Hello. Thanks forjoining us. We start with an absolutes Roller Coaster of a game in the Premier League as Aston Villaed moved a step closer to booking their place at europes top table. They drew 3 3 at villa park against liverpool to boost their hopes but really had to do it the hard way. They looked to be leaving the door open for rivals tottenham as they trailed 3 1 with five minutes left but two goals in three minutes from john dourian snatched an unlikely draw. Theres no possible worse stand the for villa as a martinez howler of an own goal saw them go 1 0 down after three minutes. They equalised 10 minutes later but two goals Saw Liverpool in the driving seat. That was until the dramatic comeback, much to the enjoyment of their club captain. I think its just credit to us that were in this position. Theres been a lot of times this season weve been written off. Weve floated under the radar nicely, even in game week 35, 36, people are like, oh, can villa do it . Can they not . Hopefu
Bill blair in ottawa, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much, stephen. Its a pleasure to have you on the show. As Minister Of Defence in canada, how embarrassed are you that your country is still significantly failing to meet the collective commitment of nato Member States to spend at least 2 of your gdp on defence . Stephen, im not embarrassed at all because canada, under our government, has been investing very significantly in defence and theres been a very strong upper projectory of Defence Spending. Weve just introduced our latest Defence Policy, which injects a significant amount of new investment into Defence Spending. It builds up greater capabilities, it moves us much closer to the target of 2 , and with some of the other things that weve articulated in this Defence Policy, i think we are on a strong and inevitable path to achieving that 2 goal. Canada is well aware of its responsibilities to our nato allies, to our continental allies, through norad in the United States, and
Correspondent James Waterhouse has the latest. Shouting. These communities are used to russia being close, but not this close. Forfour days, bombs have rained down here, and the window to leave is shrinking. Thousands have been forced to escape, and counting. Keep talking to us, says this Police Officer to 71 year old 0lga. She was injured in an explosion and their car is now an ambulance. They meet paramedics. Were told shes in a serious condition. Translation vovchansk is being mercilessly destroyed, blown up by rocket propelled grenades, artillery, mortars, and small arms battles are going on on the northern outskirts of the city. The newly homeless end up here in ukraines second city, kharkiv. People are terrified. They are stressed. They take. They keep their animals with them. So everyone is in a huge stress because of the constant shelling and of the shock of the russian offensive. Volodymyr said he went to feed his animals when he encountered Machine Gunfire in all directions.
Checkpoint west of hebron, came from jordan and were headed to the gaza strip, where Tens Of Thousands of palestinians face food and aid shortages. The white house has condemned the attack, describing the looting of aid convoys as a total outrage. Meanwhile, there are reports of clashes around the Southern City of rafah, an area where many people had taken refuge from fighting elsewhere in gaza. Thousands of people have fled the camp israel has advised them to go to the al mawasi area, near the coast, and to khan younis. Aid agencies say there is almost no infrastructure there to support them. Theres also been heavy fighting injabalia, in the north of gaza. Israel says it has returned to the area to counter any attempts by hamas to re establish its military capabilities in the area. The White House National security Adviserjake Sullivan said the us is still working with israel to avoid a Major Military operation in rafah. We still believe it would be a mistake to launch a Major Militar
Over the weekend, Russian Forces opened up a new front near kharkiv, pushing closer towards ukraines second largest city as they captured a number of small villages. Nearly 6000 people have fled the region amid heavy fighting. As ukrainian troops push back, heres what president zelensky had to say a little earlier. Translation our task is crystal clear. To stop russias attempt to expand the war. The fulfilment of this task depends on everyone who is on the ground. From kharkiv, there should be no safe place for the occupier on the ukrainian soil, and in our sky. Our defence correspondent Jonathan Beale is in kharkiv with this update. Russia claims it is still advancing, it says it is now entered at vovchansk, which is just a few miles from the russian border. Ukraine firmly denies that, the governor showing video of himself in vovchansk, saying civilians were still being evacuated, still in ukrainian hands. There are not many left there now and not many buildings intact. We spoke to a