Transcripts For BBCNEWS BBC News 20240901 : vimarsana.com

Vaccinating some babies against polio, a day before a mass immunisation programme is due to begin. Palestinian health workers carried out the vaccinations in nasser hospital in khan younis. Unicef says the vaccinations will take place for six and a half hours every day until wednesday. Israel and hamas have agreed to three localised pauses in fighting to enable the vaccination of more than 600,000 palestinian children. Our middle east correspondent yolande knell sent this new report from jerusalem. Just two drops as the un begins vaccinating against polio in gaza. A dose is easy to give, but carrying out a mass immunisation campaign in a combat zone is a huge challenge. Parents of the first vaccinated children are relieved. Translation: i was worried and afraid because this is scary. The polio disease. This disease makes the children unable to move. Baby abdulrahman was crawling early, but now his mum worries he'll never be able to walk. He was the first child found to have polio in gaza in 25 years, and it paralysed his leg. Because of the war he wasn't vaccinated and now medical care is limited. Translation: he want to live and be treated. L he wants to live and walk like other children. I feel a lot of guilt that he didn't get the vaccination, but i couldn't give it to him because of our circumstances. Displaced five times, the baby's family now lives in a crowded tent camp in deir albalah in central gaza. Raw sewage flows through streets nearby. Conditions are ideal for diseases to spread, especially polio, which is highly infectious. Since discovering the virus, un agencies have been racing to set up an emergency mass vaccination programme and with war raging, they've negotiated three localised three day pauses in fighting with israel and hamas. Un officials say the plan is not ideal, but it's workable. What we're aiming at is to have 640,000 children below the age of ten vaccinated in just a few days in the gaza strip. We need to reach at least 90%. Without that, there is a risk that the virus will mutate and that the transmission could continue. Children make up nearly half the population of gaza, and the past year has deprived many of their loved ones their homes and health. With no end in sight to the war, the hope is that at least one new source of suffering can be eliminated. Yolande knell, bbc news, jerusalem. In the occupied west bank: palestinian families are being forced to leave ajenin refugee camp, after israeli troops sealed off the town for four days during a major military assault by israeli troops. Loud explosions and sporadic gunfire could still be heard from inside the camp on saturday, as israel's helicopters and drones circled overhead. The palestinian red crescent said there are still a couple bodies inside the camp that they've been unable to reach. At least 20 people have died in recent attacks in the occupied west bank. Israel says the raids are aimed at preventing attacks. Two women were killed and children were among 10 injured after a russian bomb struck a residential building in ukraine's kharkiv region on saturday. It follows a similar attack on friday in which seven people were killed including a teenage girl on a playground. The aerial raids come as ukrainian soldiers on the front line are struggling to repel waves of russian infantry. Russia said saturday it claimed victory over a settlement near the city of pokrovsk, a crucial logistics hub for ukraine's military. Capturing the city has been a monthslong objective for moscow. 0ne ukrainian military analyst told the bbc: ukraine's president zelensky said pokrovsk region was facing the highest number of assaults and said nearly 200 battles are being fought daily along the entire front. As for the state of the russian army, a project from bbc russia and mediazona tracking russian military deaths in ukraine found that a500 more deaths were recorded in the past month. It brings the death toll of russian soldiers to 66,000, though the actual toll is believed to be significantly higher. The ukrainian army says it continues to make advances into the kursk region three weeks after invading. A ukrainian strike on the russian city of belgorod friday killed five people, injuring dozens of others. Russia's foreign ministry accused kyiv and the west of *committing crimes' and said a criminal case was opened into the attack. We can go live now to zach anders, a freelance internationaljournalist who reported this week from the kursk region. Hejoins us now from bucha, ukraine. Welcome, thank you for being with us. Zach, you got access to the kursk region what were your impressions of how this ukrainian ofensive is evolving? what ukrainians were very keen to show us where the lack of damage to disability infrastructure, homes, based on their assault and that they were the ones now taking care of these civilians. They were showing the residence that stayed behind, many vulnerable elderly that are not have time to get out once people started to get out once people started to realise the fighting was taking place. The counteroffensive began on the sixth but this time we visited the still has about 600 people remaining of the original 5000 we were told. This town was not taken until the 10th. There was some time for people if they had the means to get out. A lot of the elderly were left behind. We saw ukrainian trips bringing in things like medicine, specialised supplies, aduu medicine, specialised supplies, adult diapers. Those that stayed behind r&b ukrainian managed shelter but one of the things