issues of the world. and that's what i enjoy doing. and i'm not, i'm not going to sit back and not make the make the best of that position. i've heard that you're quite competitive. vaguely true? yeah, that's definitely true. are you? you're quite into chess, aren't you?

i enjoy a game of chess. before we have a game, but if you're up for a game of chess, i'd be very up for it. and you don't have to let me win. let me ask you one final thing. for 50 years, you've been so synonymous with virgin for so long, probably more than any entrepreneur with any company in the world. where is and what is virgin after? sir richard, . you must think about succession planning. yeah, ido. and we have serious discussions as a family about how the how the company can transform, hopefully thousands of people's lives in the years to come and hopefully in the centuries to come. how good are you at chess? seriously? because i'm a bit worried that we've set this thing up and you're going to smash me to pieces. i don't read. i don't read any moves. no, no, no. you could be nice if you could be. i'm going to distract you with some quickfire questions. who's your greatest hero? living or dead.

a cross between mandela and archbishop tutu. but we will say mandela. favourite film? it has to be the godfather. which one? one, two or three. 0ne. what do you fear most? i think a family member being unwell. it's not checkmate yet. maybe it is. oh, that's terrible. oh, no. well played. yeah. oh, dear. we'll have to have a rematch. i would look forward to that. thank you so much. it's been a pleasure.

hello there. although parts of east and south—east england remain grey and quite cool all day, much of the country had a very fine and sunny start to the weekend. part two of the weekend looks quite mixed. there will be some sunshine around, particularly in wales and england. but scotland and northern ireland will start to see this weather front moving in off the atlantic, bringing outbreaks of cloud and rain, and a drop in temperature. but high pressure will bring us a fine evening and night. largely clear skies for many, but that low grey cloud across the east will start to roll back westwards again for much of eastern england and the midlands. western scotland and northern ireland will be turning wetter and breezy, is that weather front pushes in. so, quite a mixture of temperatures. 0bviously, quite cool under clear skies.

but generally, for most, 6 to 8 degrees. sunday then, we start off with some sunshine around. that grey weather across the east of england should tend to improve. the clouds burning back to the coast. one or two showers into the afternoon through the midlands. this weather front will start to move out of scotland and northern ireland. it brightens up later in the day with a few showers that will feel much cooler for scotland and northern ireland. low to mid—teens. sunny spells across parts of england and wales. again, we could be up to 21 degrees. sunday night that weather front weakens, it continues to push eastward, bringing cloud, some patchy rain, clearer skies, one or two blustery showers across the north and west of scotland but under those clear skies, with this cool air it is going to be a chilly night to come here. for south—eastern areas where we have the weather front, the cloud and rain generally seven to 10 degrees. that weather front clears away eventually and we see some further showers around the edge of this area of high pressure which will bring us north, north—westerly winds.

showers for northern scotland, northern and eastern england, some of these running down to east anglia and south—east into the afternoon. the best of the sunshine towards the south and west. we could be up to 15 degrees here but you will see it as a much cooler day across the board. ranging between ten and 13 celsius. that is below par for this time in may. the cool air hangs around through tuesday and again into wednesday, particularly towards northern and eastern areas but very slowly we'll start to see those yellow—orange colours returning. so it will start quite chilly through the week with some showers around but temperatures will recover towards the end of the week and because it is higher pressure nearby, it should stay mostly dry.

live from london — this is bbc news. palestinians take to the streets of gaza city — as a ceasefire between israel and the militant islamichhad comes into effect. a president, a prime minister and a pope — volodymyr zelensky gets a warm welcome as he visits italy. and it's merry across the mersey — the final of the eurovision song contest is taking place in liverpool. hello, i'm lukwesa burak.

palestinians took to the streets in gaza city this