but now, data scientists and demographers, like my guest today, stephen shaw, say we re actually facing a disastrous spiral of de population. why have birth rates declined dramatically and how much does it matter? stephen shaw, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. let s start with a basic fact. the world s population is still rising. at some point later this century, it s going to get to about 9.7 billion. and we can see the immense strain that our planet is already under in terms of resources, in terms of fragile ecosystems. and yet you seem to be saying that we as a species need to focus on having more babies. why? well, just to be clear, the reason the world s population is still growing has got nothing to do with births. births peaked in the planet around ten years ago, at around 143 million. today, that s down to around 135. we re already past peak birth as a planet. so, why is, confusingly, this total population increasing? it s because, thankfully, people are
between israel and the palestinians have any future at all after the gaza war? there was always, at the heart of it, almost a denial of the other perspective. now there s a complete rejection of it wholesale. and, following the attempt on the life of the slovak prime minister, we look at the worrying stresses and strains in european politics. these are times of crisis in europe, and these are times of confrontation. and i think very worrying for many is the fact that robert fico, divisive and controversial as he is, there was an attempt at an assassination. vladimir putin and xijinping have already met more than a0 times over the years, and, after their meeting last week, they ve agreed to get together yet again in july. but the balance of power has clearly switched from the days when the soviet union was dominant and china was the junior partner. as the old chinese saying goes, same bed, different dreams . i asked the bbc s russia editor, steve rosenberg, for his thoughts.
and reducing bureaucracy in the single market. it s all part of an eu push to strengthen the bloc s economy and help it catch the us and china. rainer riess, is the director general of the federation of european securities exchanges. how much closer are we getting to cmu? and what would that mean? i think not too close, i think we made some progress, but it is a project that is dating back from 2015, lord hill, the last british commissioner, actually, had the vision to bring european capital markets closer together and to catch up with the us to diversify funding sources for business,er specially for small and medium enterprises and the idea behind it is to foster growth innovation and resilience in the eu economy and obviously this would bring a lot of benefits, lowering barriers within the european union, for cross border investments, making funding more available for smes, strengthening the role of the markets to fund the green position. defence is now a big topic. a lot o
in gaza says at least 50 people were killed including women and children. the israel defense forces confirmed it targeted a hamas compound in the area. in its most recent statement, the idf said it killed two senior hamas commanders. in an earlier statement, it said: the us state department says it is aware of the reports and is gathering more information. earlier on sunday, hamas launched a missile attack on israel for the first time in months. the israeli military said at least eight rockets were launched from the rafah area towards tel aviv. all the projectiles were either intercepted by air defence systems or fell in fields. meanwhile, our partner cbs news is reporting that us diplomatic efforts to broker a deal to release hostages held in gaza by hamas and other allied groups are expected to continue soon. negotiators from qatar, egypt and the united states will be part of the talks. cia director william burns last week travelled to paris to revive talks after negotiat