. the latest headlines- hamas has responded to a ceasefire proposal and israel is yet to respond. asia was called on to increase military spending about the threat of china, in his words. he repeated pledges to increase the us presence in the indo-pacific. watchdog warns iran has stepped up its production of highly enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons but iran denies this and because the report political. authorities in nigeria said more than 150 people have been

killed in flash flooding in the hello and welcome to unspun world at the bbc's headquarters in a drizzly central london. a former israeli prime minister accuses his country of committing war crimes in gaza. but will that affect the netanyahu government's approach? mr netanyahu is very adept at batting that off and essentially turning the velocity of it coming at him

back on the person who's sending that criticism. what's the impact on ordinary ukrainians of the latest onslaught by russia on civilian targets? people get more tired. people get sometimes frustrated. that's unavoidable. and the unknown, unreported war in cameroon between french speakers and people who speak english. in a conflict where both sides have reportedly committed human rights abuses against civilians, and so you would imagine that none of the warring factions want a story like this out. ehud olmert was israel's prime minister from 2006 to 2009 - from the right-wing likud party but fairly centrist, a cultured man married to a leading artist and writer.

when i went to his house to interview him in 2006, he was forthright in defending israel's record, but it was clear he had a strong conscience. now, in the left-wing israeli newspaper haaretz, he has accused the government of benjamin netanyahu of committing war crimes in gaza. until recently, olmert said he hadn't believed this to be true. what we're doing now in gaza is a war without a purpose... now, though, he says, what we are doing in gaza now is a war of devastation - indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. strong stuff. but can the words of a leader long out of office actually change anything in israel? i spoke to sebastian usher, the bbc's middle east regional editor. i think that that government and mr netanyahu himself have shown themselves

to be very resistant to volleys of criticism that have come in at them at, you know, great intensity for a long time. i mean, this raises it, obviously, a former prime minister, but mr netanyahu is very adept at batting that off and essentially turning the velocity of it coming at him back on the person who's sending that criticism. so i think as far as immediate change from the government, no. in terms of that momentum that may be building in israel and beyond, putting pressure on mr netanyahu and his strategy, obviously it will add to that. but the question now is, after all this time, and also having had a relatively lengthy ceasefire, is it now a situation where we're returning to what we have known in the past, where that clock may start ticking again, and where what israel's closest allies say really begin to matter?

we've had very strong statements from the uk, from germany, from france, even from president trump. a bit. yes. and that comes and goes. yes. and a big question... ..i mean about president trump in particular, and his administration, is when he's said something, will he actually go through with it? can we turn to the humanitarian effort? now, we've got this organisation called the gaza humanitarian foundation. will this be able to do what the united nations hasn't been able to do, do you think? well, the un agencies say no, very, very strongly. i mean, they say that, "we are the organisations "that have been dealing with this issue for decades, "and we have all the mechanisms in place." the other issue is the way that this new mechanism has been presented is that there will be just a certain number of places, hubs, where gazans will have to go in order to receive

the distribution of the aid. and a huge criticism of that has been that this will push gazans even further into tiny pockets of land. and we've seen israel becoming - the israeli government, let's be clear, the government - being clearer and clearer in its stated goal, that it now is saying that it will take over - at least temporarily, but potentially permanently - large swathes of gaza, which was not at all what it said in the early months of the offensive. if international journalists were there, i suspect the situation would be completely different. you wouldn't, as a journalist organisation, be so open to accusations from those who don't like what you're saying that you are lying, that you have a bias, etc, etc, if you're on the ground and you can show this is what the situation is. so when you're talking about the possibility of famine, you're talking about shortages,

