lukashenko has repeatedly said that his country stands for peace between russia and ukraine. but despite this, he allowed russia to use belarus as a platform to send troops into ukraine in 2022. in 2020, lukashenko claimed another presidential victory, but the results have not been recognised by the west. the election sparked unprecedented protests demanding lu kashenko�*s resignation. these ended in a repression that continues to this day. translation: it would have happened in 2020 if it wasn't for several - pillars of lukashenko�*s regime. the main ones are putin and fear. i'll give you this example. lukashenko didn't change the name kgb, not because he lacks imagination. he, as a deeply soviet person, understands that the kgb represents fear.

many believe that lukashenko wants to recreate stalin—style grip on the country, so nobody dares to contest the next election. many belarussians came here to lithuania in an attempt to flee the repressions. there are currently around 19,000 of them living here. in retaliation, the belarussian regime has decided to target their relatives who stayed behind. and many fear that this isjust the beginning. anatoly was detained more times than he can remember, but he says that families of activists were not being targeted before. translation: this is the first time. it was always a war, but there were some rules. there were some lines they wouldn't cross. now we have gotten to the point where, before shooting their enemies, they put our children in front of us.

in a country that claims to have no political prisoners, there are currently almost 1,500 people in prison for political reasons. one of them is ex—presidential hopeful viktar babaryka. his son eduard was his campaign manager. alexandra, eduard's girlfriend at the time, remembers the day his father viktar decided to run for the highest office. translation: i remember this moment well. - i got out of the shower, eduard came in, and i remember expression on his face when he told me, "yes, father will run for the president." there was a brick wall in our flat, and i remember sliding down that wall because i couldn't imagine a positive picture. viktar babaryka was arrested a month after he declared his intention to run for the presidency. his son eduard was arrested on the same day. translation: | got a call| from the detention centre. they said, "hello, alexandra, eduard has been arrested

in connection with suspicion for tax evasion." eduard babaryka has spent almost three years in a detention centre without a trial, longer than any other political prisoner. the authorities have found new charges to justify his continued detention, including organising mass riots. eduard was detained injune, but protest in belarus began in august. it's obvious that eduard was imprisoned because his father tried to run in the election. the carjourney between minsk and vilnius takes only around three hours. yet many belarussians who live here say that there is simply no way they could ever go back. translation: you did nothing wrong and you did not break the law. - but you can't go home. i can't return to belarus until the political situation there changes.

well, i can certainly go there, i can, but i won't get very far. this testament to belarussian fight for freedom and democracy has appeared almost opposite the belarusian embassy here in vilnius as a reminder that belarussians won't be silenced. translation: my actions destroyed the stalinist system, _ and this is what will free everyone, including my son. i will keep on going. it's worth it. the bbc approached the belurusian ministry of internal affairs for a comment, but we haven't received a reply. some late—breaking news, and the last few minutes the leader of plaid cymru, adam price, has said he is quitting as leader, days after it review found a culture of bullying and misogyny

the release of chat gpt, an online tool that can answer questions in natural humanlike language, has sparked discussions about the future of artificial intelligence and its uses. i went to the university of bath to find out what sort of conversations lecturers are having. it will handle things like multiple choice questions, for example. it will handle those very well. in its current format chat gpt really struggles with any of the kind of higher order thinking that we require graduate students demonstrate.

today, universities are being urged to teach students how to use chat gpt and other artificial intelligence tools. bath has actually already started using it in some assessments. so one of the things that's great about it is the fact that it gets students started on things. it won't give them the answers, but it can give them ideas as to what to think, what to do, and how to structure their work. baths, policy on chatgpt and other tools is still in the works, and is due to be in place from this september. you're live with bbc news some breaking news... coming form the uk the leader of the third largest party in the welsh parliament — adam price, has announced he is stepping down — just days after a review found a culture of harassment, bullying and misogyny in the party. nicky schiller reports. adam price was first elected to

the westminster parliament in 2001 for his home constituency of carmarthen, east and danville. he won that seat from the labour party. indeed, at the time he was seen as a rising star of clive comrie. as a rising star of. he made his name in westminster as a fierce opponent of the afghanistan and iraq wars. indeed, he led an unsuccessful attempt to impeach the then prime minister, tony blair, over the iraq war. in 2010, he took the unusual decision for a politician to take a career break. he went to harvard university in the united states. in 2016, he was elected a member of the national assembly. although he was a little embarrassed by this campaign leaflet from plied plaid cymru that called him an x factor politician labelled by some the mob dragon, that in welsh folklore was the prophetic sun. now here he is speaking on the plaid cymru website about one political memory when he was a child. one of my first political memories was meeting the then labour prime minister, jim callaghan, on a visit to ammanford. he came up to me and with a camera behind him and asked, of course

