Transcripts For BBCNEWS BBC 20240703

As our spain correspondent guy hedgecoe reports. The fire began at around 6am in the Fonda Milagros nightclub before spreading to two venues next to it. The cause of the blaze is unknown, but its effect was devastating. Translation we dont know anything. We are waiting for news to see whether some of our Family Members have come out alive. Translation i think we left 30 seconds or one minute before the alarms went off and all the lights went out and there were screams saying there was a fire. I was in a place where i could get out, but five Family Members and two friends are still missing. Emergency services have been searching through the rubble, trying to find bodies. For friends and relatives of those who did not escape the blaze, it has been an agonising wait. Theyve been receiving support from counsellors in a nearby sports complex. The police are now carrying out dna tests on the bodies of those killed in an attempt to identify them, but it could be a slow process. This is the worst Nightclub Fire in spain in more than 30 years, and the local authorities have declared three days of mourning. Guy hedgecoe, bbc news, madrid. Us President Joe Biden says hes determined to restore aid to ukraine a day after funding was dropped from a temporary Spending Bill to avert a government shutdown. In order to pass the spending dealjust hours before the clock struck midnight, House Republican leaders removed a measure to send 6 billion in military assistance to ukraine after opposition from Republican Party hardliners. Both republican and Democratic Senate leaders have promised to try again to approve the additional funding soon. Speaking to reporters on sunday, mr biden vowed that the United States would not abandon ukraine, urging republicans in congress to pass the military assistance. There is no ukraine funding in this agreement. Despite that, i did not believe in letting millions of americans go through the pain of a government shutdown. But lets be clear i hope my Friends On The Other Side keep their word about support for ukraine. They said they were going to support ukraine in a separate vote. We cannot, under any circumstances, allow american support for ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the speaker to keep his commitment for secure passage and support needed to help ukraine as they defend themselves against aggression and brutality. Earlier, i spoke with angela stent, a non resident seniorfellow at the brookings institution. First of all, just to talk a bit about what ukrainian officials might be thinking and feeling when they watch whats going on here in the us, how worried do you think ukraine officials might be about the absence of funding for ukraine in this us stopgap bill . Well, i think they must be very worried. I mean, president zelensky was here in the us ten days ago meeting with senators and congressmen, with President Biden, requesting more assistance, he was promised that he would get it. This is a pretty disastrous situation. People in europe, and european governments must be wondering what will happen next, and i think the only people happy about this are the people in the kremlin. If this money, this funding does not materialise, were talking about some 6 billion that would have been in the bill, at least that was the senate version, if that money does not come through, what could that mean for ukraines war effort . Well, itll mean ukrainians wont get some of the weapons and the ammunition that they need. They wont get other kinds of Financial Support. Its not clear that any of the european governments can step into the breach here, so it could have very serious consequences for them in the next few weeks as they continue their counteroffensive and before winter sets in. If they do not get this extra funding, this 6 billion, although, really, what President Biden had wanted and president zelensky had requested was more like 20 billion. Were looking at images and you mentioned president zelensky was in washington about ten days ago, meeting with President Biden, speaking with lawmakers here as well, how tough of a road now do you think zelensky might be facing in terms of us aid, given the growing opposition that we are seeing among the members of the Republican Party, especially in the house . Its going to be much more challenging for him. I think what we could call the putin wing of the Republican Party, its still a minority in the congress, but those are the ones adamantly against any more funding for ukraine. The last time there was a vote on this, 70 of the republicans in the House Of Representatives voted against funding for ukraine. Now, having said that, the majority of republicans and democrats in the senate and the house do still favour supporting ukraine, but this may fall victim to all of the shenanigans going on now within the Republican Party. The speaker may lose his position. So even though President Biden has said that he hopes that very soon the assistance will be in fact included in a bill, we have no guarantee that thats going to