Evening briefing Tuesday 9th September

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 Tuesday 9th September. Israel has tried to assassinate senior Hamas officials in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

0:42The group was part of a negotiating team apparently considering an American ceasefire proposal. Benjamin Netanyahu says it was an independent Israeli operation and the US was notified beforehand. Qatar has described it as a cowardly strike, while the UAE says it stands with Qatar, describing Israel's attack as treacherous. Government Minister Karen Smith has told Times Radio she is concerned. These sorts of incidents are not helpful. We need to get the hostages back. We need to have that ceasefire. We need to get around the table. That will happen eventually, and the sooner it happens, the better for everyone, because this situation is intolerable, particularly for the people of Gaza.

1:19But former IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has told Times Radio he supports what's happened. I would think that this not only is a justified action, but I hope that it is an action that will send a message to Hamas that time is up and that they need to hand over the hostages and end the war, end the suffering for Palestinians and surrender so that we can move on. Six Labour MPs have now entered the race to be the party's new deputy leader. They are the Education Secretary Bridget Philipson, Emily Thornberry, Lucy Powell, Bel Ribeiro, Adi Paula Barker and Alison McGovern. Each has to get the backing of 20 % of the parliamentary party.

1:58Anna Mihailova, Times Radio's political editor, says only two or three may get through. They need 80 MPs, which is a very high threshold, to be able to be on the ballot paper. So the current likely runoff could be, if the more left-wing candidates end up effectively splitting the vote between them, that it could actually be Bridget Philipson versus Lucy Powell. Volodymyr Zelensky says more than 20 civilians have been killed in a Russian airstrike on a village in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. A further 21 were wounded. In a post on Telegram, the Ukrainian president said the attack was directly on ordinary civilians.

2:36Military analyst Professor Michael Clarke has more details. This was a line of pensioners in that part of Ukraine. People don't have online banking. So on one day every week, they line up outside the post office and they get in cash their pensions. That's what they were doing. And the Russians obviously threw a glide bomb in that direction. These glide bombs are called the Fab 500 or the Fab 1000, 500 kilos or even 1 ,000 kilos. These are big bombs. And the director general of the BBC, Tim Davies, said that broadcasting Bob Villan's performance at Glastonbury, in which he chanted death to the IDF, was a very significant mistake and anti-Semitic.

3:12I thought it was deeply disturbing what happened. I mean, the BBC made a very significant mistake, very significant in broadcasting that. The fact that those words were broadcast to that broad audience, it was frankly very to your point. It was disturbing. Davey has also said that more things could emerge. 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. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business?

3:55Strong 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

4:20This week on The Business Podcast, episode one of Power Struggle, the first in our summer miniseries on energy. We're talking about the frailty of the UK electricity grid. We're dealing with tropical-like temperatures in a country that has infrastructure that largely wasn't built for that. Join me, Hannah Previtt. And me, Dominic O 'Connell, for weekly conversations from the world of business and entrepreneurship. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or find our channel on YouTube by searching Times Business.