obvious as we were shown, a relative lack of damage to homes. With a limited amount of this area. What did stand out was the russians were on the run. They were getting out there very quickly. The fighting that was taken place was limited in scope and would take place several miles later. In this ukrainian incursion. Many militry analysts have said that the response in russia has been relatively muted. From your understanding, is that a case of strategy or shortfall? and do you think that will last? that will last? that is more emblematic _ that will last? that is more emblematic of _ that will last? that is more emblematic of how that will last? that is more emblematic of how the that will last? that is more emblematic of how the russian military operates. They are a slow grinding machine that will achieve their objectives over a long amount of time that is what we are seeing the southeast in that area. Back in february, during the anniversary period, they had taken about 15 miles to the southeast. It has been a 15 mile crawl and ijust dug it into the outskirts. It will not presumably be the same operational activity in the crisp region. As the russians are now moving resources, ukrainian say they will move some 30,000 russian troops to try and retake this area. Ukrainians are digging in, building defences, we saw open source satellite images that show new trenches are being built and based on what we saw our bolstering up the amount of resources and troops in this area in a defensive posture. They are trying to bring this fight into this area that was obviously a hope within the zelensky team that this would move resources away from the russian campaign in the southeast, that they would have a long time to bring specialised equipment, perhaps armour and abc come along row take it all the way to the north. We continue to see that area be reinforced by the russian. They are putting more attention there and the units being dispatched to go in are being dispatched to go in are being pulled from other errors of the frontline. of the frontline. Something i am curious _ of the frontline. Something i am curious about _ of the frontline. Something i am curious about is of the frontline. Something i am curious about is you am curious about is you mentioned many people had already left the region but particularly the elderly and vulnerable people left behind. It may be difficult to fully interact with some of the civilians they are but what kind of impression to get from civilians about their level of awareness is whether this was a special military operation or the fact that what has now come to their door. to their door. One of the most remarkable to their door. One of the most remarkable elements to their door. One of the most remarkable elements of to their door. One of the most remarkable elements of this l remarkable elements of this tour was speaking to six some of the residents, motherfirst but the second village, one woman with ukrainians brought in, first time i have seen something like this, they brought in a laptop and played a 15 minute video of the warwick to date showed and highlighted some of this a billion massacres in bucha and then would ask, some troops would show + points, point and say look at these men and women gunned down in their vehicles, these mass graves. There was one woman, one of the russian villages that made some equations and said i see the same damage to my home what about. One of the soldiers replied to her. Do they have mass graves there? she said no. The other thing that stood out was for a lot of these elderly they were telling us they don't see a lot of this. One that they are not political, they don't pay attention and they don't pay attention and they don't see this on the news, they thought this conflict was in the southeast but were not seeing, one woman said she had no idea russian troops made it to be outskirts of kyiv in the early days of the war. Really interesting _ early days of the war. Really interesting reporting. Early days of the war. Really interesting reporting. Thank| interesting reporting. Thank you for talking to us. You for talking to us. Thank ou. Unicef is ramping up its capacity to secure mpox vaccines for some of the countries worstaffected by the virus. In a statement, the organisation said it was joining forces with a number of other vaccine alliances including the who to tender for up to 12 million doses in the next year, depending on production capacity. On friday, the who director general returned from the democratic republic of the congo saying he expected the first delivery of vaccines to arrive there within days. More than 18,000 mpox cases have been reported in the drc alone with 629 deaths. Mpox continues to spread across large parts of africa. Nigeria with at least a0 confirmed cases of the virus received its first batch of 10,000 doses on tuesday. There have also been cases identified in rwanda, kenya and uganda and as far afield as sweden and thailand. I spoke with gregg gonsalves, a codirector of the global healthjustice partnership at the yale institute for global health. I want to begin by talking about that emergency tendered from unicef to secure these mpox vaccines. How crucial do you think that is? the tender is welcome but it comes a little too late. It's like ordering fire engines for parliament on fire. This is a lingering outbreak that has now spread to surrounding countries in drc. We see cases in sweden and thailand. We're moving too slowly. We have ignored this outbreak for months and months now it is far broader and more serious than it