bisa williams former us _ conscious of. bisa williams former us ambassador- conscious of. i conscious of. bisa williams - former us ambassador to niger, thank you so much for being with us. ., �* _, ., ~ with us. you're welcome. thank ou. ukraine says at least five people have been killed by russian missile strikes in the country's east. it's happened in the eastern town of pokrovsk in the donetsk region. more than 30 have also been injured in the attack. these are the latest pictures we have, as rescue efforts continue into the night. the head of the region says the strikes damaged two residential buildings, a hotel and shops, and an administrative centre. he warned more attacks could happen. ukraine's security service, the sbu, has announced the arrest of a woman in connection with an alleged assassination plot against president volodymyr zelensky. our correspondentjames waterhouse has more. so these are quite interesting allegations emerging from the southern mykolaiv region. sources at the security forces have told us they have arrested a woman who is accused of travel

bisa williams thank you forjoining us. moment.welcome, thank you- _ we have some breaking news to bring to you now coming to us from hawaii. the head of the maori emergency management agency has resigned. herman andaya has cited health reasons for the decision. he's recently faced criticism for his handling of the wildfire response — amid questions over why maui's emergency sirens were not used at the height of the emergency. maui's county mayor says they are quickly looking for a replacement. dozens of migrants are missing, presumed dead, after their boat was found off cape verde. police say their wooden vessel was discovered adrift in the atlantic ocean, about 277 kilometres from the resort island of sal. 0ur west africa correspondent mayeni jones has been following the story and spoke to a family member of one of the victims. i spoke to the relatives of one of them, a young man, he was just 23 years old. his brother said that he was, he decided to leave the country because he had a young family, he had two children, he had a wi

bisa williams, thank you indeed forjoining us this evening.d a standby force ready to invade niger should the military faction continue to hold onto its power and should ecowas deem that that is needed. do you support that use of force? i personally think that that is the most important instrument that ecowas can use as a last resort. they're using the justification for that is the potential for contagion in the region and that is why they have this force on standby. they have used that is the justification as well for closing the borders, shutting off the electricity. are you concerned about that? i think that, rather than say it's the worry about contagion, they also thought it was within the charter that ecowas states had decided to support democratisation in the region, so the imposition of sanctions and the other instruments in their toolbox that they had to use were sort of messages to send to militaries or other people that would try to overthrow democratically elected governments. there isn't another way for these estates to try to sho

bisa williams thank you forjoining us.s have criticized britain's invitation to saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed bin salman. they point to his country's troubling human rights record, and accusations that the crown prince had a role in the killing ofjournalist, jamal khashoggi. the prince denies any involvement int he killing. 0ur political correspondent, helen catt, has more. well, rishi sunak and mohammed bin salman spoke on the phone this afternoon, and some of the content of their conversation i think offers a bit of an answer to that. so they spoke about developing "a trade and investment relationship," particularly in what they described as "new cutting—edge industries". now saudi arabia is spending very big at the moment, trying to diversify its economy away from oil. it's also been investing very heavily in sport in recent years — the uk wants more trade. it's also one of the government's trade priorities to do a deal with a group of countries in the gulf, of which saudi arabia is a member — although we're told

i spoke to former state department official bisa williams earlier to get insights into the situation.e are now learning more about the acting deputy secretary of state's unsuccessful attempts to negotiate some kind of settlement to see a return to power of president mohamed bazoum. why do you think she wasn't able to make any progress there? i'm not sure i would characterise that as unsuccessful completely. my understanding was that the acting deputy secretary left the door open for continued discussions and that basically the united states, in what i considered a rare move, offered its good officers to help move toward a diplomatic solution. that would be my interpretation of that experience. why do i think on this first encounter with the acting head of this junta was not more compliant or more embracing, i think it is because it is a first encounter, i also got the impression from reports i heard that maybe the deputy secretary didn't see the whole junta. i'm not sure if there is still unity in that group. victoria nuland and said they were extremely frank and at times they were di

bisa williams is a former us ambassador to niger.ing between the us state department official victoria nuland and the coup leaders. my understanding was that the acting deputy secretary left the door open for continued discussions and that basically the united states, in what i considered a rare move, offered its good officers to help move toward a diplomatic solution. that would be my interpretation of that experience. why do i think on this first encounter with the acting head of this junta was not more compliant or more embracing, i think it is because it is a first encounter, i also got the impression from reports i heard that maybe the deputy secretary didn't see the whole junta. i'm not sure if there is still unity in that group. our correspondent, chris ewokor, is following the story from neighbouring nigeria. it is one day after the expiration of the ultimatum given to niger coup leaders by ecowas to reinstate president mohamed bazoum. the leaders are due to meet on thursday this week to deliberate on the proposals by ecowas

bisa williams is a former us ambassador to niger.victoria nuland and the coup leaders. my understanding was that the acting deputy secretary left the door open for continued discussions and that basically the united states, in what i considered a rare move, offered its good offices to try to help move towards a diplomatic solution. that would be my interpretation of that experience. why do i think this first encounter with the acting head of this junta was not more compliant or didn't seem to be all embracing? i think it is because it is the first encounter. i also got the impression from reports i've heard that may be the deputy secretary really did not see the whole junta, so i'm not sure if there is still unity within that group right now. 0ur africa correspondent, catherine bieru hanga, has more. what we've had from the crew leaders and the new regime in niger is that they blame western interference, particularly from france, for hampering the country's security situation. they said it's been one of the reasons why niger has not