to ship gas from azerbaijan through its network. hungary's prime minister calls for the continued flow of russian gas. translation: if the | ukrainians want help - for example, sanctioning the russians — then let's reopen the gas transit routes and allow the central european countries, including hungary, to receive the gas we need through ukraine. a trade spat between the us and colombia appears to be off the boil, as the white house and bogota reach agreement on the return of migrants. the cost of rebuilding los angeles soars to hundreds of billions of dollars. we assess what this means for the insurance industry. and the poo—powered car. i'll be talking to the lead designer of this racing car with a very unusual fuel source. live from london this is business today.

there is growing division within europe on the question of gas security, as ukraine explores whether to allow fresh flows of natural gas from the east into central europe. earlier this month, longstanding arrangements to pipe russian gas came to an end and poland's president has told the bbc it should never be restored. meanwhile, hungary's prime minister viktor orban has threatened to veto eu sanctions on russia is not restored. translation: the question of extending the sanctions i is now on the agenda. i pulled the handbrake and asked european leaders to understand this can't be continued. we asked the eu to tell the ukrainians to restore the gas transit. what's closed has to be reopened. it's not a matter for ukraine. it's an issue for europe, for central europe. and if the ukrainians want help — for example, sanctioning the russians — then let's reopen the gas

transit routes and allow the central european countries, including hungary, to receive the gas we need through ukraine. meanwhile, on saturday, ukraine's president zelensky said his country was prepared to transit gas from azerbaijan to europe. he has offered that as a solution to countries such as hungary and other landlocked countries such as slovakia. it's an issue that's exercising governments across europe and the subject tops the agenda of eu foreign ministers who meet today in brussels to discuss gas transit through ukraine. just a few days ago in davos, poland's president duda said ukraine should stand firm against russian gas and told the bbc�*s economics editor faisal islam that the nord stream gas pipelines, unused since 2022, should be put beyond use so that germany, for example, would not be tempted to restore russian supplies to boost its own struggling economy.

translation: | believe that| the nord stream gas pipeline should be dismantled. and i also want to say that it was donald trump who stopped the construction of nord stream ii. that was precisely his decision. he imposed sanctions on those companies who were involved in the construction of nord stream back in 2019. and thanks to him, those constructions were stopped. and i can only express my hope that european leaders who are visible on that famous photo depicting leaders opening nord stream, will learn lessons from what happened later after the opening of nord stream. they will learn lessons from russia's aggression against ukraine and that they will push through a decision to never restore the transport, the pumping of gas through this pipeline to europe for one simple reason. because this pipeline poses a very big threat to the entire region of central europe, to ukraine, to poland, to slovakia, but also to other central european countries. it is a threat from the point of view of energy, from the point of view of the military, but also it is a huge economic threat because it means the domination of rush hour over europe in the economic sense. but the german industry is suffering. there is an election.

but the german industry is suffering. there is an election. that message may be heard. they may be very tempted to go for the cheap gas again. ok, but we cannot agree to the core of the european community being consistent in the fact that germany is building its economic potential on and allowing rush hour on and allowing russia to transport its gas to europe, and in this way allowing rush hour to build its energy domination over europe. this is unacceptable. marcel kramer is the regional coordinator for eastern europe and the caucasus, for the international gas union. he told me that different views across europe also implied complexity in the arguments around ukraine's gas transit arrangements. it looks like the positions are quite divergent. and many politicians, but also others, have

made their own comments from their own perspectives, that underscores the complexity of such an arrangement. you know, this swap arrangement, whereby ukraine would be serving as a transit country for gas from azerbaijan, or gas that would be titled as coming from azerbaijan, but in fact would be russian gas. it is of course a more complex deal than the the simple word "swap" between russia and azerbaijan and azerbaijan would suggest. i mean, the countries that most acutely feel the impact of all of this is slovakia and hungary. is that correct? because they are landlocked. they've got no seaborne input. that's correct. for gas. and viktor orban making his case very clear.