happen. This is one of the first bits over wavering maybe that weve seen here in the us in terms of funding for ukraine. Of course, the us are not the only country thats been giving military and Financial Support to the country. How do you think this might be playing out right now in capitals of other european countries, maybe in germany, maybe in france, is this sending a ukraines other western allies about the level of support that they might be willing to provide . Yes, it certainly is, and its sending a signal that the us is not a reliable ally, since it had promised this to ukraine. So, we know in germany, there is a debate about supplying taurus missiles, wejust had an election and slovakia where a pro russian person has been elected or probably will form a coalition, robert fico was president , hungary has said that its not going to support ukraine at all, and you have in some other european capitals these parties wavering on this, and the more that populist parties come to power in elections, even in poland, theres been a spat between poland and ukraine about how much more the poles are going to supply. So i think this will cause a questioning. Really, Great Britain is one of the few countries that resolutely now is even sending trainers to ukraine. The Baltic States are certainly very strong on this, but in other european capitals, it is not so clear. Of course, this could very well be a bump in the road, as you mentioned, we could see a Bill Come Onto Floor Of The House soon that would provide this funding. But until that happens, how do you think russia and Vladimir Putin are looking on and responding to what they have been seeing go down on capitol hill this week . Well, i mean, ithink they must be very pleased. When know that putin himself is waiting for the 2024 election and hoping that trump will be elected so that the us, in that case, would probably completely stop supporting ukraine. Im sure there is russian disinformation and all kinds of things happening in this country that are reinforcing the sort of anti ukrainian message. So, from the Russian Point of view, this can only be seen as a win. Angela, we have heard these assurances from two different leaders in the senate, where President Biden saying and calls on lawmakers to get down to business and provide more funding for ukraine. How confident are you that some sort of funding bill will be passed in the next couple of weeks . Its very hard to be confident about this because if you then have the drama playing out of some of the republicans trying to get rid of Kevin Mccarthy as the speaker, they will be so absorbed in these kind of fights who knows whether they would have the time or interest in passing such a Spending Bill. I would like to be more confident than i am and i hope the president is right and apparently Speaker Mccarthy did say that he would take this up, but i think there is so much that is up in the air at the moment, its difficult to be completely confident about that. 0k. Angela stent, a non resident seniorfellow at the brookings institution, thank you so much. Thank you. Well, as we heard mentioned there, if some republicans have their way, mr biden will soon be dealing with a new speaker of the house. Florida representative matt gaetz announced that he would trigger votes this week to remove speaker Kevin Mccarthy from his leadership role. Now, mccarthy made a series of concessions to gain support from hardline republicans to become House Speaker after a historic 14 rounds of votes in january. Mr gaetz says mccarthy is in breach of his agreement. He made that commitment, he broke it, and if at this time next week Kevin Mccarthy is still speaker of the house, it will be because the democrats bailed him out, and he can be their speaker, not mine. You dont have the votes to remove him, so. By the way, i dont know until we have them, and, by the way, i might not have them the first time, but i might have them before the 15th ballot thats the number of ballots Kevin Mccarthy needs. So youre going to do this every day like you suggested . Youre going to go through this process of voting over and over and over again . I am relentless. For his part, mr mccarthy said sunday hes not going anywhere. He says he is coming for you. Can you survive . Yes, ill survive. This is personal with matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. Hes more interested in securing Tv Interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people there who would not be paid, only because he wants to take this motion. So be it. Bring it on. Lets get over with it and lets start governing. Earlier, i spoke to leigh ann caldwell. She is a politics reporter with the washington post. As we heard, florida representative matt gaetz wants to try to remove Kevin Mccarthy as speaker of the house. This could come as soon as monday. How likely do you think it is he will be able to succeed . Well, carl, it is the question of the day, and lets just take a step back and explain how this process works. Any one member of the house, in this instance, it is likely to