Afternoon Briefing Friday 22nd August

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands, so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Welcome to the Times afternoon briefing on Friday the 22nd of August. A United Nations-backed organisation says there is a famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

0:44The Integrated Food Security Phase classification says deaths from starvation and malnutrition are rising. That's according to figures from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, checked by the World Health Organisation. UN Emergency Coordinator Tom Fletcher. It is a famine, the Gaza famine. It is a famine that we could have prevented. It is a famine that hits the most vulnerable first, each with a name, each with a story, that strips people of dignity before it strips them of life, that forces a parent to choose which child to feed. Israel has described it as a false and biased report based on partial data originating from Hamas.

1:31More than two dozen protests are expected at hotels housing asylum seekers over the next three days. Earlier this week, a council in Essex was granted an injunction, which means migrants have to leave the Bell Hotel in Epping. The question is where people who are currently in hotels could go. The Tory's shadow Home Office Minister, Katie Lamb, has told Times Radio they should be deported. There is no real solution to this problem that doesn't involve detaining people when they arrive and deporting them as swiftly after they've arrived as you possibly can. Everything else is really just moving the problem around.

2:02HMOs, houses of multiple occupation are potentially even worse than hotels. All of that will take housing stock out of what is available for everybody else, which we already know is far too little. One in four members of the Labour Party could back Jeremy Corbyn's new party at the next general election. A poll by Servation has found 28 % said they were considering supporting the former Labour leader's new left-wing pro-Palestinian movement. But The Times' chief political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti says it's not clear whether the party will actually go ahead. It still obviously doesn't have a name.

2:38We were promised that there would be a conference in the autumn where that would be decided along with the leadership structures. We don't even have a date or a venue for that conference yet. So it is still very up in the air and you do speak to people that think that they think they think that this is going to sort of fall apart and not prove to have the level of drive needed to take on the big mainstream traditional political parties. And sea slugs known as blue New dragons are stopping people from swimming at some of Spain's most popular beaches. The authorities made the ruling after the creatures were found in the Alicante area.

3:09Reporter Simon Hunter has been speaking two times earlier from Madrid. These sea slugs, what they do, they actually feed on jellyfish such as the man of war and they retain the venom from the man of war and use it for their own sting. So it was quite a serious warning from the authorities. They said if anyone sees them, do not touch them, even if you're wearing gloves. and immediately alert the authorities because if they do sting you, it can cause vomiting, cause nausea. And you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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