and if he does vote against or does not go with the rest within the eu, that could pose a real problem, couldn't it? well, i wouldn't get into the question of how that would work out within the eu and what the effects might be. we have to wait and see. but it's certainly clear that while the eu as a whole and in fact you could say europe as a whole has made tremendous progress in improving infrastructure, making new connections, building terminals for liquefied natural gas and so on and so forth. it's been much more difficult for a number of countries in central and eastern europe to do that, partly because they're landlocked and partly because they're smaller markets. so the scale of the market, compared to the size of the investment and the risk involved with it, can be quite different there. and that is one of the reasons why we've ended up with this situation.

a trade spat between the united states and colombia seems to have simmered down after colombia agreed to accept deported migrants from the us. president trump announced 25% tariffs along with sanctions on colombia after its president barred two us military planes carrying deported migrants from landing in the country. initially the colombian president gustavo petro had spoken of retaliatory tariffs, but a resolution seems to have been reached after the colombian president offered to send his presidential plane to collect the deportees. joe brusuelas is principal and chief economist at rsm, an international consultancy. earlier he gave me his reaction to what's happened here. it's probably a preview of coming attractions for 2025.

as the new american president or president trump looks to use access to the gigantic us consumer market as leverage to obtain all sorts of concessions, whether they be economic, financial or political, in the western hemisphere. and for colombia, what does it export to the us? mainly coffee, i assume. coffee and refined petroleum products. it accounts for about 29% of all of colombia's exports. so in the end of the day, there wasn't really much for the colombians to do other than concede. but i think the real issue is, is that there's going to be more of this, not less of this going forward. and again, it's an inflationary impact, isn't it, forfor us consumers, because presumably coffee sellers would have to pass that on? well that's right. well, that's right. and of course the united states doesn't grow coffee so there's no ready domestic substitute. so that would cause coffee prices to increase, which would really upset many americans, like myself,

who get very early starts to get into the world of global business. show admitting to using coffee to stay up for out of hours interviews with us. we appreciate that. now, let's focus on al, because there's a new player on the block which is causing shockwaves throughout the industry. chinese startup deepseek has overtaken chatgpt to become the top—rated free app avaialable on apple's app store in the us. the news has sent nasdaq futures tumbling in today's trading, with deepseek claiming its ai model is cheaper than its amercian rivals. let's hear now from susannah streeter, head of money and markets, hargreaves lansdown. this is really interesting, i had a look on the apple app store, ice or deepseek ready to

download for free.— download for free. certainly i think it is _ download for free. certainly i think it is causing _ download for free. certainly i think it is causing some - think it is causing some ripples of concern to the end of february. but there is already speculation it is going to see competition from the likes of deepseek. what they have done is, this is a chinese engineering and research firm and has released details of how to build a low—cost large language model. that has led to expectation is that it could really be a rival because it has, even though there will be restrictions on us made chips entering china, and being bought by technology companies, it has used other low—cost chinese chips to essentially come up with a technology not quite as cutting—edge but does thejob and quite as cutting—edge but does the job and because quite as cutting—edge but does thejob and because it quite as cutting—edge but does the job and because it is so much cheaper that is why it has

rattled concerns and deepseek has also got very big pockets. it is really on a fight to try and attract the best ai talent owned by a hedge fund manager and given its capacity and opportunities ahead, there is concern it will eventually eat into nvidia's dominance and it won't be the last. it into nvidia's dominance and it won't be the last.— won't be the last. it is really in-your-face, _ won't be the last. it is really in-your-face, america's - in—your—face, america's dominance in al is being challenged and it is coming at a very big week for tech. we are hearing from a lot of the big names in tech, the magnificent seven. microsoft, meta, magnificent seven. microsoft, meta. tesla. _ magnificent seven. microsoft, meta, tesla, apple _ magnificent seven. microsoft, meta, tesla, apple are - magnificent seven. microsoft, meta, tesla, apple are all- magnificent seven. microsoft, | meta, tesla, apple are all due to report this week. the tech giants are being powered on a wave of ai enthusiasm but also expectations of tax cuts and a

lighter touch regulation from the trump administration. however they have been ploughing huge sums into artificial intelligence and investors are going to want to see the results of that coming through sooner rather than later and given high valuations are the could be volatility again if results don't meet expectations.— again if results don't meet expectations. thank you so much, expectations. thank you so much. see _ expectations. thank you so much, see you _ expectations. thank you so much, see you soon. - around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news.

