Afternoon Briefing Tuesday 20th 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. Welcome to the Times Radio Afternoon Briefing on Tuesday, the 20th of January. The former General Secretary of NATO has told Times Radio that if the US takes Greenland by force, it will be the end of the military alliance.

0:45Anders Fö Rasmussen is also a former Prime Minister of Denmark, which has sovereignty over Greenland. If that threat comes to fruition, it will be the end of NATO. It doesn't make sense to have a collective defence organisation where the major ally attacks another ally with the aim to take territory. So still, I doubt that it will come to that, partly because there is not support for that in the US Congress. Donald Trump has said Denmark cannot defend Greenland and the US has to take the territory. Meanwhile, Trump has described the Labour government's decision to give away the island and military base of Diego Garcia to Mauritius as an act of great stupidity.

1:28He's also said the ceding of the Chagos Islands is another reason why the US should acquire Greenland. He said on Truth Social that the decision has been made for no reason whatsoever. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenok, has given her reaction. Donald Trump is right on the Chagos deal. This is surrendering British territory with a strategic military base on it for no reason whatsoever. It weakens our country. It is not in the national interest. It is a good deal for China and Russia. and the worst part is we're paying£35 billion of reparations to give away territory which we bought in the 1960s. That is wrong.

2:10Plans for a new Chinese super embassy in London have been approved by the government. It's due to be built within the historic Royal Mint site close to the city and the Tower of London. Residents living nearby are preparing to launch a judicial review. Luke T 'Polford, co-founder of the Interparliamentary Alliance on China, has told Times Radio, the legal battle is likely to be lengthy. There's a 60-day window, as I understand it, for a judicial review to be lodged. Once it is lodged, it will obviously need to be heard or dismissed. And if it's heard, the arguments and the points of law are so niche and sort of sui generis that it could well go all the way to the Supreme Court.

2:47So we're talking a very long time indeed. Ministers are to consult on a social media ban for under-16s. They'll also toughen up rules on mobile phones in schools. They're trying to stop a backbench rebellion by more than 60 Labour MPs who want an outright ban. But the NSPCC is warning that a blanket ban could push children into darker corners of the internet. Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter Molly took her own life after viewing harmful content online, also says a ban would be wrong. By separating young people from the digital world in which we all live, you make it really difficult that if they come across a problem, finding the courage to talk about that problem becomes so much harder for them because they feel they're doing something wrong because they shouldn't have been on social media.

3:32And you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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