should've been by all estimations. I wanted to ask you more about the speed of the international response. Of course health infrastructure and agencies one could argue are well practised at this sense ebola, mers, covid, a whole host of outbreaks that we have seen in recent years. We know that in drc over 600 people have already died. Why do you think we're seeing this slowness of response, in your words? remember this is in terms of covid vaccine, billions of people had never gotten a single dose when you and i probably had several already. This is parfor the course. As you said, we're moving towards 20,000 cases. Those are detected cases for the paper upwards of 50% or more undetected. We don't need vaccines, we need people to get vaccines out to world provinces where the heart of the outbreak has been in drc. We need diagnostic capacity. 50% or more may be undiagnosed. We don't have the testing facilities and equipment to be able to identify cases out in the field. We don't have the care and treatment we need for people already suffering from the disease. Whether it's supportive care for people who have serious symptoms or even some of the antibody which work for certain that works at the start to the back outbreak. An important point you make that vaccines are loans aren't silver bullets of the contact tracing, the labs, the diagnosis, edd awareness of the community as well. How quickly do you think those kinds of things can be scaled up? if there is a will there's a way. We could organise an international community to do a massive airlift of all the supplies we need. All the infrastructure needed to get vaccines out for that we can do it when we're interested in it. We simply ignored this since the 2022 outbreak that struck the us and the other rich countries around the world in which we've moved at lightning speed to make sure citizens are vaccinated. I'm not sure there's quite a will at the current moment. Yes, there is performative gestures and public health emergency of international concern, issued by who for that we need to move much more quickly and resolutely than we have so far. What do you anticipate in terms of the potential forfurther spread? it's interesting because this virus in characteristic form is not so transmissible appears in the forest and infects people on an ongoing basis and has for over 30 years. We're seeing with some of the sexually transmitted diseases the possibility of humantohuman transmission which is more worrisome. We're seeing it spread throughout eastern africa and south africa, one in sweden, one in thailand. Unless we scale up to the necessary level of response that is required we're going to see continued throughout the region, potential sporadic cases popping up around the world. Not taking this as seriously as we need to put that yes the who the tender today is important but we really need to get this outbreak under control. Talking about trying to get it under control, if there is not significant scale up of response, i know it can be difficult to put a timeline on these things, epidemic how swiftly could this be extinguished? remember, this is an endemic disease in many places in western several africa. It's been there for many years. We're not sure what the reservoir of the disease. We don't know what animal species is responsible lots of complications for how we could eradicate this. We've controlled the current outbreak if we've had subjects to vaccines, notjust vaccine but the vaccination which can include testing, getting out into rural areas and making sure people get both doses of vaccine. The vaccine is pretty pricey. We're restricted by how many vaccines they can afford to buy. Whether it could be $200 per dose in the context of it circulating in the united states, for instance. The us vice president, kamala harris, has accused her republican rival, donald trump, of disrespecting sacred ground during his recent visit to arlington national cemetery, where more than 400,000 military veterans are buried. In a post on social media, the democratic presidential candidate accused mr trump of carrying out a political stunt. Trump's visit on monday was filmed and used on social media for mass immunisation programme <\/a>is due to begin. Palestinian health workers <\/a>carried out the vaccinations in nasser hospital <\/a>in khan younis.<\/a> Unicef says the vaccinations will take place for six and a half hours every day until wednesday. Israel and hamas have agreed to three localised pauses in fighting to enable the vaccination of more than 600,000 palestinian children. Our middle east <\/a>correspondent yolande knell sent this new report from jerusalem. Just two drops as the un begins vaccinating against polio in gaza. A dose is easy to give, but carrying out a mass immunisation campaign in a combat zone <\/a>is a huge challenge. Parents of the first vaccinated children are relieved. Translation: i was worried and afraid because this is scary. The polio disease.<\/a> This disease makes the children unable to move. Baby abdulrahman <\/a>was crawling early, but now his mum worries he'll never be able to walk. He was the first child found to have polio in gaza in 25 years, and it paralysed his leg. Because of the war he wasn't vaccinated and now medical care is limited. Translation: he want to live and be treated. L he wants to live and walk like other children. I feel a lot of guilt that he didn't get the vaccination, but i couldn't give it to him because of our circumstances. Displaced five times, the baby's family now lives in a crowded tent camp <\/a>in deir albalah in central gaza.