with an independent study into the british monarchy s links to the slave trade. live from our studio in singapore. this is bbc news. it s newsday. it s six in the morning in singapore and 6pm in washington, where the white house is releasing seven in the morning and 7pm. a report which says little more could have been done to prevent the taliban takeover of afghanistan. the review, commissioned by president biden, does admit the us should have begun evacuating kabul earlier. a spokesman blamed the chaotic us withdrawal in august 2021 on a deal donald trump did with the taliban. transitions matter, that s the first lesson learned here, and the incoming administration wasn t afforded much of one. thus, president biden s choice was stark either withdraw all our forces or resume fighting with the taliban. he chose the former. that s the picture from the white house. i spoke to a foreign policy fellow earlier in washington, who explained the significance of this announcement.
the bbc has heard evidence that albanian drug gangs are using migrant camps in northern france as a recruitment ground, offering to pay the passage of people who looking for better economic prospects and are prepared to work in the uk s illegal drugs trade. albanians account for at least one third of the 38,000 people who ve crossed the channel to england this year, according to the latest government figures. 0ur correspondent lucy williamson reports. for each boat, each migrant, there can be many smugglers. albanian fixers, uk guarantors, kurdish criminal gangs. one man who paid for a place on a kurdish boat this summer says he was approached by recruiters for the uk drugs trade in a dunkirk migrant camp. translation: they offered me lots of things - - to pay for thejourney, to give me a job, but i wasn t interested. they asked me four or five times. this is where the albanian migrant trail begins. small towns like laknas marked by absence the shuttered houses and empty ca
The Israeli Military has confirmed there are 126 hostages in gaza but there are fears that number could be as high as 150. A Military Spokesperson also said the bodies of some hostages have been found on the edges of the gaza strip. Our correspondent Frankie Mccamley has been speaking to families of some of those missing. Posted online, this video of shiri and her baby, surrounded by militants. You can just about see nine month old kfir in her arms, believed to be one of the youngest taken hostage. And this is 84 year old ditza heiman, one of the eldest, still missing. Her niece debbie says her aunt was hiding in her safe room, on the phone to her family, just before she was taken. When her phone was answered, this time, it was answered by a man speaking arabic, and he said, hamas, hamas. They later heard from a neighbour of hers in the kibbutz that hed heard her crying for help, and hed rushed out of his home and hed seen her surrounded by gunmen, being led away. The aftermath, follow
Said that the goal of the operation was to completely destroy the governing and military capabilities of hamas. It comes a week after hamas, which is classed as a Terrorist Organisation by many western governments, killed more than 1300 people in israel and took dozens hostage. We can show you these live pictures of gaza city right now where it is shortly after 2am in the morning. In a drone strike, the Israeli Military said on saturday that it has killed a hamas commander who led part of the assault on israel. Ali qadhi is the second hamas chief to have been killed in a day. Meanwhile, on the ground in gaza, thousands of civilians are on the move. Thats after israel warned over one million living in the north to move south beyond the Wadi Gaza River here, an order the World Health Organization has said is a Death Sentence for those already sick and injured. The authorities in gaza say more than 2,200 people have already died in retaliatory israeli bombing including children while att
claimed that palestinian militants were responsible. 0ur correspondent lucy williamson reports. explosion. israel s air defences streaking towards the lebanese border to prevent an attack. their target, dozens of rockets fired by palestinian militants, israel says. that boom the sound of a missile intercepted. six rockets slipped through, landing in towns like shlomi. this bank closed today for the passover holiday, badly damaged by shrapnel. i hearthe siren, i hear the boom, i was in my home. it was very, very scary. 20 miles away, another community hit. translation: we heard booms and sirens. - a rocket hit the roof of a car as it was passing by my house, but the rocket didn t explode. when i went after the car,