Newshour

Jimmy Lai, one of Hong Kong's most influential pro-democracy figures, has testified in court for the first time in a national security trial that may see him sentenced to life in jail.

Also in the programme: Washington is sending anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine in a reversal of previous policy as the Russian advance gathers pace; and we speak to Richard Flanagan, the first writer to win both the Booker Prize for fiction and the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction.

(Picture: Media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, arrives at the Court of Final Appeal, in a prison van in Hong Kong. Credit: Reuters).

It is 1000 days since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and senior Republican on the Armed Forces Committee in the US Senate, Roger Wicker, has welcomed the decision by President Biden to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles against Russia, but argues that it should have come sooner. He tells Newshour: "The best way to combat the illegal breach of international law is to be strong".

Also in the programme: Ukraine's former national security adviser on what his country can expect from a new Trump presidency, and linguistics professor David Crystal on what England's King Richard III sounded like.

(Photo: US Republican Senator of Mississippi Roger Wicker. Credit: Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Moscow says Ukraine has launched American-supplied long-range missiles into the country, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks.

Also on the programme: we speak to the wife of one of the 45 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who have been given long jail terms; and, Gisèle Pelicot, the woman at the centre of france's mass rape trial, makes her final statement to the court.

(Photo: US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) firing a missile into the East Sea during a South Korea-US joint missile drill in 2017. Credit: Getty Images, file photo)

Russia has vowed to respond if Ukraine uses US long-range ATACMS missiles to hit its territory. We'll hear views from Ukraine, Russia and Germany. Also in the programme: armed looters hijacked almost 100 trucks carrying aid supplies into Gaza; and French singer-songwriter Charles Dumont, who composed Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien", has died.

(Photo: A resident carries outs items from his house heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike on Odesa, Ukraine. Credit: REUTERS/Nina Liashonok)

President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to hit Russia with American long-range missiles has prompted scorn in Moscow. What difference will the move by the outgoing administration make - and might other Western allies follow the US' lead?

Also in the programme: We'll hear from Delhi, the Indian city which gasps under unrelenting toxic smog; and he leaders of the world's most powerful countries meet in Brazil - but are they just marking time until Donald Trump returns?

(Photo shows a file photo of a missile from the Army Tactical Missile System, a surface-to-surface ballistic system, similar to what Ukraine is going to use. Credit: White Sands Missile Range Public Affairs)

US media say President Biden has made a major policy change, by letting Ukraine use long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia. Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, has long called for the change. There's been no confirmation from the White House.

Also in the programme: An Israeli airstrike in central Beirut is reported to have killed Hezbollah’s media chief; Russian opposition protestors take to the streets in Berlin; and a proposal in the new Zealand parliament, which would impact the rights of Maoris there.

(Photo: White Sands Missile Range Public Affairs)

Russia has again targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure; we hear from the governor of one of the regions that has been hit.

Also in the programme: Israeli airstrikes on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza kill at least forty-six people in a multi-storey building; why Maoris and their supporters are marching to protest against a proposed change to New Zealand’s founding treaty; and the drama that portrays former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an amateur sleuth.

(IMAGE: Firefighters work at the site of a critical infrastructure facility hit by a Russian missile strike, in Vinnytsia region, Ukraine November 17, 2024 / CREDIT: Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Vinnytsia region/Handout via REUTERS)

US and Chinese leaders to discuss “delicate transition” in Lima as President Biden holds his last talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on sides of APEC summit. Also in the programme: families of Israeli hostages in Gaza on Donald Trump’s hopes to secure the hostages release; and we ask what happened on the dark side of the moon nearly three billion years ago?

(IMAGE: President Biden the APEC summit in Peru. CREDIT: Reuters/Leah Millis)

President Zelensky says that with Donald Trump in power in the US, Ukraine's war with Russia will end sooner than expected: does this signal a big change in his thinking? We hear from a Ukrainian MP.

Also in the programme: we hear live from South Africa where a stand-off continues between police and illegal miners at an abandoned gold mine; and we follow the Afghans leaving their homeland in the hope of making it to the UK.

(IMAGE: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a press conference after the 5th summit of the European Political Community (EPC) in Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary, 07 November 2024 / CREDIT: Zoltan Balogh /EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

European vaccine shares fall on the nomination by Donald Trump of vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Junior as US Health Secretary. We look at his views on food, nutrition and agriculture.

Also on the programme: why the South African authorities are determined to starve thousands of illegal miners to force them out of a mine; and the man caught smuggling hundreds of tarantulas and bullet ants by plane at great risk to himself.

(Photo: Robert F Kennedy Jr speaks at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville in July. Credit: Reuters)

Donald Trump is continuing to build a controversial administration, having picked vaccine sceptic and former independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr as his health secretary. Kennedy, commonly known by his initials RFK Jr, has a history of spreading health information that scientists say is false. We hear from a senior adviser to the Trump 2024 election campaign, as well as a former CDC director with serious concerns about the choice.

Also on the programme: the latest from the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, as well as the remarkable discovery of a pre-historic ecosystem in the Italian Alps.

(Picture: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Florida Credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

The number of adults living with diabetes worldwide has exceeded 800 million, more than quadrupling since 1990. This is according to new data published in the journal The Lancet on World Diabetes Day.

Also on the programme: Police in Brazil say an attack on the Supreme Court was a terrorist incident; and there is growing anger over Donald Trump's choices for some of the most powerful positions in the next US government, particularly his choice of Attorney General.

(Photo: A person using a set of weighing scales. Credit: PA)

Donald Trump has nominated former Republican US Congressman Matt Gaetz for the role of US attorney-general. He is a man with many critics, including within his own party. So will the Senate approve the nomination? Also on the programme: Super Typhoon Usagi makes landfall in an already storm-battered Philippines; and the academic from London who is under house arrest in Azerbaijan while the UN climate change conference continues.

Photo: Former US Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Henderson, Nevada U.S. 31st October 2024. Credit: Reuters/Mike Blake

The focus in this final weekend is on the swing states where a few tens of thousands of votes could settle the outcome in the US election. Our reporter is in Pennsylvania where polls expect the rural parts will vote heavily for Trump while the biggest city, Philadelphia, has traditionally provided blowout Democratic support.

Also in the programme, emergency workers in Spain say more than two hundred people are now known to have died in the floods; and we take a look at a transformative new therapy for people with psychosis who hear voices.

Picture: Democrats voters on the campaign trail in Pittsburg in October. Credit: JUSTIN MERRIMAN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Join James Menendez and guests for this special Newshour podcast examining how immigration is impacting the race for the US Presidency.

With James in San Antonio, Texas is Rogelio Sáenz, Professor of Sociology and Demography at the University of Texas in San Antonio and Alejandra Arredondo, a reporter based in San Antonio.

Photo: Luis Torres/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock