i'm sumi somaskanda. glad you could join us. hamas says it will send a team to egypt on saturday, in the latest negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage release deal with israel. the group said "it's determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils palestinians�* demands. " the wall streetjournal is reporting that israel is giving hamas one week to accept the current deal orface a ground invasion of the city of rafah. egypt, qatar, and the us are once again facilitating the talks. israel wants dozens of hostages returned home, and a temporary ceasefire before it resumes its mission to destroy hamas. as our security correspondent frank gardner explains, hamas wants guarantees of a permanent withdrawal of israeli forces and an end to the war — something israel has not shown willingness to accept. everyone�*s waiting for the hamas team to give

its first formal response after they arrive in cairo. the cia director william burns is reportedly in cairo and that's very important because us support for this deal has been crucial. now, the sticking point in all of this is that hamas wants a commitment by israel that the fighting stops. israel won't give that commitment, partly for political reasons and partly for political military reasons. it believes the remaining four group battalions of hamas are hiding out in buffer, probably below ground entitles and yahya sinwar, the leader of us, the military leader and the architect the october seven massacre, is amongst them. hiding out there, possibly even surrounded by hostages. so the israeli military want to go in and finish the job. now, a ceasefire deal would certainly postpone, if not shelved that rafah military operation altogether. but hamas are taking their time over responding and i think they will want some reassurance that they don't give up

hostages and then immediately find themselves coming under massive attack because that isn't much of an incentive to them. meanwhile, turkey says its suspension of trade with israel over the country's offensive in gaza will remain until a permanent ceasefire is established because of the worsening humanitarian situation in the palestinian territory. the turkish trade ministry said all imports and exports would stop until the israeli government allowed an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of aid into gaza. earlier, the israeli foreign minister, israel katz, accused turkey's president, recep tayyip erdogan of behaving like a dictator. our senior international correspondent orla guerin is in istanbul. well, in the last few hours, president erdogan has been meeting with a group of businessman and he spelled out his rationale a bit more. he said turkey was taking this action to force israel. those are his words, to agree to a ceasefire and to allow more humanitarian aid into gaza. he said he wasn't chasing after conflict that he wanted, in fact, to avoid further

conflict in the region. and he insisted that israel was doing the right thing. now, he is somebody who positions himself as a global defender of muslims, and not only muslims here in turkey, but also the palestinians in gaza. so he party wants to be seen as defending them. he is also trying to impose a diplomatic blow on israel, a commercial blow on israel, which gets about 30% of its cement from turkey, but we can't leave out the domestic political context here. and we had elections across the country at the end of march local elections. now, those were bruising for the president's ruling party, it really was hammered. and analysts here believed that in part, that was because as far as some turkish voters were concerned, he simply was not tough

enough on israel. he has been waging a war of words in recent months, accusing israel of being a terrorist state and of carrying out genocide, but he hadn't taken any action until now. well, now we have the action, and now turkey is carrying out a war on trade. us university campuses have seen intense protests over the past few days — in some cases leading to confrontation. police have arrested more than 2,000 students nationwide since demonstrations escalated on monday at columbia university in new york. 137 colleges and universities saw students hold a protest orjoin an encampment in the last month and 30 are holding their commencement — or graduation — ceremonies this weekend. some student demonstrators have criticised police tactics as aggressive. for more on the situation at columbia university in new york, our north america correspondent nomia iqbal sent this update. as you can see, more than 1000 people have come out here to protest. the space behind me was actually an encampment, one of the last encampments here in new york. this is the new york

university. but the tents were all cleared out earlier this morning by police. i spoke to a professor who said she saw armed police go in and arrest students while they were sleeping. she described it as terrifying. but in order make other students and others offer, you can see many have returned here to carry on with their message, demanding the university divests from israeli institutions and many of the staff and students here are angry. they believe that the university is far more motivated in protecting its jewish students than allowing them the right to free speech and they point out that many of the protesters here are alsojewish. the uk's foreign secretary, lord cameron, has promised to support ukraine's war effort for as long as necessary. on a visit to kyiv friday, he pledged £3 billion — or $3.75 billion — per year. he also said ukraine has the right to use british weapons to strike targets inside russian territory.

