You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 14 hours GMT on Tuesday the 25th of February.

Britain says it will increase defence spending by slashing funding on aid.

The scramble for rare earth metals, the EU makes its own offer to Ukraine even as the US demands a deal.

And Syrians meet to discuss their post-Assad future, but the Kurds say they've been excluded.

Also in the podcast, we only see this kind of alignment once a decade or so,

but to actually see them in the specific order there in the night sky

is more like something that would happen every hundred years or so. A rare spectacle in the

night sky. When the British Prime Minister Kirstama goes to Washington on Thursday, what can he do to win over Donald Trump?

The US President has long complained about Europe freeloading on defence by relying on America.

The French President visited the White House on Monday, and now France is reportedly willing to use its nuclear deterrent to help protect Europe.

Now the British government has signalled that it too is willing to step up

by boosting defence spending.

It will be partly funded by cutting the UK's overseas aid budget.

Kirstama spoke to Parliament.

We must find courage in our history,

courage in who we are as a nation.

Because courage is what our own era now demands of us.

So starting today, I can announce this government will begin

the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.

We will deliver our commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence,

but we will bring it forward so that we reach that level in 2027.

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