this is bbc news. the headlines. climate records tumble like dominoes , as european scientists confirm that 2023 was the warmest year on record. britain s foreign secretary lord cameron says he s worried that israel may have taken action in gaza that breached international law. a legal scandal in which hundreds of british post office managers were wrongly prosecuted for fraud has forced the former head of the post office to hand back an honour she received from the late queen. and the former us president donald trump is in court for a landmark legal case about whether he should be immune from criminal prosecution. this is the scene outside the courthouse in washington. more on those stories coming up in the next half hour. time for a look at the business news now. lovely to have you with us this afternoon. we start with the latest on the boeing 737 max planes because united airlines says it had found multiple loose bolts on door plugs during inspections of its fleet of max
we start with a troubling landmark for the climate as 2023 smashes the record, for the world s hottest year ever recorded. european scientists say, that 2023 left the records tumbling like dominoes . the average global temperature in the past 12 months was 14.98 degrees. that beats the previous hottest year set in 2016 by 0.17 degrees. the announcement was made by the eu s climate change service. and the met office in the uk believes this record could be short lived, as their forecasts suggest 2024 could be even hotter. earlier, i spoke to our climate editor, justin rowlatt, who told me that record was broken by some margin. yeah, it is interesting, isn t it? the margin, as you say, was 0.17 celsius. you might say, well, that doesn t sound very much to me, but remember, this is a global average, an average across the entire globe day and night across the entire year, and normally scientists say they expect it to be broken by a tiny fraction of a degree, 0.01, 0.02, not
Now on bbc news, its time for a special programme. Global questions the taiwan, china conflict. Hello, welcome to global questions with me, zeinab badawi, from Liberty Square in taipei, the capital city of taiwan. The main island of taiwan lies about 160 kilometres across the waters from china. In the past few months, china has stepped up its military exercises, and fired missiles over taiwan, in growing tensions with the government here. The chinese president , xijinping, has reiterated the claim that taiwan belongs to china, and he says he does not rule out the use of force to take it over. Meanwhile, the United States, which supports taiwan, has hardened its position with President Biden saying he would send american troops to defend it. So, if china did invade taiwan, it would be a conflict with huge global dimensions, one that involves the two superpowers, the United States and china. That is global questions, taiwan, a flashpoint with china and the world . Applause welcome to the