take a listen. in terms of what the ukrainians do, in our view, it is their decision about how to use these weapons. they are defending their country, they were illegally invaded by putin and they must take their steps. we don't discuss any caveats that we put on those things. let me be absolutely clear — russia has launched an attack into ukraine and ukraine absolutely has the right to strike back at russia. those comments and others by western leaders have caught the attention of russia. president putin's spokesman, dmitry peskov, condemned the remarks as a "direct escalation." he also spoke out against france's president, emmanuel macron, who once again refused to rule out potentially deploying french troops to ukraine. in an interview published on thursday, he said: "if the russians were to break through the front lines, "if there were a ukrainian request, "which is not the case today, "we would legitimately have to ask ourselves this question."

mr peskov said such statements could jeopardise the whole security architecture of europe. for more on the role western allies are playing in ukraine, i was joined by two former us ambassadors to nato, kay bailey hutchison, and douglas lute. i want to start with the uk foreign minister lord cameron, saying it's up to ukraine on how it uses british weapons and that it is understandable why ukraine would hit target inside russia. we know the russians have hit back at this and ambassador hutchinson, i want to start with you to get your take because the us has been careful when talking to how ukraine uses us weapons. i absolutely agree with the uk. i think that we should not put parameters around the weapons that we are sending. we want ukraine to win and they need to be able to take out an air base where they are launching drones. they should be able to take them out. so that they are not losing people and equipment and infrastructure.

so, i think the uk is absolutely right. if we want ukraine to win, we need to give them the weapons and let them do what they need to do to win. 0k, ambassador loot, you agree with that because that would of course be seen as a big escalation by russia —— lute. of course ukraine is already using ukrainian produced weapons to strike on russian territory but i do agree with kay bailey hutchison. there was no effective campaign that i can think of that features the defence of only ukrainian target sites while denying ukrainians the ability to attack the launch sites from inside russia, so legitimate targets on russian soil are absolutely a legitimate thing in terms of the international law of land warfare and by way of self—defence so i think absolutely, it's a valid step on behalf of the uk and i hope others will follow. ambassador hutchinson,

let me ask you this — you not concerned about what a possible reaction from russia could be? her president putin which read time and time again about nuclear weapons? yes, and i think it's obviously, we want to be careful but i can't see that they could do any more than they are doing now. the russians have invaded a sovereign nation. they have terrorised the populace. they have actually, i think, committed war crimes. what more could they do? if they decided to use nuclear weapons — which i don't think they will and, certainly, president xi of china has warned them not to do that as well, as has moti from india — i think those that would be world war iii all on russia —— modi. and i don't think he's stupid so i think escalation, i think it's time for us not to try to weigh escalation

but to help ukraine with weapons while they are fighting for themselves. we don't have troops on the ground but we are giving... i want to ask you both about troops on the ground, actually, coming to the french president emmanuel macron�*s wide—ranging interview that he gave to the economist. he talked about not ruling out sending fringe troops to ukraine because he said the ability to deter further aggression rests not defining red lines. ambassador lute, do you agree with that? you know, i do, ithink president macron has been, especially recently, very strong voice in this regard and i think it point, he's right. i think that there is a strategic value, with a bit of ambiguity, in terms of what we might or might not do in the future. here a case in point is the potential that french troops may be deployed in ukraine. i think it's useful to have some ambiguity and not leave.. if i could jump in and ask you, president biden of the blood

administration has been clear there will not be us troops on the ground. —— biden administration. you think that's a mistake? i think in principle, in general terms, the notion of specifying exactly what you will not do in the face of a conflict. it's not usually strategically helpful. and that's because your opponent then can walk right up to that redlined while avoiding it. and the initiative is granted to your opponent. so, i'm with president macron on this. ambassador hutchinson, i want to come back to you and ask you about what we heard from emmanuel macron in that interview where he talks about the need for europe to change how it works and the need for european security and a framework and there are some concerns about type of framework could undermine nato. is that something that concerns you? well, certainly, america should be the leader of nato and i think the vast majority

of our allies believe that as well. because america is different from all of the european countries. ambassador hutchinson, if i could jump in there really quickly and ask you, because one of the points that macron makes is it's not certain that america will always have europe's back and that is why europe is looking to bolster its own security. what do you think of that? we want france to bolster its own security but we also know that we have a commitment, and article five commitment with europe, canada, and the united states, and that is if one of us is attacked, we are all attacked. that's a security pact. and it is the right thing to do with america in the lead because we have the most capability to lead. we want france to do more, we want germany to do more, we want all of our allies to do more because that makes us a stronger alliance. all right, so much more to discuss but we've run

