Daily briefing Saturday 28th February

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 Times Radio's Daily Briefing on Saturday the 28th of February. President Trump has confirmed the United States has started major combat operations in Iran.

0:45It's after Israel said its defense forces had launched a preventative attack on Iranian targets. Trump said earlier he was frustrated with the lack of progress in talks with Iran on its nuclear program and claimed Tehran was unwilling to commit to never developing a nuclear weapon. Trump has now warned that Iran's missile industry will be totally obliterated. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder. It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon.

1:26I'll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, has also declared a special and permanent state of emergency in all areas of the country amid a warning of possible retaliation by Iran. Iranian media is reporting explosions have been heard in the centre of the capital Tehran. Sameer Al-Atrush, the Middle East correspondent for The Times, says the US and Israel have seized the opportunity to overthrow the Iranian regime and he believes there is a strategic reasoning for these developments. The US would want to see the Iranians soften up and surrender to their demands.

2:06I think in Tehran, the view is that maybe if they do go to war, they'll show the US, you know, this is not going to be a walk in the park. And once the dust settles, the US will come back to the negotiating table, more willing to negotiate. So I think both sides and Israel concluded that a war is the only solution, a limited war. Cabinet ministers, including the Home Secretary, will warn next week that Labour must not learn the wrong lessons from its heavy by-election defeat at the hands of the Green Party, amid mounting pressure on the Prime Minister to move Labour to the left. A succession of left-wing Labour MPs have called on Sakhir Starmer to respond by abandoning policies designed to see off the threat of reform.

2:49Shabana Mahmood will, however, urge Labour to stand firm on immigration. She will argue that moving away from the political centre ground would be a mistake. James Lyons, a former Downing Street director of communications under Starmer, says her approach will resonate with supporters of all parties. The Labour Party won a huge majority less than two years ago because Keir Starmer said that the party had changed and that it would govern as a modern centrist party and I think that's exactly what he needs to do. It's not immediately obvious to me that he'll have more electoral success by veering off to the left.

3:26And a Bolivian Air Force cargo plane that was carrying a consignment of money has crashed onto a busy street in the city of El Alto. At least 15 people are reported to have been killed. Police had to use tear gas to disperse crowds as local residents attempted to gather these scattered banknotes. There's more on all of these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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