scottish democracy. the electric car battery maker britishvolt has gone into administration, leaving hundreds of staff redundant. more rail strikes train drivers will walk out on the 1st and 3rd of february, after union bosses rejected a pay offerfrom rail companies. a double decker bus overturns in icy conditions in somerset. 56 people are injured. and after 31 years presenting his weekday mid morning show, broadcaster ken bruce announces he is leaving bbc radio 2. hello, good afternoon. for the first time, the uk government has announced it is blocking a law passed by the scottish parliament. the scotland secretary alisterjack told the commons he was blocking introducing reforms that would have made it easier for people to legally change gender. he said transgender people deserved respect and understanding, but he believed the bill would interfere with uk equalities law. the first minister, nicola sturgeon, says her government will take legal action against the decision,
the electric car battery maker britishvolt has gone into administration after hopes of a last minute bid for the company faded. the collapse raises questions about uk hopes of building a home grown battery industry. the company, which had plans to build a gigafactory to make the uk start up had been expecting to build a new 5.8 billion or $4.7 billion factory in northumberland, as part of a long term vision to boost uk manufacturing. well, this promotional video shows what the factory with a capability to make 300,000 electric batteries a year would have looked like. the plan was to create 3,000 jobs at the plant. now, administrators have taken over the business and most of britishvolt s 300 staff are being made redundant. here s our business editor simonjack. so what went wrong? britishvolt was a start up company with no track record. their battery technology was only at the prototype stage. although there are expressions of interest from lotus and aston martin, they
hello and thanks forjoining us on sportsday. we start with football. france s star studded squad have arrived at their euro 2024 headquarters in germany and they ve got straight down to training. fronted by kylian mbappe, france are many people s favourites to win the tournament. they re second in the world rankings, behind only argentina, who they lost to on penalties in the world cup final two years ago. they begin their campaign against austria on monday. borussia dortmund captain emre can has been given a late call up to the germany squad. the former liverpool man replaces bayern munich s aleksander pavlovic who was forced to pull out with tonsilitis. pavlovic is just 20, and he only made his international debut just over a week ago, but he was named injulian nagelsmann s squad for the tournament. the hosts kick off their campaign on friday against scotland, who are now well settled into their base in the bavarian ski resort of garmisch partenkirchen. midfielder billy g
realistic or deluded? akinwumi adesina, welcome to hardtalk. it s good to see you, stephen. it s great to have you here. you need the world to believe in a bright african future. how is that going right now? it s going pretty well. if you take a look at the african economic outlook we had from the african development bank, the gdp growth rate, gdp growth rates last year was 3.1%. this year, it s 3.7%. and next year, it s going to be 4.3%. now, why that is important is that that is well above the global average. you still have ten out of the 20 fastest growing economies in the world being in africa. yeah, it s not quite as good as it sounds because you have fast rising populations across africa. yes, but when you have a lot of global shocks like we have, increasing real interest rates, and you have also a lot of geopolitical risks, you have a lot of inflation all around the world, africa still has its head above the water. yeah, i agree with you that in terms of the population
another busy programme. let s get started. world leaders are meeting at the g7 summit in southern italy later to impose fresh economic pressure on russia in response to its war against ukraine. there is a lot to discuss. the leaders of the seven powerful economies are expected to agree to use the interest from frozen russian assets to raise $50 billion a year for ukraine. but some european countries are nervous about who ultimately will bear the risk. president biden is also due to sign a new security agreement with president zelensky, as part of long term support to kyiv. for more on this, i m joined by andrew d anieri resident fellow at the atlantic council s eurasia center. good to have you on the programme. what progress will they make, do you think on that very point of increasing the economic pressure on russia? thanks for having me. in terms of sanctions pressure, that s what we mean immediately by economic pressure on russia i think it can be relatively modest, ux