Evening briefing Wednesday 23rd July

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. Good evening. Two children and a woman have died in a shooting in County Furmanagh. A murder investigation is underway following the incident at a house this morning.

0:42A man's in serious condition in hospital with police saying there's no threat to the wider community. Essex police have denied busing in counter-protesters to a demonstration outside a hotel in Epping which is believed to be housing asylum seekers. Ten people have been arrested following violent clashes outside the Bell Hotel over the last week. Our political correspondent Theo Usherwood was at a police press conference earlier led by Ben Julian Harrington, the chief constable of Essex police. He said it may not be the end of it. There are protests that are due to take place later this week. Ben Julian Harrington said to me they would be having to bring in officers from other parts of the country.

1:24They wouldn't say exactly how many officers to come in and ensure that these protests could take place peacefully. But they are expecting further demonstrations to take place in Epping during the course of this week. Meanwhile, protests have broken out at an empty hotel in the heart of London's financial district. It's after false rumours that it's being used to relocate migrants from a hotel in Epping. Two bankers jailed over one of the biggest scandals of the financial crisis have had their convictions quashed following a 10-year battle. Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo were found guilty of manipulating the benchmark interest rate known as LIBOR.

2:04The Indian Prime Minister is visiting the UK today. It's the first time in seven years. He's expected to sign a landmark free trade agreement between the two countries, Britain's most economically significant since leaving the EU. Sir Michael Arthur, the former British High Commissioner to India, told Times Radio it's significant. It's important in its own right, but I think it's also important in the current global context. When you look at the sort of panic about tariffs all around the world now because of the US administration, here is some good solid progress being made by two countries that are very intertwined and huge economies.

2:44India's actually now just overtaken UK to be the fifth largest economy in the world, and we're the sixth. Well, the deal proposes to remove taxes on Indian exports of leather, footwear and clothing. More than 100 aid organisations have signed an open letter demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. They say mass starvation is spreading across the territory. Earlier this week, the UK and 24 other countries criticised Israeli-backed food distribution sites where people are being killed. Dr James Smith, an emergency physician, worked for two and a half months in Gaza. He told Times Radio the situation there is dire.

3:23This is really a cataclysmic stage in the genocide now. More than 100 people have died as a result of severe malnutrition. Now that is most likely a dramatic underestimation. Ukraine and Russia have been holding a new round of talks in Istanbul. today, although Moscow has moved to play down expectations. Arseniy Yatsenok was the Prime Minister of Ukraine between 2014 and 2016. He told Times Radio he believes the talks have no value. I believe that Russian special KGB operation under the auspice of war criminal Putin is in progress. This is a kind of window dressing and smokescreen operation. So he wants to show to President Trump that talks are in progress, that he is ready to negotiate some kind of a very distant ceasefire peace deal or whatever, but he is not eager to cut any kind of deal.

4:22His main idea is to drag his feet and our feet into never-ending talks. 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? 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.

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