have stopped passing through here and are now taking the much longer route all the way around africa instead adding costs and delays. here s our diplomatic correspondent, james landale. the threats to shipping in the red sea is very real. this was an attack by iranian backed houthi fighters last month, storming a cargo ship registered in britain. the militia from yemen claiming that any vessels owned by allies of israel were legitimate targets. shouting. there have also been drone and missile attacks so many that shipping companies are pulling out of the red sea, sending their vessels around southern africa instead. in response, the us secretary of defence, who s visiting the middle east, has formed an international military coalition to protect ships and ensure freedom of navigation. these attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law. and so, we re taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. and i would remind you that
as he hailed what he called productive talks with his political rivals. this as the clock ticks towards a deadline to avoid missing a payment on the us government s loans. the government is set to hit its borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion next week, raising fears it could run out of money to pay its bills without a deal to increase the debt ceiling . joining me now is danni hewson, head of financial analysis at aj bell. do you think investors are happy to take president biden at his word that no matter how difficult these negotiations get, no matter how much they go down to the wire he will somehow ensure there is no default? i think investors are increasingly nervous as we get further down to the wire and we have seen markets lose about 2% this week as that clock counts down. at the moment i think investors do assume that politicians will not want to tank the us economy. there is some kind of agreement will be reached before it reaches a point of defaulting on debt becaus
palace. he s meeting his french counterpart, emmanuel macron. a statement from the elysee palace said mr zelensky and mr macron will discuss french military and humanitatian support for ukraine. it s mr zelensky s third visit to a major european power this weekend. he was in germany earlier and on saturday he was in rome meeting italian leaders. live now to france where we can join hugh schofield our paris correspondent for more on zelensky s visit. we heard a big announcement from germany about nearly $3 billion worth of aid on his visitjust before his visit to germany but are we expecting anything similar, any similar announcements from france? not that we have been led to believe, that is all i can say. there will be some kind of official press statement at the end of this dinner in a couple of hours and it may be that there is mention of more munitions and arms from france to ukraine but we have not been led to suspect that will happen in any major way. suspect that will
excited, a bit nervous. obviously a big day ahead but can t wait, actually. the commissioner of london s metropolitan police sir mark rowley says security for the coronation will be the biggest operation in the force s history. this is an immense operation, and in fact, tomorrow, saturday, it would be the biggest single deployment we have done in london, ever, for this operation. there will be well over 11,500 officers involved. our other main story this hour: in england, the conservatives suffer significant council losses in local election results. and the world health organization says covid 19 no longer represents a global health emergency , a major step towards ending the pandemic. welcome to bbc news. i m christian fraser, live at buckingham palace where final plans are being put in place for the coronation of king charles tomorrow. my colleague katty kay is outside westminster abbey where the coronation ceremony will take place. we will bring you all the build up to th