Transcripts For BBCNEWS BBC News 20240713 : vimarsana.com

BBCNEWS BBC News July 13, 2024

Warnings that a mega bushfire near sydney thats burning out of control could take weeks to put out. The billionaire businessman elon musk is cleared of defaming a british cave explorer after calling him pedo guy on social media. And coming up in sport. Its fight night. Can anthonyjoshua win back his world titles from andy ruinunior in saudi arabia later . And coming up at 12 30pm, its click, which has been meeting the young programmers of the future. Borisjohnson and Jeremy Corbyn have gone head to head in a tv debate for the final time before the general election next week. They put forward competing visions on brexit, the nhs, and the economy, and attacked each others plans but neither scored a knockout blow. More than four Million Viewers watched the debate on tv last night. Our political correspondent, nick eardley, was there. With just a few days until the country goes to the polls, one of the last big chances to persuade voters. How would we be better off from the brexit deal or a future labour deal, compared to what we already have as a member of the eu . Can you guarantee that it will happen next year . On brexit, they attacked each other. What i havent heard from the leader of the labour party, is this deal that he thinks he can get in three months time, who is going to negotiate it . Who is going to secure this deal . The news came out of whats happening with Northern Ireland. For people who did not hear the news, what are you claiming the documents show . They show quite clearly that there are going to be charges, there are going to be customs checks, there are going to be restrictions on trade between britain and Northern Ireland. What the document also says is that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the uk. All his political life he has campaigned to break up that union and actually supported for four decades the ira in their campaign violently to destroy it. How about the Prime Minister showing a degree of honesty and so it is a question of openness on all of this. He says you have supported people who are opposed to the union your whole life, you dont even believe. What i have done is always wanted to see a Peace Process in Northern Ireland and that is exactly what we have got and thank you to the Labour Government that negotiated it. Labour wants voters to think about a lot more than brexit next week, though. It costs a lot to train as a nurse but the starting salaries are low. How would you deal with the shortage of nurses and ensure the nhs can retain them . Mr corbyn again questioned claims made by the conservatives. Announced there was going to be 40 new hospitals. A week later that became 20. A bit later on, it became six new hospitals. He seems to have a problem with the figures about Hospital Building in britain. We have a very clear agenda, which is to upgrade 20 hospitals, to build a0 new ones. It is perfectly true that the cash allocation for the whole hospital build is for six initially, but we are putting in the seed funding now. Both parties have faced questions on how they will pay for all their promises and, with the question of trust so high on the agenda. What punishment do you think is appropriate for elected politicians who lie during political campaigns . They should be made to go on their knees. Down through the chamber of the house of commons, scourging themselves with copies of their offending documents which claim to prove one thing and actually prove something quite different. Jeremy corbyn . When people paint slogans on the side of a bus that are totally unsustainable, perhaps it is time that we do have an independent monitoring of what goes on. Actually, if you look at the numbers we put on the side of the bus, look at the gross figure we pay to the eu, the number is going up. With polls suggesting the tories are ahead, that may suit mrjohnson more than mr corbyn. But, with just a few days left in the campaign, nothing is certain. Nick eardley, bbc news, maidstone. Our correspondent tomos morgan is on the campaign trail with the labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in swansea. What is the party announcing today . Well, the labour leader who is in the vale of glamorgan this morning and hes on way to swansea. Masses of people waiting to watchJeremy Corbyn speak here in swansea. One of the reasons for such a large turnout here today is may be because this is the first time the labour leader will actually have come to wales during this election campaign. Some have questioned why it has taken so long for him to appear in wales. I think others will question as well who is actually leading the campaign in wales . Is it uk labour or welsh labour . Welsh labour took the reins last time, this time it seems more ofa last time, this time it seems more of a central plan but as i say the first time for a labour leader to be here. He has come here to back the welsh Labour Government but also to say that labour is the party that is pushing for Small Business success in wales. They have been meeting other Small Businesses across wales, also here in swansea. His supporters here today were also met with a group from the brexit party and there was some toing and froing here just earlier before we arrived between both sets of supporters. It got quite rowdy but has died down now. In the next half an hour the labour leader will appear here but at the moment this snaking queue here is going down so slowly im not sure there will be enough room inside for everyone. Very interesting to see those people queueing up to get in. Tell us, was there much interest in last nights debate from what you could see . And what is your sense of how labour feel . Jeremy corbyn needed to push ahead last night, didnt he . Yeah, and those polls are echoed in welsh polls here as well. He has chosen three areas to come and visit in south wales today, all leave voting areas. Swansea has been a labour heartland for quite some time but the gower just heartland for quite some time but the gowerjust over there has flitted between