you're talking about the difficulty of trucks with aid being able to get to where they're needed, if you're able to show that, then that helps enormously in clearing some of the, you know, extremity of feeling that's clouding the issue, and i think is making it more and more difficult to get to any resolution that might begin to provide some light at the end of this endless tunnel that we're in. is there any chance of a resolution, do you think? i mean, we can't even have a ceasefire that holds. i mean, i think there will be a ceasefire of some kind again. i mean, the biggest difficulty remains that hamas is demanding a complete end to the war, and the israeli government is not accepting that. so everything else, however close they get to however many hostages will be released at a given time, however long a ceasefire

might last, falls away at the last moment because of that. and i mean, the only thing that can change that in the end, really, is a concrete shift in the way that the allies on both sides... i mean, countries which have been relatively close to hamas have put pressure on hamas to try to come to a deal. that's why there was a ceasefire when it happened. and the closest allies to israel are coming out more and more with those sorts of statements. but whether they actually have the ability with the concrete pressure that they can apply to either side to make them come to a compromise, which is desperately needed by the israeli people, by the palestinian people, is still a question. the negatives still outweigh the positives. and the idea of any resolution beyond a ceasefire is even further away than it's seemed at any time.

it's becoming clearer and clearer that president putin has no intention of stopping his war in ukraine. many kremlin experts now think he believes he's winning the war and would privately welcome it if donald trump got discouraged with trying to bring peace to the region and pulled out of the process. president trump himself seems angry and bewildered by russia's latest attacks on ukraine. he called the russian leader "crazy" and said vladimir putin was "playing with fire". but what effect have russia's repeated bombing attacks on the ukrainian capital, kyiv, had on people there? zhanna bezpiatchuk is a bbc ukrainian correspondent who's spent a lot of time on the front line. russia again used nearly every type of weapons to target the ukrainian cities

and villages. they used anti-ballistic missiles, drones and bombs. so i can't say that it was a feeling that this full-scale war is back because it has never stopped. and if we speak about attacks on kyiv and other ukrainian villages and cities, there was no real military justification behind these attacks. for many, many ukrainians, for the absolute majority of people here, it's clear that it's a terror technique. it's a tactic of terrorising the civilian population and making it surrender, accept any terms of the possible future peace deal, whatever they are. and it's already the fourth year in a row of this kind of tactics and techniques used by the russian army. and of course, with every year of the war, people get more tired, people

get sometimes frustrated. that's unavoidable. does all this mean that people are starting to think it's better to have peace at any price? or is that still only a very small minority of people who think that? peace at any cost, there is a wide consensus in ukraine, would mean in the longer run... ..maybe new war both for ukraine and maybe for europe. but i do believe that the majority of ukrainians, they understand all this highly complicated context of this war and its historical importance for the future. tell me what you think is the state of morale of the ukrainian armed forces now. ukrainian armed forces, they are tired, to some extent, just as the entire country, because the very nature of

the russian war against ukraine is to cause this fatigue. so what i heard very often from the ukrainian military - "we need a respite. "we need to replenish our personnel. "we need to have this chance to restore." now, it seems to come as a bit of a surprise to president trump, but i think most analysts would say that it's in president putin's interest to keep on fighting the war. how would people in ukraine respond that there could still be fighting in perhaps even a year's time? yeah. this kind of messages about russia's readiness to continue the war as long as they want, maybe for years ahead, maybe for decades ahead, this message was clearly delivered to the ukrainian delegation in istanbul.

and they showed immediately after the meeting in istanbul with three nights of massive full-scale attacks on the entire country. and one final question. is president zelensky still moderately popular? yes. so if we take the public opinion polls, those that are really independent, impartial, he constantly has the level over 50% of the public support, which is a sign that right now, ukrainians, the majority of people not interested in the change of the leadership. they understand that right now, the priorities are different. but in the longer run, there is also very clear understanding that ukraine has to safeguard their democracy. and it's a challenge

to the democracy when the president is not re-elected, because there is the martial law, because there are all these restrictions that are imposed and caused by the war. the nuclear negotiations between the united states and iran have been up and down recently, but more up than down after some pretty angry accusations from the two sides. we've had some very, very good talks with iran, and i don't know if i'll be telling you anything good or bad over the next two days, but i have a feeling i might be telling you something good. so what are we to make of all this? i asked parham ghobadi, senior reporter at bbc persian. that's one of the core disagreements between iran and the united states at the moment, the enrichment of the uranium. so iranians are saying that that is a red line, "we might decrease our enrichment "to 3.67," from 60% to that.