just a day after a visit from president trump, rain arrived in california, bringing some relief but also fresh concerns to the residents of los angeles after weeks of wildfires. there are now fears of flooding and mudslides in the city. president trump visited on friday with first lady melania trump to see for himself the extent of the damage. he has not yet made clear what financial assistance will become available to rebuild la, but the fires look set to transform the insurance industry. the havoc wreaked by the wildfires is estimated

to cost $250 billion in economic damage and claimed at least 28 lives. earlier, i spoke to andy siffert, senior meteorologist at the insurer bms ree. he told me what kind of impact the catastrophe in california might have. this is definitely a very impactful event for the insurance industry, particularly that the event occurred here injanuary, which is kind of the start of our, i guess, insurance season, which starts kind of january 1st. and we typically don't see these large losses like this in the month of january. it's typically a fairly calm month. but this is definitely

going to be, you know, probably one of the largest single us—insured loss events in recorded history on the likes of like hurricane katrina in 2005. but we have a long, long year ahead of us. you know, it takes multiple events to really impact the insurance industry. clearly, this will have local effects. i think this might speed up the ongoing changes to the regulatory environment and accelerate the use of our catastrophe risk models. we use the price risk and the hazard for perils such as wildfire. but it's a little too early to determine just what impact this might have on a global scale to the insurance industry, given that we're so early into the 2025, kind of insurance cycle. what about the conversation about how the insurance industry works in this case?

it's become bare in the sense that it's all those people who live in la who've lost their homes, who didn't have insurance forfire risk because theyjust could not afford to pay the premiums. and that's something we're hearing in other parts of the world where there is a very obvious risk to homes or property and yet they can't afford the insurance for it. yeah. i mean, insurance is a critical aspect of getting communities back on their feet and making people whole again. and if they don't have insurance, that puts a big burden on the local communities and governments. and, you know, whoever, whoever is there to maybe supplement that, potential uninsured, person with, you know, insurance. a hydrogen—powered car fuelled by sewage and manufactured with recycled materials is being unveiled shortly at the university of warwick's inaugural festival of innovation. the car was built by students at warwick manufacturing group and will

run off a byproduct of wastewater from the utilities company severn trent water. now, the university hopes to break new ground as the team gear up to attempt land speed records with their innovative "poo—powered" hydrogen racer. drjames meredith is chief engineer for the project at wmg, the warwick manufacturing group. earlier he told me what lies ahead for today. the festival of innovation this morning, which is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the university. which is highlighting all sorts of exciting stuff. one of them is this hydrogen powered car. and hopefully we'll be talking to lots of people about all the exciting things going on at the university. and talk us through the potential of this car powered by poo. and we assume you've dealt with the smell. yes, indeed. i think i mean, it's great. this is a long term piece of research. it started off on a previous racing car we worked on over 15 years ago,

where we looked at recycled carbon fibre and how we actually recycle really difficult materials, and that essentially extended into a piece of work where we looked at how microbes grow on this recycled carbon fibre substrate. and that eventually led to the point where we demonstrated that that material was a cheaper and be better at producing hydrogen than, than conventional sort of virgin materials. to what extent will cars powered by hydrogen become a main player within the car sector, do you think? i mean, what are the drawbacks? well, there's plenty of drawbacks of hydrogen. obviously, it's a very light gas storage is quite tricky. you know, getting the amount of amount of energy density you need on board a car is a challenge. i think, generally speaking, it's considered to be much better for sort of larger vehicles. at the moment there's a real push for evs and zero emission vehicles. the only slight issue