labour and the tories over the last two elections, so no tories over the last two elections, so no doubt the conservatives will look at that seat in gower very closely, which was another lead voting area and see if they can take that. The vale of glamorgan this morning of course a seat of the former welsh secretary of wales, who stood down not so long ago. So that was a target seat. But again, and leave voting area, difficult to see how the Welsh Labour Party can get that seat but it is a very small majority. And later on going to a conservative seat tween carmarthen west and carmarthen east. But again a leave voting area. Difficult to see how the labour party can break through there. Even though the majority is there trying to gain a very small. So in swansea a bid to hold the ground here but also he is going to be trying to get across to the voters here that are labour supporters but voted for brexit, why they should vote for labour in this upcoming election in wales. Richard galpin is on the campaign trail with lib dem leader jo swinson near reading. What are the lib dems campaigning on today . Well, its all about lifestyle and well being and exercise and sport from the lib dems at the moment. As you can see, we are actually at a sports club here near reading. Plenty of activity going on, football matches. There has been some tennis, including jo swinson swing in the tennis racket as well. But what the lib dems are saying is that there is nowhere near enough exercise in schools themselves. And they are be what they are calling a well being our every day in the week in schools. This doesnt necessarily have to be sport, it could be any kind of exercise. They are saying this is vital obviously for childrens well being. Because, as we know, there is a huge obesity epidemic in the country. Something like 13 million adults are obese and a very large number of children. It is thought to be at least 20 of all children leaving Primary School are obese. So this needs to be tackled. The lib dems believe and obviously doing that is getting regular exercise. Theyre also talking about providing Free School Meals for children and also extending the sugar children and also extending the sugar so children and also extending the sugar so it is notjust fizzy drinks but alsojuices sugar so it is notjust fizzy drinks but also juices and milk shakes, which obviously contain a lot of sugar. So it is all about health today. One of the thing they are talking about is reintroducing stands in football clubs of the premier league and championship. They are saying this can be done safely again now. You see it in many european clubs and they believe they should be done because it would improve the atmosphere at football grounds and it provides cheaper tickets for people as well. And, richard, obviously the lib dems were not in that leader iss debate yesterday. Did they feel that that damages their campaign significantly . And obviously there has apparently been a squeeze on their position. There definitely has been a squeeze on their position, certainly they are feeling the pinch from labour. And if you look at the polling and we have to be very careful with the polling, take it with pinch of salt to a certain extent, definitely they are a roundabout 13 . So they are having a very difficult time indeed. Ok, richard, thank you very much indeed. On the lib dems trailed there. The poll of polls on the bbc website is a lwa ys poll of polls on the bbc website is always worth having a look at. We have to be very careful with all predictions because it is still all to play for in the coming week. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has been campaigning in Cheadle Hulme in greater manchester. Borisjohnson stepped in as goalkeeper ahead of a Girls Football match. It comes as the conservatives pledge £550 million for grassroots football, in an attempt to bolster the uk and irelands attempt to secure the 2030 world cup. What we want to do is use football to help promote, notjust physical but also mental well being, to encourage more inclusion, which is like the fantastic scheme they have got here. And expand also the female game, which is doing brilliantly here but it is still not as big in the uk as it is in some other countries. And it is all the poll youd to our 2030 uk and ireland world cup bid. We are bidding for the world cup again in 2030. We want to bring football home. Boris johnson there. The internet message forum, reddit, says it believes a leak of sensitive uk us trade documents, seized on by labour during the election, is linked to a Russian Campaign to influence voters. The dossier, which runs to several hundred pages, has been used byJeremy Corbyn to claim that the nhs would be on the table during us trade talks, something denied by the conservatives. Labour says the release of the documents was in the Public Interest and neither the uk nor us governments have denied their authenticity. Lets discuss this with ben nimmo director of investigations at graphika, a social media investigations company, which broke the story of possible russian links to the leaked us uk trade documents. Then, can you just explain what the allegation is here . The allegation is that the documents which leaked and which ended up becoming part of the election debate, were originally amplified online by part of a russian information operation, which we exposed back injune of this year. The initial reporting, which my team conducted, was that the way the leaks spread online very closely resembled that operation. But we couldnt do an attribution because the resemblance could have been somebody else trying to mimic the earlier operation. What happened last night is that reddit, the online platform, came out and said that what they saw on their platform they thought was part of the same russian operation. What does that actually mean is going on in that case . Well, it raises the very big question of how the leaks actually ended up online in the first place. What we know is that they appeared, a link to them appeared on reddit on the 21st of october. And the early amplification of