that typical politician's question, well, what do you want to be when you grow up? young man. and i said straightaway, prime minister. you want my job? he said to laughter behind him. no, isaid. i want to be prime minister of wales in 2018. adam price surprised many by challenging his then close friend leon wood for the leadership of plaid cymru. she had been party leaderfor six years. he easily won that election. he led the party in his first major campaign for the 2019 general election. he has, however, hit the headlines, most notably in 2020, when he called for reparations from the uk government to wales for being ground down into poverty. now, he later apologised for his poor choice of words. he didn't have quite so much comeback when he appeared on the bbc�*s question time and admitted that he'd taken illegal drugs when he was younger. as a gay man who first went clubbing in the 1990s. it would be a bit of a surprise

if i hadn't taken drugs, and i'm look, i'm not saying i'm proud of that, but i'm not going to lie about it either. before the 2021 senate elections, adam price announced a plan for wales to gain independence in about ten years. but that plan was dependent on plaid cymru leading the welsh government and labour won the election now. more recently, the party has been mired in allegations around culture. indeed, a damning report found that there was bullying and a misogyny culture in the party. now that adam price has gone, the search for a new leader begins. plaid cymru is the third largest party in the welsh parliament. in the uk, the publisher of the mirror newspaper has apologised to prince harry for unlawful information gathering, at the start of a trial over alleged phone hacking. the prince's lawyers say harry was subjected to the "most intrusive methods of obtaining personal information". they argue that executives at the mirror knew about widespread phone hacking but failed to act. the company denies allegations

of voice mail interception in the cases being examined. tv presenter piers morgan was editor of the daily mirror newspaper from 1995 to 200k. in the trial brought against mirror group, the lawyer for prince harry and three other claimants has claimed they have new evidence linking mr morgan to phone hacking at the mirror. in an exclusive interview recorded before the start of the trial, mr morgan tells the bbc�*s amol rajan he denies any knowledge of unlawful activity. good to see you. how are you? very good. better known now for being a judge on talent shows, or walking off set on breakfast tv, piers morgan was for many years campaigning and influential tabloid newspaper editor. those years are back in the spotlight this week as prince harry and other claimants bring allegations of phone hacking to the high court. have you ever hacked a phone? no. did phone hacking ever

take place during your editorship of the mirror? not that i'm aware of. cos what you're is there's no phone hacking at the mirror? no, to be clear, originally, i said i've never had a phone, i've never told anyone to hack a phone, and no story has ever been published in the mirror in my time from hacking the phone. and then somebody pointed out, "well, you can only know the first two things for sure." all i can talk to is what i know about my own involvement. i never hacked a phone. i wouldn't even know how. let's just state some facts, for some people that don't know the details — there have been dozens of civil hacking cases against the mirror group, and we know at least five who have been awarded damages for phone hacking by the mirror during the period when you were editor. now, those are the ones we know about cos they came out in court, but most cases so far against mirror group newspapers have been settled. i only worked for the daily mirror. sure. let's be clear, i only worked for the daily mirror. i never had any responsibility for the sunday mirror or sunday mail, of the sunday people,

or any other titles. no responsibility at all. in 2015, the trinity mirror group apologised for historic phone hacking and said, "such behaviour represented an unwarranted and unacceptable intrusion into people's lives." i hear what you're saying... i agree with that, by the way. i think phone hacking is completely wrong and shouldn't have been happening, and it was lazy journalists being lazy. but there's evidence that it happened while you were editor. there's no evidence i knew anything about any of it. i never told anybody to hack a phone. and nobody on the daily mirror or the hundreds and hundreds, thousands, possibly ofjournalists who worked with me on the daily mirror have ever even been arrested in connection with phone hacking. so there are lots of civil things going on, but as you know, the bar for that is a lot lower than it is for any criminal action. yes, we can keep going over and over and over this, but the police were pretty thorough in their investigation. what i would say is i have not been involved in any of these settlements at all, nobody has even asked me for my opinion, which i think says it all.