with hydrogen is it's not considered necessarily zero emission, because there's a very small amount of emission that goes with burning it. so therefore for road cars, it's actually considered to be, probablyjust it might be a small percentage of the market as opposed to a majority of it. and talk us through the, you know, the land speed record, etc. what it is you're specifically with this car you're hoping to achieve this week? well, so just this week is just reallyjust talking about it. and actually it's a platform where we don't consider it to be closed. it's an open platform for people to demonstrate any sort of sustainability ideas. so we've got all sorts of things from, you know, cellulose based materials. so when you, when you, you know, crush beetroot and you take juice out, you get left with, you know, residual cellulose fibres that you can use. but actually in terms of a record, we are we're hedging our bets slightly in that we don't know exactly what we're going for. there's some really good competitive hydrogen records out there. so we're going to wait

slightly to see how its performance turns out. and then we're going to going to shape our attempt. really interesting to hear from that. ryanair has reported net profits of 149 million euro for the third—quarter, which was higher than many analysts had been predicting. however, europe's largest budget carrier lowered its forecast for 2025, blaming delays on the expected delivery of nine boeing 737 max aircraft, which is likely to effect passenger numbers. most asian markets and the positive area but what is on the minds of investors as futures that indicate a huge sell—off expected today of wall street, the nasdaq tech weighted index expected to open much lower on the day because of a new ai start—up in china challenging their dominance. that is the latest in business.

live pictures from gaza is tens of thousands of displaced palestinians are crossing into the north for the first time since his real�*s war began. they are crossing the so—called messaging corridor, returning to their homes. israel's military gave palestinians the green light to be able to cross. also i'll rashid by foot. and also disallowed in street crossing by vehicle is expected to open in the next ten minutes. here in the uk the prime minister sir keir starmer has paid tribute to us president donald trump for his role in securing

the "landmark" ceasefire and hostages deal in gaza during a call between the two leaders. the 45—minute conversation took place yesterday, and was the first time they've spoken since president trump's inauguration last week. 0ur political correspondent iain watson has more on the conversation. well, i think it's quite positive from keir starmer�*s point of view because it's within a week of the inauguration. he wasn't at the inauguration, of course, although some other world leaders were. he had already spoken to president elect trump after the november election and of course had dinner with him in trump tower, which seemed to go quite well back in september. and i say they seemed to go quite well, because, of course, donald trump's close ally, elon musk, has been denouncing keir starmer and his labour government on social media. and it doesn't look like that was anything like the tone of this conversation. i'm told it was warm

and personal. it does look as though both men were getting out of their way to try to find points of agreement, rather than points of difference. here's a few examples. there was praise from keir starmer for donald trump's role ahead of, taking office in negotiating or helping to negotiate that cease fire in the middle east and, of course, the release of the hostages, something that keir starmer had praised his predecessor, joe biden, too. in addition to that, on the other side of this, donald trump sent condolences to keir starmer on the death of his brother, but also asked after the royal family and said he had great respect for them. so it does look like they were trying to talk about issues where they could have a reasonable 45—minute long. 45—minute long, as it turns out, conversation. there was no hint in readouts, either from the white house orfrom downing street, that they really got into any kind of policy detail in this discussion. the big areas of potential difference seem to have been left for another day, or potentially sidestep, for example, a deal in the chagos islands, and that a uk—us air base in the indian ocean. although they discussed trade, neither of these readouts,

these official accounts mentioned that other t word — tariffs — which of course has been much bandied about by the new president. here in the uk, pharmacy leaders are warning that some people with a history of eating disorders are being wrongly prescribed weight loss drugs. the national pharmacy association has written to regulators calling for tougher rules over the online sale of the medication and for face to face consultations to be made compulsory. 0ur reporter leigh milner has more. after giving birth to her two boys, 35—year—old alex harvey from plymouth struggled to lose weight. the weight—loss drug mounjaro. since may last year, she has lost 25% of her body weight and her body mass index — or bmi — has fallen. but alex says she was surprised at how easy she was able to get the medication.

