Evening Briefing Wednesday 6th May

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. Hello, this is your Times Radio evening briefing for Wednesday the 6th of May with me, James Kitchen. Donald Trump has warned that America will bomb the hell out of Iran if the regime fails to reach a peace agreement.

0:45It comes as Washington is reportedly closing in on a deal with Tehran over the country's nuclear program and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier, the US president paused Project Freedom to allow for negotiations towards a complete and final agreement. Ali Ansari is a professor of Iranian history at St. Andrews University. If this extends for much longer, it's a matter of some debate about who's going to blink first. I know we all assume that Trump will blink first and some obviously we say that he's blinked already. But the fact is the consequences for Iran are quite grim. And, you know, Pezheshqian, the president, Ali Baath himself and others have all said that this prolonged shutdown of the economy can't really work.

1:27I mean, it's going to do them irrevocable damage. And I think the consequence of that will be civil unrest at some stage. The Iranian Foreign Ministry says it's reviewing the U.S. proposal and will convey its views to Pakistani mediators. Meanwhile, airlines have cancelled more than 13 ,000 flights this month as jet fuel costs soar due to the conflict. The data from analytics firm Sirim suggests it equates to around 2 million seats lost. London Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester are among the British airports to have announced cancellations. The Times' travel news editor Cathy Adams says perspective is needed.

2:04It sounds like a lot, but millions, billions of seats are available across the world. And I think it's important to remember that a lot of these flights that have been cancelled, the impact is concentrated on the Far East, it's concentrated on the Gulf, and obviously that has really been crunched. Actually, for those kind of Western European destinations that most Brits are going to want to go to this summer, there is no disruption. The Spanish health minister says a 56-year-old British crew member evacuated from a virus-hit cruise ship is in a stable condition. The MV Hondias, which set sail from Argentina last month, is grappling with an outbreak of the rodent-spread hantavirus on board.

2:45The Canary Islands has refused permission for the ship to dock after the Spanish government had already given its approval. Cleo O 'Flynn is a journalist based in Tenerife and Toll Times radio, the political row will backfire. Interestingly enough, people I have been talking to this morning in the last hour are actually thinking that this political row is what is going to give the Canary Islands a bad name, not the fact that a boat with people who might be infected is going to be allowed to dock here. So the political row is taking over from what was a humanitarian decision in the first place.

3:19A former SNP council leader who preyed on young men and boys has been jailed for 18 months. 30-year-old Jordan Linden was convicted of 10 offences, including five sexual assaults, stalking and sexual communication, following a trial at Farquhawk Sheriff Court in March. The offences took place over a 10-year period between 2011 and 2021. The president-elect of the Oxford Union has been removed from her position for committing electoral fraud. Catherine Zhu was found to have organized a scheme to impersonate voters in the historic debating society's elections. She claims the tribunal decision against her was based on fabricated evidence.

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