be matt gaetz, can bring up this measure to remove mccarthy from his speakership, to oust him from that position. But it takes a majority of the House Of Representatives to support that in orderfor it to pass, for it to be effective. So you look at the dynamics here. There is a faction of the Republican Party that are anti mccarthy, maybe thats five, maybe thats ten, maybe thats 20, maybe thats 30, we dont really know. But thats far from the 218 it needs for this motion to vacate to be successful. So, ultimately, what its going to come down to are democrats. Democrats are going to decide if Kevin Mccarthy is the next speaker of the house or is going to continue to be speaker of the house or not. My reporting, talking to democrats of all factions of the Democratic Party shows that they are not sure yet. There are some people who have no desire to save mccarthys job. There is very little trust for mccarthy, democrats do not like mccarthy, they think that he does not keep his word, and if they were to help him out, then they are going to extract many concessions, including a difference in how the House Of Representatives is run. Not placating and governing to the right, but perhaps to the centre, to try to actually pass moderate legislation. This is a huge discussion the democrats have started to have and will continue to have until they are forced to take this vote. You said there isnt much trust left between mccarthy and house democrats. Why is that . What happened to the relationship there, which probably wasnt that strong to begin with . Yeah, so, Kevin Mccarthy has been in the house for a very long time, for almost two decades. Many of these democrats have served with him and they know him, but most recently, was an agreement between Speaker Mccarthy and President Biden, this was back in may and june, on how to fund the government. What Funding Levels the government would be funded for this upcoming fiscal year. And they reached an agreement, and then within a week or two, Kevin Mccarthy walked back that agreement under pressure from his right, and so now he is trying to fund the government at levels that are much lower, so not agreeing to this commitment that he made with President Biden. Now, that is the biggest public example of mccarthy not keeping his word, but there is also lots of personal and private examples too. Thats one of the issues, because if mccarthy does make concessions to democrats behind closed doors, if he offers them many things in order to save hisjob, democrats are not confident that he would even keep those commitments, and so there is no love lost between democrats and mccarthy, and so were going to have to see how this plays out but, ultimately, it is up democrats, ironically. Leigh ann caldwell, a political reporter post. In mexico, at least 10 migrants died and dozens were injured when a cargo truck carrying them overturned on a highway in the Southern State of chiapas. The accident took place near the border with guatemala, a stretch of highway along the Pacific Coast where migrants often travel as they attempt to reach the United States. Around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. Lets look at some other stories making news. In iraq, an official investigation has ruled negligence and a lack of Safety Measures were to blame for last weeks deadly blaze at a wedding. Investigators said the fire in the northern iraqi town of qaraqosh, which killed more than 100 people, was an accident. But they said the wedding hall was packed to more than twice its safe capacity. The Afghan Embassy in delhi has ceased its operations effective today due to a lack of support from the India Government and a reduction in personnel and resources. In a Statement Released on the social media platform x, formerly twitter, the embassy said its failure to meet the expectations in serving afghanistans interests was another reason for stopping operations. The australian capital is sweltering under record temperatures for the start of october. The mercury peaked at 35. 6 degrees celsius on sunday or over 96 degrees fahrenheit beating the previous record by more than two degrees and its 14 degrees above the average. Fire danger warnings were issued across new south wales. Youre live with bbc news. Turkey says its conducted a wave of air strikes on bases of the banned kurdish rebel group, the pkk, in northern iraq. It comes after two policemen were injured by a bomb attack in turkeys capital, ankara. Two attackers died in the blasts. A pkk affiliate claimed responsibility for the explosion, which happened outside the headquarters of turkeys National Police force. In response, turkey launched air strikes against the pkk, which operates across the kurdish populated regions of turkey, iran and iraq. Kurdish media says the strikes were targeted against the pkks stronghold in the qandil mountains, which straddle the iran iraq border. Local officials in iraq confirmed the attacks, claiming 20 targets were destroyed and many militants neutralised. In a speech to Parliament Hours after the attack, turkeys president , recep tayyip erdogan, struck a defiant note. Translation we will continue our struggle with determination j until the last terrorist is eliminated domestically and abroad. We will not allow the Terrorist Organisation to direct politics and prevent our countrys blessed march. The attack this morning where two villains were neutralised as a result of the timely intervention of our Security Units is the final flutters of terrorism. The vile people who took aim at the peace and security of our citizens did not reach their goal and they never will. Earlier, Berza Shimsek from the bbc Turkish Service gave this update. We know that the Kurdish Militant Group pkk has claimed responsibility. The importance of today is that its today that Turkish Parliament has resumed its sessions for the new legislative year. In their statement which was shared by a website which has close links with the pkk, on their statement, they said basically they have specifically chosen today and they have specifically chosen a place near to the parliament and they also said that their aim was a kind of limited influence. They said, if we wanted more casualties, we would choose another time of the day which would result in more casualties. As you know, Turkish Armed forces and the pkk have been in fight for a0 years. There has been a brief time between 2013 and 2015 which we called Peace Process. But since then, the attacks have been resumed. But in ankara, it is the first time in seven years that we have seen an attack, actually, and the other importance of today is that Pro Kurdish Party in the parliament was planning to make a call to president erdogan to start another Peace Process or at least shift the policy towards peace, hence the importance. Senegal� s navy says its intercepted four boats over three days with more than 600 people on board who were attempting the treacherous crossing to Spains Canary islands. The rescues come amid a busy Summer Season where thousands of migrants make the dangerous journey each year in search for a better life. Italys Prime Minister has warned that europe will be overwhelmed by migration unless the European Union finds solutions. Italy currently receives the highest number of people smugglers boats carrying Asylum Seekers and other migrants in europe. The number of arrivals is already almost double that of last year. But many of the migrants then aim to travel north to wealthier countries like germany, france or the uk. 0ur correspondent mark lowen has been to two different locations along the french italian border where migrants are attempting to cross. Preparing, they hope, their footsteps to freedom. They trod the long path of desperation to europe, but even now, in italy, they want to go on to france and beyond. Numbers here have doubled since last year, armed with their dreams and kit from this charity to cross the tough alpine border. 0marfrom Nigeria went via libya, paying smugglers 800 to reach the Southern Italian island of lampedusa. His aim to get to britain. I just want to have a good life, to study there. But have you not seen all the pictures and have you not heard about people being sent back from britain or sent back from france . Yes, i am seeing, but you know, i willjust try my best to. I will try again to go. From africa and the middle east, they are on the same team, keeping spirits up before the hard journey ahead. Some fail early an egyptian is sent back, but the checks this side are rare. Volunteer eleanor says the Italian Police seem to turn a blind eye. They know exactly what we do here. They know exactly what these people are here for, so it is like a game somehow. They know but they pretend not to know. There will be some people who would say you are encouraging illegal migration. If you see somebody that needs something, or if you know which are the risks in the mountains, because you know the mountain and you live here, can you allow people to walk in the mountain like this . A short bus ride and they are at the border. But most avoid the official crossing, fearing police. Instead, they scatter into the forest, waiting to dash over the alps. The pull of europe leads through perilous parts that have already taken the lives of some seeking new ones. 0thers try a different route across, further south in ventimiglia, close to nice. But on the french side, controls are stringent. Each train is checked, leaving no door open. It is a constant to and fro, the italian authorities happy enough to see the migrants cross here into france, no longer their responsibility, only for the French Police to say, we dont want them either, and to send them back across the border. But caught in the middle of europes Game Of Cat And Mouse are the desperate. They may have failed today but whatever the impediment, it is likely they will keep on trying. So they wait for their next chance no sea, no border a deterrence. The far right mayor here is seeking divine intervention from brussels. Translation the eu is not working. Each country is setting its own Migration Limits and italy has to shoulder the burden alone. France