<\/a> Raw sewage <\/a>flows through streets nearby. Conditions are ideal for diseases to spread, especially polio, which is highly infectious. Since discovering the virus, un agencies have been racing to set up an emergency mass vaccination programme <\/a>and with war raging,<\/a> they've negotiated three localised three day pauses in fighting with israel and hamas. Un officials say the plan is not ideal, but it's workable. What we're aiming at is to have 640,000 children below the age of ten vaccinated in just a few days in the gaza strip. We need to reach at least 90%. Without that, there is a risk that the virus will mutate and that the transmission could continue. Children make up nearly half the population of gaza, and the past year has deprived many of their loved ones <\/a>their homes and health. With no end in sight <\/a>to the war, the hope is that at least one new source of suffering can be eliminated. Yolande knell,<\/a> bbc news, jerusalem. In the occupied west bank: palestinian families are being forced to leave ajenin refugee camp,<\/a> after israeli troops sealed off the town for four days during a major military assault <\/a>by israeli troops. Loud explosions and sporadic gunfire could still be heard from inside the camp on saturday,<\/a> as israel's helicopters and drones circled overhead. The palestinian red crescent <\/a>said there are still a couple bodies inside the camp that they've been unable to reach. At least 20 people have died in recent attacks in the occupied west bank.<\/a> Israel says the raids are aimed at preventing attacks. Two women were killed and children were among 10 injured after a russian bomb struck a residential building in ukraine's kharkiv region <\/a>on saturday. It follows a similar attack on friday in which seven people were killed including a teenage girl on a playground. The aerial raids come as ukrainian soldiers on the front line <\/a>are struggling to repel waves of russian infantry. Russia said saturday it claimed victory over a settlement near the city of pokrovsk, a crucial logistics hub for ukraine's military. Capturing the city has been a monthslong objective for moscow. 0ne ukrainian military analyst <\/a>told the bbc: ukraine's president zelensky said pokrovsk region <\/a>was facing the highest number of assaults and said nearly 200 battles are being fought daily along the entire front. As for the state of the russian army, a project from bbc russia and mediazona tracking russian military <\/a>deaths in ukraine found that a500 more deaths were recorded in the past month. It brings the death toll <\/a>of russian soldiers to 66,000, though the actual toll is believed to be significantly higher. The ukrainian army <\/a>says it continues to make advances into the kursk region three weeks after invading. A ukrainian strike on the russian city of belgorod friday <\/a>killed five people, injuring dozens of others. Russia's foreign ministry accused kyiv <\/a>and the west of *committing crimes' and said a criminal case was opened into the attack. We can go live now to zach anders,<\/a> a freelance internationaljournalist <\/a>who reported this week from the kursk region. Hejoins us <\/a>now from bucha, ukraine. Welcome, thank you for being with us. Zach, you got access to the kursk region what were your impressions of how this ukrainian ofensive <\/a>is evolving? what ukrainians were very keen to show us where the lack of damage to disability infrastructure,<\/a> homes, based on their assault and that they were the ones now taking care of these civilians. They were showing the residence that stayed behind, many vulnerable elderly that are not have time to get out once people started to get out once people started to realise the fighting was taking place. The counteroffensive began on the sixth but this time we visited the still has about 600 people remaining of the original 5000 we were told. This town was not taken until the 10th. There was some time for people if they had the means to get out. A lot of the elderly were left behind. We saw ukrainian trips bringing in things like medicine, specialised supplies,<\/a> aduu medicine,<\/a> specialised supplies,<\/a> adult diapers.<\/a> Those that stayed behind r&b ukrainian managed shelter but one of the things obvious as we were shown, a relative lack of damage to homes. With a limited amount of this area. What did stand out <\/a>was the russians were on the run.<\/a> They were getting out there very quickly. The fighting that was taken place was limited in scope and would take place several miles later. In this ukrainian incursion. Many militry analysts have said that the response in russia has been relatively muted. From your understanding, is that a case of strategy or shortfall? and do you think that will last? that will last? that is more emblematic _ that will last? that is more emblematic of _ that will last? that is more emblematic of how that will last? that is more emblematic of how the that will last? that is more emblematic of how the russian military <\/a>operates. They are a slow grinding machine <\/a>that will achieve their objectives over a long amount of time that is what we are seeing the southeast in that area. Back in february, during the anniversary period, they had taken about 15 miles to the southeast. It has been a 15 mile crawl <\/a>and ijust dug it into the outskirts. It will not presumably be the same operational activity in the crisp region. As the russians are now moving resources, ukrainian say they will move some 30,000 russian troops to try and retake this area. Ukrainians are digging