the pharmacy website were very clear at directing you to a kind of form where you would fill out lots of background information about your health. when the pharmacy asked to send a full—length photo, i sent a couple of those through and they were then approved by one of the pharmacists, who then confirmed the order and it basically arrived in the post. so at any point in that first initial consultation, did you speak to anybody? did you have a telephone conversation? no, to my knowledge, i don't think i did and i've just been to have a look at all my emails. i don't think at any point i actually talked to anyone. having a face—to—face consultation would be really, really beneficial. mounjaro, which is set to be rolled out on the nhs in england from march, is one of many weight—loss drugs that have become increasingly popular in recent years. at the moment, some weight loss medicines are already prescribed by the nhs. the injections mimic a hormone that makes people feel fuller and less hungry. to qualify, adults must be obese with a bmi of at least 35

and have at least one pre—existing weight—related health condition, such as high blood pressure. but the national pharmacy association, which represents independent community pharmacies, is calling for tougher regulation and says patients need to have either a face—to—face or telephone consultation before being prescribed these drugs. the general pharmaceutical council said it will update its guidance for online pharmacies, with additional safeguards around medicines used for weight management. leigh milner, bbc news. hello there. another named storm as we start off the new working week. this time it's been named by the spanish met service because of the effects that it will have on the iberian peninsula. it's storm herminia, but also some impacts here across the united kingdom. heavy rain and some strong gusty winds. there are met office weather warnings in place, and this time it's the southern half of the uk that will bear

the brunt of the worst of the weather over the next few days. so, the storm's been brewing out in the atlantic. it's been pushing this massive cloud and outbreaks of very heavy rain at times further northwards and eastwards through the night, that hook on the rain producing potentially still some very squally gusts of wind of up to 60 to 80 miles an hour, but clearing into monday morning. so this is how we'll start off the day. perhaps still some hill snow just as that rain curls into southern central areas of scotland. there will be squally showers out towards the west and some very strong gusty winds. heavier rain pushing eastwards from northern ireland into north west england and eventually up into southern and central areas of scotland too. but very strong winds out towards irish sea coast of up to 60 to 70 miles an hour, also for some western channel coasts too, and some of these showers are likely to have some thunder, some lightning and some hail in them, some very heavy downpours and strong gusty winds. temperatures six to nine celsius tended to be drier and brighter across eastern areas of england. an improving picture somewhat on tuesday as the area of low pressure starts to weaken and fill, but there will still be plenty

of showers swirling around. they won't be quite so potent as they will have been on monday, though, and there will be some brighter spells, also some areas of cloud. more of a northwesterly wind. still quite blustery, particularly towards those western coasts. temperatures between six and nine celsius for most of us. and that area of low pressure clears away, only to be followed by another one that this time is going to be bringing some heavy rain at times towards southern areas of england in particular. now there's still a lot of debate on how far north this rain is going to get, and if it does get further north than this, then over the higher ground, potentially there could be some snowfall. but for much of the northern half of the uk, largely dry. a few showers around. temperatures again six to nine celsius on thursday, though a ridge of high pressure. so much more settled. conditions generally dry. there'll be some sunshine, more rain, potentially on friday and through the weekend. bye— bye.

live from london, this is bbc news. displaced palestinians have begun heading

to northern gaza as part of a ceasefire deal involving the return of israeli hostages. these are the live pictures from the gaza strip. survivors of the holocaust, along with heads of state and royalty are gathering at the site of the nazi concentration camp auschwitz — to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation. rebels in democratic republic of congo say they have taken control of goma in the east. the drc accused rwanda of sending troops across the broder. officials in belarus say that alexander lukashenko has won the presidential election on sunday. critics dismiss this vote as a sham. coming up in business, europe's energy conundrum — as ukraine works towards a deal to ship gas from azerbaijan through its network. hungary's prime minister calls for the continued flow of russian gas.