he acted pretty decisively in sacking nadhim zahawi as the conservative party chairman, as he defends his handling of the affair. the kremlin rejects claims by borisjohnson that president putin threatened him with a missile strike before russia s invasion of ukraine. and the former all black campbelljohnstone becomes new zealand s first national player to reveal he is gay. and coming up in sportsday later in the hour on the bbc news channel. we wll have the draw for the fifth round of the women s fa cup, we re down to the last 16. good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six. firefighters and control room staff across the uk have voted overwhelmingly to go on strike for the first time in 20 years over pay. last year the fire brigades union rejected a 5% pay offer. the union now says it ll give the government and employers 10 days to come up with a better offer, or the strikes will go ahead. it s the latest in a series of strikes announced by the public sector. on wednesd
and that s crucial to moving toward our enduring goal of palestinians and israelis enjoying equal measures of freedom, security, opportunity, justice and dignity. president biden remains fully committed to that goal. we continue to believe the best way to achieve it is through preserving and then realising the vision of two states. as i said to the prime minister, anything that moves us away from that vision is in ourjudgment detrimental to israel s long term security and its long term identity as a jewish and democratic state. you heard secretary blinken there referring to a two state solution to the israeli palestinian conflict. what that envisions is an independent palestinian state in the west bank alongside israel, withjerusalem as their shared capital. next let s hear what the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu had to say. to, perhaps achieve dramatic breakthroughs that i think could be both historic and enormously significant in our common efforts to bring
rolled off the production line. live from our studio in singapore. this is bbc news. it s newsday. welcome to bbc news broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. we start the programme for you in the middle east where the us. secretary of state antony blinken been holding discussions to resolve the escalating crisis there. he has told israel it will endanger its long term security if it abandons efforts to resolve the conflict with the palestinians. mr blinken who was speaking after talks with israeli prime minister, bejamin netanyahu said his immediate priority was to restore calm. the visit comes in the midst of a spate of violence between israelis and palestinians. the bbc s middle east correspondent, tom bateman, has more. in tom bateman, has more. jerusalem at the wreckai spreading injerusalem at the wreckage is spreading and another generation grows up in its wake. israel s new far right police minister is vowing to step up home demolitions of palestini
through his controversial pension reforms. we start with increasing warnings from western governments over the use of the chinese social media platform, tiktok. today the british government banned it on all government and civil servants devices. take a listen. we re also going to ban the use of macro when devices. we will do so with immediate effect. mr speaker, this is a precautionary move. we know that there is already use of tiktok across government, but it is also good cyber hygiene. on the face of it the app might not look like a threat to national security. it s exploded in popularity as a platform to share short videos of viral dances and comical voice overs. and has become a part of today s youth culture. tiktok claims to have more than one billion monthly users worldwide. and last year it was the most downloaded app in the world. the app is owned by the chinese company byte dance. and that s what s worrying governments. because the app can collect data stored on t
that i have been sent. prince harry and meghan s team say they have been invited to the king s coronation, but won t confirm whether the royal couple will attend. this year s oscars feature a record number of nominees of asian heritage. we ve been speaking to one hopeful about their special recognition. i was just hoping that the movie gets finished and that people watch it and so the fact that we have come all the way this far has been so exciting. hello there. very warm welcome to the programme. we begin our coverage today with the story of a huge fire in bangladesh which has destroyed about 2,000 shelters at a rohingya refugee camp in the south east of the country. officials say the blaze has been brought under control but around 12,000 people have been left homeless at the camp in cox s bazar and have nowhere to go. 0ur correspondent anbarasan ethirajan reports. the bamboo shelters of rohingya refugees in cox s bazar district are no match for the raging blaze. residents r