but the americans are saying that, "we have no tolerance "for that, we want a 0% enrichment. "if you want enriched uranium for peaceful purposes, "you can import it from other countries - "you do not need to enrich it in your country." what is the significance of this figure of 3.6%? i mean, why should that matter? why is it important to iran? primarily to keep their face. because imagine a person who's in his or in her forties - they've lived all their life under us sanctions and international sanctions. in october, there was a threat of snapback of all international sanctions again. so imagine if iranians give up all their nuclear enrichment facilities and capabilities, then what are they going to tell their supporters? that, "we fought the americans, we resisted," as they call it, "against the american pressure for decades,

"and now we've given it all up in a matter of weeks, "in a matter of months." and how important in all this is the threat that israel might attack iran? that's really an important issue because israel is an important player, however, in the shadow. so they're not directly involved in the talks, but everybody knows that they are going to lobby the americans and they are involved in a way. donald trump said that if there's going to be any military action against iran, it's going to be led by israelis. how scared is iran of an attack from the outside, for instance, from israel? so what we've seen is that the fact that iranians have come to the negotiation table, it means that they took this extremely seriously, the threat of an attack against iran, especially after israeli attack against iran a few months ago. and why is that? because it might stir up all sorts of civil discord

inside iran? at first, it might... you might think that these two issues are totally unrelated - hijab and chastity law and iranian nuclear facilities. however, they are. how do we know that? because iranian parliament passed a law called hijab and chastity law, to enforce hijab on iranian women. now, if you remember back a few years ago, there was a nationwide protest against hijab after the killing of mahsa amini. now, the iranian national security council has said that they cannot enforce that law. and the reason for that is one of the most hardline iranian parliament member said it publicly - that, "it's because we introduced this law before "hezbollah's leader, hassan nasrallah, "was assassinated, before this has happened to hamas, "before bashar al-assad in syria was toppled - "that was when we introduced this law. "however, things have changed right now, "so we cannot...

the most important thing "for us is to keep this establishment, "this theocratical establishment." and they fear that enforcing this law may lead to another round of nationwide protests, and they cannot fight multiple battles. is there still a residual interest in having nuclear weapons? so, iranians, after donald trump started threatening with military action against iran, an adviser to iranian supreme leader ayatollah khamenei, members of iranian parliament, they all started talking about making a nuclear bomb. but what we don't know is that, is this a bluff? before the second term of donald trump, there were no talks of making nuclear bomb this seriously. however, things have changed, and iranian authorities here and there are saying that, "if you put us in the corner, "we're going to make a nuclear bomb."

the west african country of cameroon is, i think, the most beautiful place i've ever visited. it's also the home of some famous football stars. but apart from this, it's not widely known, nor is the fact that a conflict has been going on there for years between people who speak english and the main government, which is french-speaking. as tensions escalated in 2017, anglophone separatist leaders declared independence for the two english-speaking regions of the country, what they called the federal republic of ambazonia. gunfire it can be very dangerous to report from there, and blaise eyong, a freelance film-maker, has produced a remarkable documentary about the conflict. in cameroon, because of the political climate, people have become very scared to speak to journalists, and also for the anglophone population, most of them feel like

the world has abandoned them. but also the restrictions, the difficulties, you know, working as a journalist in cameroon, the hostility that comes with that as well from both sides made it very difficult in the process of making this film. but in a conflict where both sides have reportedly committed human rights abuses against civilians, and so you would imagine that none of them, none of the warring factions, want a story like this out. why is there the anger in the anglophone community? and what has the government done about it? after the first world war, the allied powers took over cameroon, so the french and the british, and what we call... the part of the region where we call the anglophone region was administered by the british. so after 1961, you know, when the territories got independence,

