Afternoon briefing Monday 19th January

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. This is the Times Radio afternoon briefing on Monday the 19th of January. The Prime Minister says he doesn't think Donald Trump is serious about taking military action in Greenland.

0:44Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the President for threatening tariffs on the UK, Denmark and other European countries if they don't let him buy the island. The use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong. It is not the right way to resolve differences within an alliance. Nor is it helpful to frame efforts to strengthen Greenland's security as a justification for economic pressure. The president has texted Norway's prime minister saying he no longer feels an obligation to think only of peace because he wasn't awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General Sir Richard Schiriff says the future of the alliance hangs in the balance.

1:28Again and again in the last year, NATO has done all it can desperately to try to hang on to Trump's coattails and it has failed. And now the rubber has absolutely hit the road and appeasement cannot work, must not work. European members of NATO and Canada have got to stick together. At least 39 people have been killed in a high-speed train crash in southern Spain. Two trains are thought to have collided after one derailed onto another track. The Kremlin says Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to join the Board of Peace in Gaza. The president will chair the board, which will oversee a new technocratic body to run the Gaza Strip.

2:09Sir Tony Blair is among those who have already been invited to join. Prince Harry is at the Royal Courts of Justice in London for his long-awaited trial against the publishers of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. He and six other claimants, including Doreen Lawrence and Sir Elton John, accuse Associated Newspapers of phone hacking and blagging personal information. The publisher denies the claims. The Sunday Times' royal editor Royan Nicar thinks it'll show a divide between the Duke of Sussex and the royal family. Harry is due to give evidence and be in the box all day on Thursday. And when he previously went up against the Mirror, we heard him talk, and we've heard him talk in interviews, about the difference between his stance towards the media and the royal family's stance.

2:49And I suspect we may hear a little bit of flick of that on Thursday. And health bosses are investigating after it emerged official advice told midwives about the potential benefits of cousin marriage. The teaching material also said concerns about the risks, like congenital diseases, were exaggerated and unwarranted. Joyce Harper is Professor of Reproductive Science at UCL's Institute for Women's Health. The benefits of why cultures do this is much more complicated and it's certainly not a benefit to the child. So I think it's not really the midwife's place to be promoting it. It sounds like they are promoting it by saying about benefits.

3:23I think what's important is education, so they make sure that they're fully aware of the risks, they have appropriate genetic counselling if they need it. Don't forget to subscribe to the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

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