out of time. ambassadors, thank you so much forjoining us tonight. it was an emotional day in court at donald trump's hush money trial on friday. hope hicks, mr trump's former communications director, became emotional on stand when detailing the campaign's panic over a lewd recording of the former president that was made publicjust days before the 2016 presidential election. ms hicks was questioned about messages she exchanged with trump's attorney and longtime fixer michael cohen regarding the wall street journal story about trump paying off playboy model karen mcdougal in 2006. it's alleged that he and ms mcdougal had an affair. ms hicks says trump told her to say that claims of an affair were untrue. prosecutors allege mr trump falsified business records to conceal a hush money payment made to adult film star stormy daniels in order to prevent further damage to his 2016 campaign. the former president denies the allegations. meanwhile, thejudge overseeing donald trump's hush money trial has corrected the former president's assertion that a gag order prevented him from testifying on his own behalf. justice marchan said trump had

an absolute right to testify. the court will be back in session on monday. for more on hope hicks' testimony, our north america correspondent nada tawfik sent this report. this was the first time that we had someone who work directly with donald trump take the stand. hope hicks is one of his closest aides in, she followed him from his company to the campaign trail, where they spoke nearly every day as she was his press secretary, and then onto the white house where she was his communications director. now, we didn't have to guess how she felt about being up there in front of herformer boss. she said once she adjusted herself understand that she was really nervous and at one point, she got emotional with tears. she did walk thejewry through some of the key moments that are relevant to the case, first that access hollywood tape and when it was released, she said it did send the campaign into crisis mode —— jury.

donald trump was concerned about how it would affect him with voters and that donald trump was the kind of boss that was deeply involved in setting his own media agenda, being involved in every statement that was released. when it came to the stormy daniels breaking news, she said donald trump told her to deny the affair and that he was concerned about how it would affect his wife melania, whose opinion he respected. she did also say that she first learned about the payment when michael cohen made a statement to the new york times, leaning he did it on his own. she said donald trump told her that michael cohen did it out of the kindness of his heart to prevent a false allegation against donald trump. hope hicks said they did seem out of character for someone like michael cohen, who wasn't exactly charitable. it's now up to the jury to weigh the evidence of her testimony against the others who will speak in this trial. for more, i spoke to national political reporter at time magazine eric cortellessa. he's a staff writer at time

magazine and interviewed trump about his run for a second term in the white house amid mounting legal woes. eric, you've described a possible second trump term as an imperial presidency that would reshape america and its role in the world. what surprised you most about donald trump's approach to a second term? well, i think what really stood out to me in my interviews with donald trump is that he's planning a second term agenda based around executive power and executive authority more than any kind of legislative agenda necessarily. this is an attempt to expand presidential power in his second term, and donald trump spoke to me about a number of things he plans to do on immigration, on overseeing the justice department prosecutions, on how he's going to treat the abortion issue, and i think it shows this is someone who is planning to come into office and remove many of the guardrails that stood in his way in the first term. yes, so that would be a question of mine —

what is your sense of what is biggest regrets are from his first term? was is that he feel he was limited by some of those guardrails? yeah, i think donald trump felt burned by a number of his cabinet appointees and he doesn't want to make that mistake again. you know, i specifically raised this point with him about the dozens of members of his cabinet who have refused to endorse him for election in 2024 and his answer was that they were disgruntled employees. i said, "president trump, why should voters trust "you when so many of the people who observed "you most closely in the first term don't think you should "serve a second?" and his answer was basically that he didn't like them and that he wasn't going to bring them back and so, they were not going to endorse him for re—election. but he then later said something else — he said, "i let those people resign. "i said, �*hand me a letter�*. "it was a gentlemanly thing to do," trump says. he says, "i won�*t do that from now on.