suspended Free Movement at its border and we are forced to take back huge numbers, which is only slowing the flow to calais and britain, not solving it. Migrants have spat and urinated in the cemetery. We have reached our limit. We could become the lampedusa of the north. At the alpine border, the red cross helps ease hunger and cold until the migrants will make their move away from prying eyes. Europe faces a new bottleneck here, and whatever its leaders seem to do, hope and determination are proving impossible to extinguish. Mark lowen, bbc news, on the italy france border. The Us State Department says its Gravely Concerned that guatemalas Public Ministry is trying to undermine the transfer of power following this years president ial election. Scuffles broke out at guatemalas Supreme Electoral Tribunal as Police Seized boxes containing vote tally sheets. President elect Bernardo Arevalo won the election in a landslide in august. Hes been subject to a Campaign Seeking to prevent him from taking office. Former us president jimmy carter is celebrating his 99th birthday sunday, extending his run as the countrys longest living president. This weekend, the white house marked the milestone by displaying a large card on the north lawn reading, happy birthday, president carter. In february, carter entered hospice care after a series of health crises. He spent his birthday at home with Wife Rosalynn and family in georgia. Im carl naisman. Thats all from us here in washington. Hello. Following on from our very warm september, october has also started on a warm note particularly towards the south. Mild particularly towards the south. Nights with no frost around. Were looking at some warm days ahead, particularly towards the south. Mild nights with no frost around, and some rain at times through the week ahead, too. So weve got a few fronts around one of them producing quite a lot of cloud and outbreaks of light patchy rain over the next few hours across parts of southern england, wales, too. So a murky start here, some low cloud, fog and drizzle around coasts and hills. Very mild in the south to start monday morning, 111 15 celsius. Further north, though, were looking at temperatures in single figures from the word go under those clearer skies. And well keep some sunshine across scotland, northern ireland, and northern england, too. One or two blustery showers in the far northwest. Further south across the uk, generally more cloud. Outbreaks of rain particularly during monday afternoon, which could be heavy and thundery for parts of southern england, the Midlands Lincolnshire for instance, a bit more rain just pushing into perhaps yorkshire, northern parts of wales, as well. But still warm in the south, 22 celsius or so, were looking at the mid teens, though, further north. So moving through monday evening, some of that rain could be heavy and thundery across parts of the midlands, perhaps lincolnshire, east anglia for a time. Gradually, that will clear away into the early hours of tuesday, and some slightly fresher conditions working their way in. But it will still be another quite mild, muggy night, 13 14 celsius, so weve still got that warm, Humid Airfirst thing but it does get swept away, as we see westerly winds developing behind this frontal system on tuesday. So, yes, a bit of a cloudy, damp start perhaps in the southeast. Sunny spells and scattered showers from the west, from the word go, and theyre going to push their way eastwards across the uk through the day. So most of the showers during the morning are in the northwest, but they could crop up a little bit further east later on. Temperatures 13 19 on tuesday not as warm as monday, but still above average for the time of year. Now, High Pressure sits to the south, low pressure moves in from the northwest into the middle of the week. So some rain on wednesday perhaps for northern ireland, scotland, as well. Further south, england and wales, i think predominantly dry, perhaps a bit of rain in the north later on in the day. Fairly breezy with some of those showers coming through, but some sunshine and temperatures again, about 13 to 19 degrees. But it looks like those temperatures will continue to rise through thursday and friday, especially in the south, and we could see temperatures into the mid 20s as we head on into next weekend. Bye for now. Voiceover this is bbc news. Well have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. Welcome to hardtalk. Im stephen sackur. Imagine being the individual responsible for Getting International assistance to the worlds most vulnerable people, those facing the devastation of conflict, Natural Disaster and famine. And then imagine being hamstrung by an International System which sees promises of funding broken, which plays politics with human lives. That is the reality faced by my guest today, martin griffiths, un under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. From the ukraine war to yemen, syria, sudan, myanmar and ethiopia is the un system failing those in greatest need . Martin griffiths, welcome to hardtalk