in,<\/a> building defences, we saw open source satellite images <\/a>that show new trenches are being built and based on what we saw our bolstering up the amount of resources and troops in this area in a defensive posture. They are trying to bring this fight into this area that was obviously a hope within the zelensky team that this would move resources away from the russian campaign <\/a>in the southeast, that they would have a long time to bring specialised equipment, perhaps armour and abc come along row take it all the way to the north. We continue to see that area be reinforced by the russian. They are putting more attention there and the units being dispatched to go in are being dispatched to go in are being pulled from other errors of the frontline. of the frontline. Something i am curious _ of the frontline. Something i am curious about _ of the frontline. Something i am curious about is of the frontline. Something i am curious about is you am curious about is you mentioned many people had already left the region but particularly the elderly and vulnerable people left behind. It may be difficult to fully interact with some of the civilians they are but what kind of impression to get from civilians about their level of awareness is whether this was a special military operation <\/a>or the fact that what has now come to their door. to their door. One of the most remarkable to their door. One of the most remarkable elements to their door. One of the most remarkable elements of to their door. One of the most remarkable elements of this l remarkable elements of this tour was speaking to six some of the residents, motherfirst but the second village, one woman with ukrainians brought in, first time i have seen something like this, they brought in a laptop and played a 15 minute video of the warwick to date showed and highlighted some of this a billion <\/a>massacres in bucha and then would ask, some troops would show + points, point and say look at these men and women <\/a>gunned down in their vehicles, these mass graves. There was one woman, one of the russian villages that made some equations and said i see the same damage to my home what about. One of the soldiers replied to her. Do they have mass graves there? she said no. The other thing that stood out was for a lot of these elderly they were telling us they don't see a lot of this. One that they are not political, they don't pay attention and they don't pay attention and they don't see this on the news, they thought this conflict was in the southeast but were not seeing, one woman said she had no idea russian troops made it to be outskirts of kyiv in the early days of the war. Really interesting _ early days of the war. Really interesting reporting. Early days of the war. Really interesting reporting. Thank| interesting reporting. Thank you for talking to us. You for talking to us. Thank ou.<\/a> Unicef is ramping up its capacity to secure mpox vaccines for some of the countries worstaffected by the virus. In a statement, the organisation said it was joining forces with a number of other vaccine alliances including the who to tender for up to 12 million <\/a>doses in the next year, depending on production capacity.<\/a> On friday,<\/a> the who director general <\/a>returned from the democratic republic of the congo <\/a>saying he expected the first delivery of vaccines to arrive there within days. More than 18,000 mpox cases have been reported in the drc alone with 629 deaths. Mpox continues to spread across large parts of africa. Nigeria with at least a0 confirmed cases of the virus received its first batch of 10,000 doses on tuesday. There have also been cases identified in rwanda, kenya and uganda and as far afield as sweden and thailand. I spoke with gregg gonsalves,<\/a> a codirector of the global healthjustice <\/a>partnership at the yale institute for global health.<\/a> I want to begin by talking about that emergency tendered from unicef to secure these mpox vaccines. How crucial do you think that is? the tender is welcome but it comes a little too late. It's like ordering fire engines <\/a>for parliament on fire.<\/a> This is a lingering outbreak that has now spread to surrounding countries in drc. We see cases in sweden and thailand. We're moving too slowly. We have ignored this outbreak for months and months now it is far broader and more serious than it should've been by all estimations. I wanted to ask you more about the speed of the international response. Of course health infrastructure <\/a>and agencies one could argue are well practised at this sense ebola,<\/a> mers, covid, a whole host of outbreaks that we have seen in recent years. We know that in drc over 600 people have already died. Why do you think we're seeing this slowness of response, in your words? remember this is in terms of covid vaccine,<\/a> billions of people had never gotten a single dose when you and i probably had several already. This is parfor the course. As you said, we're moving towards 20,000 cases. Those are detected cases for the paper upwards of 50% or more undetected. We don't need vaccines, we need people to get vaccines out to world provinces where the heart of the outbreak has been in drc. We need diagnostic capacity. 