"from now on, i will fire." so, donald trump wants to make sure he staffs his administration with loyalists who are committed to helping him carry out his vision. let�*s talk about some of that policy agenda that you talked about — so, immigration, deportation of more than 11 million people... right. ..as you said, really solidifying the executive power also over the department ofjustice. there are checks and balances in the us political system, so how much of that agenda would he actually be able to see through? that�*s a big question that we ask in the piece. many of the things that donald trump wants to do are sure to engineer legal battles, right? he�*s going to be challenged in court. as we say in the piece, washington has a lot of checks, right? there�*s the courts, there�*s the constitution, we don�*t know what the make—up of congress is going to be, public opinion will have a role and, of course, we will have a free press. but donald trump is definitely looking to capitalise on an expanded sense of presidential power. i mean, immigration would be a great example. donald trump tells me he wants to not only restore many of the policies he had in place in the first term, he wants to embark on what he calls a massive deportation operation to remove as many or more than 11 million undocumented migrants from the country. he told me he would be willing to use the us military inland

to remove these people. when i told him us law forbids the use of military on civilians, he said they�*re not civilians — they�*re people who are in our country illegally. donald trump said he would mostly rely on the national guard to remove these migrants from the country but he would also try to induce local and state police departments to participate by tying federal funding to their involvement, so this is something where donald trump is going to go full throttle and is going to try to do it without congress. we also talk about his foreign policy agenda as being described as something that you call "transactional isolationism" — something we saw in his first term as well. what would that mean in practical terms for the war in ukraine, the war in gaza? well, let�*s start with ukraine. i mean, iasked president trump specifically whether he would commit to approving more aid for ukraine and he told me that it would depend on europe. he says, "we�*re only going to pay if europe starts "equalising". i also asked him about his comment when he said, "russia can do whatever the hell they want to nato "countries" that he doesn�*t think are paying enough for his defence. he told me he said that with great meaning — that if you don�*t pay,

then you are on your own. and so, the worry and the great fear among our european allies and others is that in donald trump�*s mind, the bookkeeping will ultimately matter more than defending the west. right, and one more question — you wropte that he appears more assertive and confident, and i found that really interesting, given the host of legal troubles that he is facing, of course. where do you think that confidence comes from? is it because the polling right now looks pretty good for the former president? well, i think polling definitely gives him a boost of confidence but i also think that donald trump is — there�*s no real comparison to another kind of political figure whose had the kind of resilience and political savvy to endure what would sink any other person. you know, donald trump has been able to turn his legal woes into his political advantage. he has — as you say, he�*s leading and most polls and he�*as been able to completely reorient the republican party.

he has intervened directly in primary races for house and senate seats and so, if he gets into office again, he is going to have a very compliant republican party who are all going to be out to serve him. he notably did not have that in a first term, right? quite famously, one of his landmark legislative priorities was to overturn 0bamacare. he wasn�*t able to do that because it was republicans likejohn mccain who voted against him, so donald trump feels like he has engineered a new reality in american politics where he would not have those same forces stymieing him in a second term. fascinating reporting, eric. thank you for sharing that story with us. thank you for having me. britain�*s ruling conservative party suffered a major blow in friday�*s local elections as the opposition labour party made significant gains. while the votes are still being counted, british prime minister rishi sunak called the outcome so far "disappointing". the local elections are considered the last major test of public opinion before the uk�*s general election later this year. there�*s little good news for mr sunak. in one by—election, his party suffered one of the biggest swings to the opposition labour party since the second world war.

at council level, the results are no better. experts say, the conservatives could be on track to lose a staggering 500 councillors — one of the worst performances at the polls in four decades. mr sunak and the labour leader sir keir starmer have been talking to the media. here�*s a little of what they had to say. obviously, it�*s disappointing to lose good hard—working conservative councillors and i�*m grateful to them for all their service and local government, keeping council tax low and delivering services for local people. there are things that would .2, where keir starmer held a rally in harlow saying that he had to win that. we in harlow saying that he had to win that. ~ ., ., win that. we won the general election and _ win that. we won the general election and we _ win that. we won the general election and we are _ win that. we won the general election and we are confidentj election and we are confident going — election and we are confident going into the general election. what this by—election shows— election. what this by—election shows is— election. what this by—election shows is that the country wants

change — shows is that the country wants change. this is a very clear divide _ change. this is a very clear divide now. we had 14 years of failure and decline. we've just chaos and division from the tories. people want to turn the page on that and go forward with labour and their positive plan for the country. canadian police say they�*ve arrested and charged three people with last year�*s killing of the prominent sikh separatist hardeep singh nijjar. authorities said their probe includes investigating the murder�*s possible connection to the government of india. mr nijjar�*s killing led to a diplomatic row between canada and india, after 0ttawa accused delhi of involvement. india denies the allegations. now it some other headlines from around the world. kenya is on high alert after president william ruto warned the country could experience its first ever cyclone. torrential rains have lashed east africa since march, claiming more than 350 lives and displacing tens of thousands. mr ruto has deployed the military to assist with evacuations, and postponed the reopening of schools indefinitely as kenya braces for the cyclone.

