Chris is following the story for us. Theres a lot of pressure on the coup leaders in niger. This is as a result of the coup, the Political Development in that country and also its similar to the eus position. Its similar to the eus position. The eu has suspended aid, both financial and military to these states. The Secretary Of State earlier threatened that the country risks millions of dollars in aid is being suspended because of the coup and there has been action from the African Union which has given the military in niger 50 days maximum to return to the barracks and restore democracy. Theyve also asked for the release of the current president who we know it is still being held by the military. We who we know it is still being held by the military who we know it is still being held by the military. We go live now to can hudson by the military. We go live now to can hudson who by the military. We go live now to can hudson who is by the military. We go live now to can hudson who is an
false claims about what is going on, have been in abundance. journalists have been attacked and injured, so lots to discuss around the media s role. katya adler, the bbc s europe editor is with us. we have also gotjournalists who have been out reporting for french outlets. and we have got one of the bosses of agents france press, the big news agency. but before we get into that, i want to cross to new york and start with emma tucker, the editor in chief of the wall streetjournal. one of emma s reporters, evan gershkovich, has now been imprisoned in russia for more than 100 days. the authorities accuse evan of being a spy. charges that he, the us and the wall streetjournal all deny. he is the first western journalist to be detained in russia since the cold war. emma, welcome to the show. i will ask you for the latest on the situation any moment but can you just take us back and remind people the circumstances of his arrest back in march? evan is an accredited journalist in rus
the moment, i cannot say a lot about the ukrainian reaction and the response to what happened. so for the ukrainian defence ministry has not confirmed that this military aircraft could have been downed by the ukrainian forces suit no confirmation from their side. ukrainians say this has asked for comments from the general staff, the defence ministry. the general staff replied that for now, they don t have enough information and they still have to try to find out what happened there. of course, the prisoners of war and the issue of swaps is one of the most sensitive and difficult things and issues of ukraine now. thousands of ukrainian military are still in the russian community and there was an expectation that new groups of prisoners could have happened but again, military intelligence that is in charge of these swaps of prisoners of war said that for now, they are not ready to provide any official statement or confirmation or denial whether any prisoners were scheduled. to
to death in nottingham say they ve been let down by police after their killer is given a hospital order for three counts of manslaughter by diminished responsibility. russia says missile fragments and black boxes have been found at the sight of a plane crash which has said to have killed tens of ukrainian prisoners of war. nhs consultants reject a new pay offer with 51% of union staying with the issue of capital punishment and according to amnesty international, the number of executions is rising globally, despite many countries abolishing the use of capital punishment. according to the latest figures, in 2022, 55 countries had the death penalty. one of those is japan, where a man has been sentenced to death following a deadly arson attack on an animation studio in kyoto in 2019 which killed 36 people. shinji aoba had previously admitted setting the building on fire. his lawyers had sought an acquittal on the grounds of mental incompetence, but the judge rejected that a
of 3.3% in the last three months of 2023 much stronger than expected. that s raised hopes that the us federal reserve might have achieved a soft landing getting inflation under control by raising borrowing costs without crashing the economy. the strong economic numbers helped stoke an ongoing rally on us stock markets. both the dowjones industrial average and s&p 500 closed at new record highs on thursday. and traders weren t the only ones celebrating. the gdp figures have been seized upon by president biden, who is battling for re election. he s been suffering poor approval ratings for his handling of the economy, as american households feel the impact of higher prices on their finances. from new york, here s michelle fleury. for an economy many said was headed for recession, the us continues to defy expectations. in the final three months of last year, the american economy grew faster than expected, expanding at an annual rate of 3.3% while inflation fell. growth for th