Daily briefing Sunday 1st March

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 Sunday 1st March. Iran is threatening to exact a devastating revenge after its state media confirmed the death of the country's supreme leader.

0:46Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as a number of his family members, including his daughter, were killed in a coordinated attack by the United States and Israel on Saturday. Iran said its military action would target occupied territories and American bases in the region. But Elon Levy, a former spokesman for the Israeli government, has told Times Radio that his country's role in the attack is a gamble that will pay off. The Prime Minister has decided to embark on a very bold operation against Iran, knowing that Iran would retaliate, but that Israel's air defences are pretty good. That this war is not something we want, it's not something we're doing for fun, but a nuclear Iran, or an Iran with thousands of ballistic missiles, is not something we can afford.

1:30President Trump has described Khamenei as one of the most evil people in history, and he's reiterated his call to Iranians to take back their country. And he says there are some good candidates to succeed the Ayatollah. But speaking to Times Radio, the military analyst Sean Bell warned that regime change would require a ground force operation. We've not been good at regime change full stop. You can do the military action of hitting the, you know, severing the head. We did that with Saddam Hussein, with Colonel Gaddafi. and now with the Ayatollah. But the harsh reality is sometimes you take the lid off a pressure cooker and it just goes absolutely nuts.

2:09The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to hold a call with G7 leaders to discuss the imminent future of Iran. It's one of a number of calls the Trump administration is expected to have with global leaders in the coming days. Sakia Starmer says the UK is taking part in coordinated defensive operations to protect British people and its regional partners. Iranian state media has announced 40 days of public mourning, although a number of videos on social media show people celebrating Khamenei's death. Ali Safavi is a member of the Iranian parliaments in exile. Iranians very jubilant, coming out onto the streets, expressing joy over the elimination of one of the most criminal tyrants of modern history, whose hand was stained with the blood of tens of thousands of Iranians.

3:01I don't think anybody shed any tears over him, at least in Iran. The Conservative leader, Kemi Beidnok, is accusing the Prime Minister of using the conflict in the Middle East to bury the news of another ministerial resignation. The Labour MP, Josh Simons, stepped down as a Cabinet's office minister despite being cleared by the ethics advisor of a breach of the ministerial code. The investigation was into allegations a think tank that he previously ran paid a PR firm to investigate Sunday Times journalists. And the singer Olivia Dean dominated Saturday's Brits in Manchester. She won four awards, including Song of the Year and Best Album for the Arts of Loving.

3:43There's more on all of these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

3:50This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business? Strong foundations unlock AI's potential. That's why PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale. Discover more at pwc.co.uk.