a us democratic congressman from texas and his wife were indicted friday on numerous counts of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering, and acting as an agent of a foreign principal. the us department of justice alleges that representative henry cuellar and his wife imelda accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an azerbaijani oil company and a mexican bank. in brazil, floods have killed over 30 people following the collapse of a damn following days of heavy rain. over a million people are now without power and clean water since the storms began over the weekend. the collapse of a hydroelectric dam following days of heavy rains triggered massive flooding. more than 60 people are still believed to be missing. and china has launched a rocket carrying a probe, aiming to collect samples from the far side of the moon. the country�*s space agency is hoping to return the samples to earth, a mission that, if successful, will take 53 days to complete.

the spacecraft will attempt to make a soft landing on one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system. it�*s part of china�*s ambitious space programme that�*s seen rapid progress in the last decade under president xi jinping. that is our programme at this hour. i�*m sumi somaskanda in washington. thank you for watching bbc news. don�*t forget to check out our website. do stay with us. hello there. the weather at this time of the year really can be very fickle, as we�*ve seen over the past week, and during the bank holiday weekend, it�*s going to be a mixture, really, where there�*ll be some sunshine at times. there�*ll also be some heavy showers. it could be quite warm but we�*re not going to reach the high temperatures that we�*ve seen in the past few days. take you back to thursday and all four home nations had their warmest day of the year and we maintain

those sort of temperatures in western scotland and northern ireland on friday. but for suffolk and north wales, it was much colder because of cloud and rain. that�*s moving its way a little bit further north but we�*ve got some more rain to come on saturday across northern ireland. some heavy showers pushing across scotland may turn a bit drier in north wales and northern england but still a lot of cloud. to the south, though, we�*ll see some sunshine after a chilly start. a few showers developing in the south east of england. but in the sunshine across midlands, southern england, south wales, east anglia, it�*s going to be a warm day —16, 17 degrees. we could reach 19 in the northwest of scotland before those heavy showers arrive. there�*s a few more showers, though, to come in scotland and northern ireland, perhaps the far north of england. should be a bit brighter but a bit of sunshine will trigger some thunderstorms. the odd shower across england and wales and a bit of rain coming into the far southwest. that�*s keeping temperatures a little bit lower here. but otherwise, widely, temperatures are going to be a reasonable 16—18 degrees on sunday afternoon. now, there is a bit of rain in the southwest — it�*s on that weather front there, an area of low pressure. not really much wind to move things on at all. there�*s a bit of uncertainty as to how far north that showery rain could get but it�*s

pushing a little further north into england and wales. there�*ll be some sunshine but we�*re also going to trigger some more of these slow—moving, heavy, thundery showers, particularly in scotland. and temperature—wise on monday afternoon for the bank holiday, typically 16 or 17 degrees. now, after the bank holiday, the weather is going to change, wouldn�*t you know it? and it�*s going to get a lot drier because that area of low pressure moves away and this area of high pressure will build in. now, around the top of it next week, we could well see a bit of rain towards northwestern areas of the uk but on the whole, it is looking like it�*s going to get dry after monday. there�*ll be more in the way of sunshine around as well and if anything, those temperatures are going to be rising, getting into the low 20s in many places later in the week.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we�*ll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. hello and welcome. this week we�*re coming from the bbc�*s radio theatre for a special event focusing on press freedom. an information iron curtain has fallen across large parts

of the globe. for billions of people, access to impartial news reporting is now restricted. state disinformation has reached industrial levels and we�*re going to focus on three countries — iran, china and russia. and we�*ll also hear how people are taking on the censors, how they�*re bypassing the firewalls and doing everything they can to access the truth. hello and welcome. well, this week, katie and i have left our normal studio in new broadcasting house, and we�*ve come a few floors down to the bbc�*s radio theatre. we are broadcasting from an event called bbc world service presents, which is focusing on press freedom, the reasons why it�*s under increasing pressure around the world. press freedom means journalists being able to report without threats to their safety, without government interference, without laws designed to punish them for their work. for many, though, press freedom is elusive.