Evening briefing Friday 22nd August

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 Evening Briefing for Friday the 22nd of August. Good evening. I'm Mike Powell. Foreign Secretary David Lammy is accusing the Netanyahu government of causing a man-made catastrophe in Gaza City.

0:48The UN hunger monitoring body has declared a famine there, calling it a failure of humanity. Israel says the report is fabricated. Graham Groom is an orthopaedic surgeon who's worked in Gaza dozens of times. He told Times Radio even the doctors he worked with are starving. I visited the malnutrition clinic at the NASA hospital and was shown the little scraps of humanity clinging to life on the 27th of May. I've been in touch with the outstanding paediatrician who ran that ward and she tells me that since then two of them have died and four of them have been evacuated for treatment elsewhere. A Labour peer has told Times Radio the Navy should be brought in to deal with the migration crisis.

1:34It comes as owners of a hotel in Essex are planning to challenge a High Court ruling, stopping migrants from being housed there. The Home Office has also confirmed it's going to appeal against the decision at the Bell in Epping. Lord Glassman, Labour peer and founder of Blue Labour, told Times Radio there needs to be better political leadership. Politics requires leadership and action and this is a matter of huge public concern. So in any normal political circumstance, this is a matter of durable public concern. The government needs to act. What is wrong with France? I mean, they're called asylum seekers, they're called refugees, they're not.

2:10France is a completely safe country. What is the status of a person who wants to leave France? I simply don't understand that bit of the logic. It comes as at least 27 protests are planned outside asylum hotels around the UK this weekend, with one of the first demonstrations taking place this afternoon in Portsmouth. George Madgwick is a reform councillor who's been at the protest. He told Times Radio people want transparency. The fact that the Home Office haven't told Portsmouth City Council since 2023 any update on migrants being housed in Portsmouth is shocking. And also we were told that there wasn't any living in HMOs for us only then to find out that just last night we have 690 of them in our city.

2:54We have a real problem here and I'm calling for transparency. We need to know what's going on. While the Conservative Hampshire and Isle of Wye Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones told Times Radio she has a solution. Rather than paying hoteliers to put people up in a bedroom with an en suite and giving them food vouchers every day, let's get them living in disused military bases because at the moment the way the Labour government are managing this entire situation is breeding of the people smuggling gangs. They are not breaking it. There is no proper deterrent like there was with Rwanda, and this is why we've seen record numbers coming over in the first eight months of the year.

3:29It has to stop. FBI agents have raided the home of John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security advisor, who's now a staunch critic of the president. It's reported to be over an investigation into classified documents, but Mr Bolton hasn't been detained or charged with any crimes. Gina Bennett is a former CIA counter-terror agent. She told Times Radio the move isn't a surprise. It's just a page out of a Putin or any other dictator's playbook. You weaponise the Department of Justice, weaponise the intelligence community to the extent that you can, for your own political, personal ambitions and gain.

4:10You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This 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 experiments to scale.

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