the minority anglophone region felt abandoned. and because the anglophones are the minority, they have complained or made claims over the years that they have been sidelined by the centralised government, which is majority french. they have also complained that things like their language, english language, their culture, their way of life, has been eroded. and so in late 2016, lawyers and teachers who expressed some of these grievances began a protest. the government's response was swift and it came with violence, a lot of violence. so protesters were beaten, were arrested. and that response led to a more radical group of anglophones who said, "well, if we protested "and you didn't listen to us, we're going to pick up arms." and so that's what we have. are outside countries involved in any way? i mean, for instance,

where do the separatists get their weapons from? cameroon has a big diaspora population, and a lot of the separatists, a lot of the separatist groups, have their leaders abroad - in the us, some in europe and in other parts of the world. the separatists also get some form of support or collaboration from the militants in the southeast of nigeria. one of the cases that i found very moving from your film was that of ngabi dora tue. can you just tell me a little bit about her? ngabi dora tue married her husband quite early. her husband was a government civil servant, an anglophone himself. and he went on a mission...with some of his colleagues and they were kidnapped by separatists.

dora's husband was beheaded. when we spoke to her when we were making this film, she was struggling to raise her two boys all by herself. but this... her case is not unique. civilians are caught up between the separatists and the soldiers, and it appears there is nowhere for civilians to run to. are there any signs of anyone else getting involved and trying to sort the problem out? in 2019, the government organised what it described at the time as the major national dialogue. the separatist leaders were not part of this dialogue, and so a lot of analysts, you know, criticised the government and felt like it was a sham. and in the foreseeable future, it's hard for anyone to see an end to this conflict because the government and the separatists appear

not to want to compromise in their position. i was in new york last week, and i saw something there which would once have been absolutely unthinkable. from brooklyn to manhattan, it was the same - stickers of palestinian flags in apartment windows and on lampposts and the rear windows and bumpers of cars, even an suv driving around the streets with a big palestinian flag floating from the back. i didn't see a single symbol of support for israel, though

maybe that was because people were too nervous to show it. new york isn't america, of course, but the respected pew research center released polling the other day that suggested that 53% of american citizens - just over half - have an unfavourable opinion of israel. before the hamas attack of october 2023, the figure for those polled suggested 42% were unfavourable to israel. that's 11% lower than now. the day after the attack, israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu said, "we will take mighty vengeance for this wicked day," and israel has done precisely that. if its military thinks a significant hamas figure is hiding in a building where civilians are sheltering, that's regarded as sufficient reason to attack it,

whatever the consequences. stopping international journalists for seeing for themselves the daily, hourly toll of death and destruction has hidden a lot of the worst detail from the outside world. but no-one seriously doubts that israel's vengeance has been mighty. and even the us, the country which has supported israel through thick and thin, popular feeling does seem to have turned against it. israel's government would no doubt say that foreign opinion, even american opinion, doesn't matter compared with the need to destroy hamas. yet there will definitely be consequences. president trump may be happy to spend huge amounts of american money keeping israel going, but if that becomes manifestly unpopular in america, maybe the next president - only four years away now -

would feel differently. the stickers and flags i saw in new york could be a sign of change to come. well, thank you for joining us for this edition of unspun world. until we meet again, goodbye.

live from london. this is bbc news. hamas responds to a us proposal for a ceasefire-in gaza that lays out plans for the exchange of some hostages and prisoners. the un's nuclear watchdog warns that iran has drastically stepped up its production of highly enriched uranium, needed for production of nuclear weapons. iran has called the report "political". the us defense secretary calls on asian nations to boost military spending - to deal with what he says is the threat from china. we are live in warsaw on the eve of the country boss-mac presidential election. whoever wins it decides that the future direction of the country.