Afternoon Briefing Monday 6th April

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 Radio afternoon briefing for Monday the 6th of April. Iran says it has received a proposal compiled by Pakistan for a potential ceasefire with the United States.

0:44There are suggestions it could begin today and involve reopening the Strait of Hormuz. But Tehran says it will not reopen the vital waterway in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, and it claims Washington is not ready for something permanent. The former Conservative Defence Secretary Sir Ben Wallace has told Times Radio he doubts a truce would amount to very much. I don't think there will be much to this ceasefire. If there is, it will simply be Iran will get to pick and choose who goes through the straits and the United States will be able to claim that they've knocked back their nuclear programme and some of their proxies in the medium or short term, but nothing further.

1:19The number of women dying during pregnancy while in labour or soon after giving birth is at its highest for two decades. An investigation by the time shows the NHS was given 67 separate warnings between 2013 and 2023. Over the same decade, the UK's maternal death rate rose by half, with 257 women dying in the two years until 2023. NHS midwife Leah Hazard has told Times Radio that care has turned into a conveyor belt. The whole system of maternity has become industrialised. It's now pretty much an assembly line for many people, and midwifery care specifically has been eroded. We've lost continuity of care, which we know is one of the primary interventions in improving maternal outcomes.

2:05The NHS is urging patients not to put off asking for care when resident doctors in England begin strike action tomorrow. Thousands of staff are expected to walk out for six days in their long-running dispute over pay and conditions. Dr Shivam Sharma from the British Medical Association says patients are not angry with them. I think the patients are actually more frustrated at the healthcare system because they can see that they can't get their GP appointments, that they're waiting so long for getting seen in A &E, waiting in corridors with undignified care. That is simply not acceptable to anyone.

2:40And the crew of Artemis II are just hours away from reaching depths of space never before experienced by humans. The astronauts will be flying past the far side of the moon at about 11.45 tonight UK time. Libby Jackson, who's head of space at the Science Museum in London, has told us what they'll be looking out for later. This is all about looking at the south pole of the Moon, which is where we hope to see Artemis 4 and 5 land in 2028. The Apollo missions landed on the equator on the near side, much flatter regions, but we are now wanting to explore the south pole of the Moon because we found that there are water deposits there and that water could be useful to turn into oxygen, to drinking water and rocket fuel, amongst other things.

3:28And you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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