Evening briefing Thursday 11th 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. This is the Times Evening Briefing on Thursday the 11th of December. The Prime Minister has criticised the Doctors' Union for not calling off next week's resident doctors' strike when flu cases are surging.

0:44Cases jumped 55 % in the space of a week, with 2 ,660 beds taken up each day last week. The peak of the wave is predicted during the resident doctors' strike, which starts next Wednesday. Sikir Starmer says he is concerned. Particularly in the run-up to Christmas, particularly when we've got a problem with flu, it'll be irresponsible for BMA to push through. And I think for many resident doctors, I think in their heart of hearts, they probably don't want to do this. So I just say to the BMA, do the responsible thing, accept the offer that's on the table and we can all move forward. The BMA says the government can go further on pay, which isn't in this offer.

1:26Volodymyr Zelensky says the US has talked about turning the east of Ukraine into a free economic zone as he submits new peace proposals. The president says that would involve his troops withdrawing from the Donbass, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk border regions. He insists, though, any territorial concessions would have to be put to a referendum of the Ukrainian people. The NATO Secretary General is warning Russia's next target will be Europe. Mark Rutte says countries must do more on defence to prevent another world war. Conflicts are no longer fought at arm's length. Conflict is at our door.

2:01Russia has brought war back to Europe and we must be prepared for the skill of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured Leaked documents suggest the Trump administration wants to persuade four more countries to leave the European Union A classified version of the US's new national security strategy names Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland as the most likely candidates is the same strategy which argued mass immigration and multiculturalism is leading to what it calls civilizational erasure in Europe. It's also suggested creating a new international group of the US, China, Russia, India and Japan to sideline the G7.

2:40Venezuela's opposition leader and this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner says Donald Trump's actions against President Nicolas Maduro are decisive. Maria Corina Machado is in Oslo collecting her award after US troops seized a tanker off the Venezuelan coast. US officials insist their military build-up is to oppose drug smuggling in the Caribbean, But Dr. Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America specialist at the think tank Chatham House, says it's about regime change. Now clearly the mask has fallen. What this is really about is trying to scare the military and the inner circle around Maduro to basically defect.

3:12And what he's been doing now with this attack and seizure of the oil tanker is basically trying to cut out some of the revenue that the Venezuelan government uses, collects illegally from trading oil with, in this case, Iran. But it's deeply questionable whether this is legal under maritime law. And more than 600 colonial artefacts have been stolen from the Bristol Museum. They were taken on September 25th from a warehouse containing items from its British Empire and Commonwealth collection. Police have released CCTV images of four men in hoods and masks who they think are responsible. Don't forget to subscribe to The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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