Moving closer to russia, which happened after coups in neighbouring burkina faso and mali. Later, leaders from the 15 countries that make up the Economic Community of west african states, and the eight leaders from the west African Economic and monetary union, will meet to discuss their response. Brandon kendhammer is politics professor at Ohio University and expert on politics in west africa. Hejoins us now. Thank you and welcome to the programme. What is your take on what we are witnessing in niger right now . Right now . Good morning. I think what right now . Good morning. I think what we right now . Good morning. I think what we are right now . Good morning. I l think what we are witnessing right now . Good morning. I. Think what we are witnessing is likely the consolidation of any Military Regime. Enough time has passed now that we have a general sense of who was in charge or who would like to be in charge and while we have seen a fair bit of International Response at this point,
Has killed at least one civilian and wounded five. Officials said the missile hit an education centre. Earlier on President Putin spoke at the annual Navy Day Parade in st petersburg, the same city he was meeting african leaders. There was a flotilla of ships present and the russian president gave a speech in which he said the russian navy baguette that 30 new battleships and thanking naval trips for their services and the love of the motherland. Lets take a listen to some of putins speech. Translation patriotism is at the core of the particular Neighbour Culture which helps them fulfil the tasks and evokes pride among our people in the strong fleet. This pride proves that the people of russia can hold the power on the seas. Today, the Russian Fleet is solving the tasks of National Policy and increasing its strength. This year alone, 30 new battleships are joining the navy one of which has been named after a glorious seafarer and it is great that we have this tradition to give the name
that the russians had full control of the city. we ve been hearing these claims, actually, from yesterday, and these claims have not been confirmed yet by the ukraine s general staff, the armed forces of ukraine, neither by the local administration and authorities. what we can say with certainty, of course, is the situation in lysychansk has been very intense for quite a while now. after the battle for severodonetsk, lysychansk was the key focus of the russian offensive, their ground forces have been affecting lysychansk nonstop, the city was under intense artillery fire, missile fire, bombardments, aerial bombardments. and like we ve always been saying, and our minister of defence confirmed it a few days ago, for ukrainians, the value of human life is top priority, so sometimes we may retreat from certain areas, just so that we will retake them in the future. and there are other claims that russia is encircling ukrainian troops, or encircling the town itself. what s your tak
Just after midnight. plans for the hs2 rail line in england have been deemed unachievable , by the government s own infrastructure watchdog. construction of the first two phases of the high speed rail line, have been given a red rating, with major issues relating to the schedule and budget which the infrastructure and projects authority, say don t appear to be managable or resolvable . as russian forces moved into ukraine last year, thousands of people had to flee their homes with many finding refuge in the uk. one family who came to live in northern scotland are moving back to their home country after nine long months. and they re being helped by those who opened their home to them. daniel bennett reports. packing for a massive trek it s not a holiday, but a journey back into a war zone for some