Evening Briefing Friday 5th December

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 Evening Briefing on Friday 5th December. Illegal immigrants could be deported to North Macedonia.

0:40The Balkans countries entered formal talks with the UK about opening a migrant returns hub. The idea is to deter people from crossing the Channel in small boats. Britain would pay North Macedonia for each migrant it accepted. Home affairs expert Danny Shaw says it could happen. I think the fact that the talks are going on and there are formal talks happening and that there's clearly a will and determination amongst British ministers and a real need to try and crack this problem, I think it's quite likely that we will get some kind of deal. I really am sort of quite optimistic about it, but it could be a bit like the one-in-one-out deal with France.

1:16It could be sort of quite low numbers initially. German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz has been in Brussels to try to convince Belgium's Prime Minister to back plans to use frozen Russian assets to help the war efforts in Ukraine. Belgium is against the initiative for fear of Russian retaliation. High-profile Kremlin critic Sir Bill Browder has told Times Radio that the lion's share of money is being held in Belgium, which has every right to be concerned. They're not wrong in saying that if they do this, the Russians are going to get really mad. If they get really mad, they may do something terrible to Belgium.

1:50And so Belgium is scared. And so what they want to do is get the sort of link and support from the rest of the European Union to say that if there's a big legal case or something like that, that everybody will be jointly responsible for any downside. The UK government's preparing to hand over£8 billion of frozen assets held in Britain to Ukraine. The government's long-awaited child poverty strategy is promising more accessible childcare and an end to families being stuck in bed and breakfast. The idea is also to make childcare more accessible and offer free school lunches. Priya Edwards from Save the Children was heavily involved in developing the strategy.

2:27She's told Times Radio how poverty is defined. Child poverty is measured against median income. So if a family has 60 % or less of the average earnings in the UK, then they are considered in poverty and that it depends on family size but it's around sort of £22 ,000 a year in income means that a family's in poverty. And Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Brothers film and TV studios and its streaming division for£54 billion. It'll give Netflix access to a rich back catalogue including the Harry Potter franchise, Game of Thrones and Friends. It also brings HBO's award-winning portfolio including The Sopranos, Succession and The Wire.

3:06But there is some pushback from cinemas, as Jim Kennedy, former spokesperson for Sony Pictures, explains. They've had long-standing concerns with Netflix, which of course is, they see, stolen viewers away from the theatres. The talent industry also has concerns as well, because the more consolidation there is, the less they can have their own bidding wars for their talent and for their projects. And you 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.

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