50% or more may be undiagnosed. We don't have the testing facilities <\/a>and equipment to be able to identify cases out in the field. We don't have the care and treatment we need for people already suffering from the disease. Whether it's supportive care for people who have serious symptoms or even some of the antibody which work for certain that works at the start to the back outbreak. An important point you make that vaccines are loans aren't silver bullets <\/a>of the contact tracing,<\/a> the labs, the diagnosis, edd awareness <\/a>of the community as well. How quickly do you think those kinds of things can be scaled up? if there is a will there's a way. We could organise an international community to do a massive airlift of all the supplies we need. All the infrastructure needed to get vaccines out for that we can do it when we're interested in it. We simply ignored this since the 2022 outbreak that struck the us and the other rich countries around the world <\/a>in which we've moved at lightning speed <\/a>to make sure citizens are vaccinated. I'm not sure there's quite a will at the current moment. Yes, there is performative gestures and public health emergency <\/a>of international concern, issued by who for that we need to move much more quickly and resolutely than we have so far. What do you anticipate in terms of the potential forfurther spread? it's interesting because this virus in characteristic form is not so transmissible appears in the forest and infects people on an ongoing basis and has for over 30 years. We're seeing with some of the sexually transmitted diseases <\/a>the possibility of humantohuman transmission which is more worrisome. We're seeing it spread throughout eastern africa <\/a>and south africa,<\/a> one in sweden, one in thailand. Unless we scale up to the necessary level of response that is required we're going to see continued throughout the region, potential sporadic cases popping up around the world. Not taking this as seriously as we need to put that yes the who the tender today is important but we really need to get this outbreak under control. Talking about trying to get it under control, if there is not significant scale up of response, i know it can be difficult to put a timeline on these things, epidemic how swiftly could this be extinguished? remember, this is an endemic disease in many places in western several africa. It's been there for many years. We're not sure what the reservoir of the disease. We don't know what animal species <\/a>is responsible lots of complications for how we could eradicate this. We've controlled the current outbreak if we've had subjects to vaccines, notjust vaccine but the vaccination which can include testing, getting out into rural areas and making sure people get both doses of vaccine. The vaccine is pretty pricey. We're restricted by how many vaccines they can afford to buy. Whether it could be $200 per dose in the context of it circulating in the united states, for instance. The us vice president,<\/a> kamala harris, has accused her republican rival, donald trump, of disrespecting sacred ground <\/a>during his recent visit to arlington national cemetery,<\/a> where more than 400,000 military veterans are buried. In a post on social media, the democratic presidential candidate accused mr trump of carrying out a political stunt. Trump's visit on monday was filmed and used on social media for election campaign purposes.<\/a> The us army <\/a>has already criticised his campaign team.<\/a> It said one of mr trump's staff had pushed an official trying to enforce rules barring political campaigning at the site. With more on this, here's our correspondent in washington, jenny kumah <\/a>there's been a huge uproar about this. This started on monday when donald trump <\/a>made that visit, and there were reports of an altercation. He was there with relatives of some of the 13 service members that were killed during from the withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. In response to those reports issuing a report unnamed health officials suffering from a mental health episode tried to block president trump's team. The army statement <\/a>saying a cemetery official was pushed when trying to enforce rules, basically campaigning on the site. Photography is also banned. Today we had a response from harris writing on twitter, she says that. . . Trump's team today have been hitting back at kamala harris <\/a>blaming her and joe biden for the deaths of those service members and blaming them for a chaotic withdrawal of us troops from kabul. They also say they were there with the permission of the family. This isn't the end <\/a>of it. We understand that democratic lawmakers has risen and asked for a full account of what happened and for a response by september 9.<\/a> Brazil has begun blocking elon musk*s social media platform,<\/a> x, in a dispute about the spread of disinformation. The ruling was made after the company missed a deadline to name a new legal representative there. A supreme courtjudge <\/a>ordered the immediate and complete suspension <\/a>of x until it complies with all court orders <\/a>and pays existing fines. X removed its legal representative from brazil, claiming thejudge had threatened her with arrest. Several major telecoms carriers <\/a>said they would comply with the ruling. If users try to dodge the ban by using virtual private networks or vpns, they risk fines of almost $9,000 a day. Elon musk <\/a>says: *free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudojudge in brazil, is destroying it for political purposes. I spoke with bbc brazil reporter leandro prazeres.