Morning briefing Monday 20th October

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 Morning Briefing for Monday 20th October. Israel says it's begun the renewed enforcement of the Gaza ceasefire, which has been dealt its biggest test.

0:45Two Israeli soldiers were killed and three wounded across withdrawal lines. That led the IDF to launch strikes against Hamas targets in Rafah, with all aid into the territory stopped. It's an escalation that's raised fears that the 10-day-old ceasefire is coming under severe strain. Mitchell B. Rees is a former U.S. diplomat, and he's told Times Radio it remains a chaotic situation. This speaks to the lack of planning for the day after the ceasefire was signed. There is no order in Gaza. When the Israelis removed themselves, it only left Hamas. Hamas has tried to re-establish order by the barrel of a gun and here's where we are right now.

1:28Virginia Giuffre feared she might die a sex slave at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his circle. A posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, is published this week and has been seen by the BBC. It reports that Ms Dufresne also claims she had sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions, including once with Epstein and approximately eight other young women. Prince Andrew denies any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the Met Police says it's examining claims that he asked his police bodyguard to find information for a smear campaign against Ms Dufresne in 2011. The government's been warned that Russian spies are working with people smugglers to bring illegal migrants into Europe.

2:08Bulgaria's interior minister has told the Times that there's evidence of direct links with the criminal gangs facilitating illegal immigration. Daniel Mitov revealed that the spies were helping people smugglers find weaknesses in the EU's external borders. Samuel Green is professor of Russian politics at King's College in London and he's given Times Radio more background. Russia was also for a time routing refugees up to Finland and to Norway to try to bring them in through the north. So they have some form and some practice in doing this. It's allowed them also to rebuild these relationships with networks that now allow them to operate much more broadly.

2:45President Macron says priceless jewellery stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris will be recovered and the thieves brought to justice. Eight items, including the diamond-encrusted tiara of Empress Eugenie, were taken yesterday morning. A ninth piece was recovered near the scene. The thieves targeted French crown jewels in the Napoleon collection. Christopher Marinello is one of the world's foremost experts in recovering stolen, looted and missing works of art. He's told Times Radio it's not an isolated incident. We are seeing more and more of this type of theft. No more of the paintings that are difficult to sell that go from Europe to the US where they get caught fairly rapidly.

3:26These are gangs of thieves operating in the world of diamonds and jewellery and gold. They're hitting smaller museums all over Europe. You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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