but does it stretch credulity for an editor as hands—on, as energetic, as intricately involved in the paper, as you were to say, "this stuff was going on, but i didn't know about it." i didn't, so i don't care whether it stretches people's credulity or not, but i can be certain about what i knew and what i did, and no—one has ever produced anything to contradict what i'm saying. prince harry is taking legal action against several tabloid newspaper groups. his legal actions include legal actions which concern claims about your record at the mirror. are you worried? no, not at all. most people, piers, would find that quite... i couldn't give a monkey's cast. you couldn't give a monkey's cast about the fact that you... 7 why don't you walk around and ask 100 members of the public, "do you think, do you have any sympathy for prince harry when it comes to privacy now?" zero. this guy, he's got no time for his family, he comes all the way, 5,000 miles, this eco warrior, to come and lecture the media once again about invasion of privacy and intrusion — and yet he's the biggest invader of privacy in royal history.

so, no, i'm not going to take any lectures from him, and i don't give a damn what actions he wants to take. good luck to you. but honestly, it's like being lectured on the truth by donald trump. amol rajan, bbc news. the israeli military says it's striking rocket launch sites in gaza as tensions escalate, a day after israeli air strikes killed 15 people in the palestinian enclave. palestinian sources say that at least one person has been killed and another seriously wounded. 0ur correspondent yolande knell has been monitoring the days events. we had intense barrages of rockets being fired from the gaza strip towards israeli towns and cities, setting off sirens as far away as in tel aviv. and now we're having israeli air strikes in the gaza strip, renewed air strikes. this, as we know, that egypt in particular is trying to mediate between the palestinian armed groups

and israel to try to secure a new ceasefire. qatar and the un involved in those efforts as well. but, yes, there has been this setback in the past hour with a renewed rocket fire and and air strikes. it's been a very frightening day for israelis and palestinians, as you can imagine. the israeli military said something like 1.5 million people in israel had been told to stay in or close to their bomb shelters. schools closed. most businesses closed in the south of the country as well. and in the gaza strip, businesses and schools closed there as well. people talking about how eerily quiet it is. this really all adds up to the heaviest fighting that there has been between palestinian militants in gaza and israel for many months now, really, since going back to august of last year. and, of course, if a cease fire can't be reached, there is the risk that this

could escalate into full blown war. that's all for now thanks for watching newsday. hello there. it's quite tricky trying to plan your day ahead with the weather at the moment. take, for example, wednesday morning, glorious start in st albans in hertfordshire. but by the middle of the afternoon there were plenty of shower clouds, and many skies overhead look like this, quite threatening at times. in fact, if we take a look at the radar from wednesday, there were quite a widespread bunch of showers that moved in from the west, and some of these turned quite heavy with rumbles of thunder mixed in there as well. in fact, we're not even halfway through the month of may and some counties across england have already seen above average rainfall. the exception, highland scotland, where there's not been that much rain so far this month. but low pressure still dominates the story as we go through thursday.

that means further showers to come. high pressure is trying to build in from the west and it will do so for the first half of the weekend at least. so, for thursday we'll start off with some low cloud around, but largely fine and dry. but it won't be long before the sunshine comes through and we start to see some warmth building and showers turn quite widespread into the afternoon once again. couple that with some low grey cloud temperatures in the far north and east of scotland, disappointing 10—13 degrees. highest values, perhaps around 17 or 18 degrees. dodge the showers. keep the sun. it'll feel relatively pleasant. now, high pressure is building in from the west. but to complicate the story, this little weather front here is going to produce more cloud coming in off the north sea with a cool northeasterly breeze. and we'll see some showers running down through lincolnshire, east anglia, further south and west through the day. so west will be best for the sunshine and the warmth. on friday, we could see temperatures peaking at around 18,

possibly 19 degrees. but where that low gray cloud continues to roll in off the north sea, only highs of around 1a celsius. the high pressure then moves in for the start of the weekend. not a bad start, but already frontal systems pushing in from the northwest will start to bring a change from sunday onwards. so saturday, not a bad day and feeling pleasantly warm. but as we go through into next week, the showers are set to return and it will be just a little bit cooler than it should be for this time of year.

you're watching bbc news. the latest headlines will follow at the top of the hour after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. in the glossy tourist brochures, the seychelles, an archipelago of islands far off the coast of east africa, is portrayed as a little piece of paradise. but dig deeper and you find a very different reality — an island nation threatened by climate change, a population with the worst heroin addiction rate in the world

and a political culture tainted by allegations of corruption.