that very, very closely resembled a known russian information operation. So the really big question is out of the leaks out there in the first place, how did they end up online been amplified by what reddit certainly says is part ofa what reddit certainly says is part of a known foreign influence operation. Is it clear whether this was done by people . Could it have just been done by machines . And doesnt necessarily mean that it was to government . No, it doesnt look as though it was done by machines. If you look at the posting then some human being actually had to type the posts, some human beings had to create the post. So there were human operators behind that. We dont know who these human operators were but one of the Big Questions was you accept it was behind this . The big operation that was exposed injune this year which, again, operation that was exposed injune this yearwhich, again, my operation that was exposed injune this year which, again, my team worked on, it was a big operation which had been running for about five years, it was working in six different languages at least an across 30 different online platforms. It was a substantial operation that would have required quite a lot of expertise and manpower. But we dont have final attribution of who was behind it. What should happen next . Is there more investigation that could uncover more detail and should that be put into the Public Domain . Also there is this parliamentary report on potential russian influence into politics at the moment, that the government is refusing to publish. The first thing to do is to look for more as to how the leaks came out and how they ended up online. We have had the comment from reddit already, there was quite a lot of activity from one particular twitter accounts. But the main question is not so much to the social media platforms, it is actually going to be for a government department. So the big question is going to be exactly how the leak got there. It is important to note that nobody is suggesting that the documents that lea ked suggesting that the documents that leaked were in any way tampered with. And that is a difference from the earlier russian operation which used a lot of fakes. But that does that but that a document ended up online and what looks like been boosted by russian operation. Should be an internal investigation and work out in the first instance healthily cap an event how it ended up healthily cap an event how it ended up online. Is there any information about whether any of the Political Parties had any prior knowledge or how the labour party then picked up this information obviously not connected with the leak initially. We dont have the full chain of events yet. We know that the twitter account that was linked to this operation tried very hard to draw the attention of opposition parties broadly to the leaks. Directed tweets directly to the labour party but also to the lib dems, also the Scottish National party. It doesnt look like any of them picked up on it at that stage. The next event was that an unknown person e mailed a number of campaigners and activists who were interested in the trade discussion, and pointed out to them effectively look, the links are there on reddit today full documents. It looks like those e mails then ended up leading to the exposures that we saw. But we dont have the forensic evidence yet of exactly where the e mails came from an how that was associated with the broader operation, so there are still questions to ask there too. Just finally, there is obvious the been a lot of commentary on fear around for interference. How worrying is this particular case do you think . Its potentially worrying because there is, one of the possibilities is that this was the lea k of possibilities is that this was the leak of uk government documents by some kind of foreign actor, that is not the only hypothesis but it is one of them. But that is a very worrying hypothesis because it looks like official documents have come up online and we dont yet know how that happened. So it is potentially worrying. They could be other ways that it happened, it could actually bea that it happened, it could actually be a more traditional leak, but we just dont know yet. And in a sense, the most worrying thing is the lack of knowledge. 0k, the most worrying thing is the lack of knowledge. Ok, then, thank you very much indeed forjoining us today. There are calls for an independent review into the shocking failures that allowed a serial rapist to be released from jail by accident, allowing him to carry out a series of attacks on women and children. Joseph mccann was released earlier this year after an error by the Probation Service. His 11 victims over a two week period included a pensioner and an 11 year old boy. John mcmanus has more. Joseph mccann captured on cctv in a petrol station. The assistant behind the counter has no idea that the customer opposite him is a sadistic criminal. Outside in mccanns car, sits a woman too terrified to attempt to escape. He has already assaulted her after kidnapping her, after she left this club. A few days later, he abducts another woman near this tube station in london, then, not long after, a third woman. Terrible in itself, but instead of being free to terrorise them, mccann should have been behind bars. In 2008, he was jailed for an aggravated burglary at the home of an 85 year old man. In 2017, he was freed on licence. The same year, he was arrested for new offences and should have been recalled to prison, but was not. A year later, he was sentenced for his new crimes and should have gone before the parole board before he was considered safe to be freed. Instead, at the start of this year, he was mistakenly let out and free to go on to attack 11 women and children. Yesterday, he was convicted of 37 offences, including kidnap and rape. Now, richard burgon, labours shadowjustice secretary, has called for an investigation, saying the public must have full confidence in the Justice System. He wants an independent review into what labour calls

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