is facing mounting pressure from within his own cabinet, from the israeli public, and from the relatives of the hostages, who over the weekend stormed a parliamentary session injerusalem to demand more action to secure the release of their loved ones. live now to doha nawaf al thani is qatar s former director of defence intelligence operations and defence attache to the united states. hejoins me now. thank you for being here with us. what are you hearing about the framework of some sort of new deal? thank you for having me. i think first there are two parts of this. the first is the qatari statements in the past days and weeks that they have continued their efforts to restart negotiations and have not stopped their efforts. but the second part of this is also, at least from the qatari perspective, they ve played very close to the vest when it comes to negotiations, it s very sensitive and they don t talk a lot about it before it happens, but all reports indicates we are hea
radek sikorski, in warsaw, welcome to hardtalk. hello. good to see you again, stephen. it s great to have you on the programme. let s begin with a simple thought. the portents for ukraine in its grim battle against vladimir putin s forces in ukraine, the portents are really very negative, are they not? the supply of weaponry and of money coming from kyiv supporters is drying up. how concerned are you? that s not quite right. i was in kyiv within days of my appointment in december. my prime minister, the former head of the european council, donald tusk, has just been there, and the ukrainians have achieved a victory that has not been noticed in the western press, namely that, against stiff russian opposition, they have cleared western black sea of russian ships and they have now resumed grain shipments, not under a deal, from odesa via the western black sea to the bosphorus and to africa and beyond. that s a considerable military success. that s not insignificant. and they als
in the middle of. ..of the beauty of the mountains, or. but a restaurant is a place of comfort. i mean, the word has many origins, but one of them will be from restore or restoration . you went to the restaurant to restore yourself. mm. sometimes physically, emotionally, spiritually. in the old days, the monks. and i believe, in a certain way, restaurants are that, still today. so when they come to my restaurant, i want to.i want to make sure people come to a place they feel like a home. but also you feel like you have a responsibility not only just to have food that is good and people will enjoy, but the ones that want to engage with you, it s a way to learn more about something. i always say that i don t open restaurants, i tell stories. every one of my restaurants, in a way, is a story. mm hm. and when they eat. ..i want them to have the best possible time, but sometimes, if they only are used to fill their physical needs, it s fine. but we are always going to be there
president biden and mr netanyahu spoke by phone on saturday. the white house said mr biden stressed the importance of protecting civilian lives in gaza. he also told reporters he did not demand a ceasefire. mr netanyahu said he reiterated that the war will continue until all the objectives are met. from jerusalem, our correspondent lucy williamson has more. explosions. in gaza, this is the new normal drone strikes in the border town of rafah, emptying the local market. 17 year old joe, filming on his phone, still clutching his bag of shopping and calling on god for protection. america has blocked un calls for a ceasefire. israel says it needs to keep fighting to keep up the pressure on hamas. if you want a ceasefire, that, from israel s perspective, can only happen with the release of hostages. as you know, hamas continues to hold over 100 hostages. there s a chance, because they want that ceasefire, they need that ceasefire, they will agree to the hostages but had we to