<\/a> To begin with, what is the status of the website right now? can you access it with vpn for example? for example? currently, access is currently _ for example? currently, access is currently offline _ for example? currently, access is currently offline in for example? currently, access is currently offline in brazil. Is currently offline in brazil since the early minutes of the saturday and be situation has not changed since then. It is possible, yes, to access this platform by using a virtual private network. But as you said, there is a fine for people if they try to do it. There are a lot of people in brazil that have been using vpn for a number of reasons. The problem is there is this fine so it has not been an easy task for brazilians to get access to x at the moment. I wonder how people are reacting to this and how do brazilians feel about elon musk and whether they see him as this kind of axis of politicians and celebrities. They have made headlines of the most important brazillian newspapers since yesterday. News that have been attracting a lot of attention in brazil. Brazil has at least 21 million <\/a>x users so when we talk about roughly 10% of brazil's population. Usually people, there has been initially immigration towards different social networks.<\/a> Today for example blue sky,<\/a> another social network, reported it gained more than 1 million brazilian users in the last two days because of this crisis involving x recently. When it comes to how they see elon musk at the moment, it depends on the political spectrum. 0n the right elon musk is seen as being close to brazil's former president. He came to brazil in 2022 to pay a visit to brazil, the then brazilian president. But then on the left musk has not been seen as a good figure, seen as the one enabling this misinformation in his social network. We have about 30 seconds left, any chance of it being reinstated? no indication it is going to happen in the next few days. The situation can change rapidly. There is no indication elon musk is going to step back and comply with supreme court orders. If something like that doesn't happen, the supreme court will have no other reason to reverse its strong ruling. Power has been restored across venezuela after a massive blackout on friday plunged much of the country into darkness.<\/a> Officials say the problem originated at the guri hydroelectric power plant,<\/a> one of the world's largest. President nicolas maduro <\/a>has claimed without providing evidence that the power cut <\/a>was the result of a revenge attack <\/a>by what he called fascists and the united states. The blackout comes a month after elections in which venezuela's electoral council declared maduro the winner in a highly disputed election. Don't forget you can follow the latest news from around the world <\/a>on our website. Stay with us here on bbc news.<\/a> Hello. According to meteorologists, saturday, 31st of august was the last day of summer. How did we get on? well, across most of the country, we had these lovely sunny skies and it felt quite nice in the sunshine, given light winds.<\/a> However, across southern areas of england and to a degree the far south of wales, we had a lot of cloud. And talking about cloud, tatest satellite picture <\/a>shows a complex of thunderstorms forming across west france.<\/a> Low pressure is forming here, and that's ultimately going to drag in some increasingly humid air from belgium, netherlands, luxembourg, move it into the uk and that will set the scene for some thundery downpours,<\/a> i think later on sunday and into sunday night. For the time being, though, it's relatively quiet out and about. You could see an odd spit of rain falling <\/a>from the cloud as it advances across northern areas of england. It will turn a bit cloudy across parts of scotland and northern ireland <\/a>through the day, but still bright or sunny spells here. The cloud thinning <\/a>and breaking across england and wales, and as that increasingly humid air gets drawn in, that sets the scene for one or two thunderstorms to pop up into the afternoon. And, to be honest, they could be just about anywhere. I'm sure most places in england and wales will stay dry, but where those storms happen could bring heavy enough rain to cause some localised surface water flooding.<\/a> And the same sort of thing goes on through sunday night <\/a>as well. A few random storms popping up, with outbreaks of rain moving into western areas.<\/a> 0n into monday's forecast, well, we still got that humid air down at the earth's surface, but at higher elevations in the atmosphere, the air is starting to cool down,<\/a> so that makes the air increasingly unstable. In other words, monday you're much more likely to see heavy, thundery showers or even some lengthy outbreaks of rain around on monday. Some of it could be heavy enough to cause down, so that makes the air increasingly unstable. In other words, monday you're much more likely to see heavy, thundery showers or even some lengthy outbreaks of rain around on monday. Some of it could be heavy enough to cause one or two problems. Still humid air around, particularly across the eastern half of england with temperatures up to 26. The fresher air across western portions of the uk. 0n into tuesday, it's another rather showery day. Again, some of those showers could be quite heavy, maybe thundery and potentially slow moving. So again, one or two issues possible, but it won't be raining all day everywhere, of course not, there will be some pleasant spells of sunshine breaking <\/a>through the clouds <\/a>at times. Temperatures for most 18 to 23, and then later into the week we may well see rain or thundery showers tend to become confined to southern areas of england, with the weather tending to become drier with more sunshine across northern portions of the uk. Bye for now. Voiceover: this is bbc news.<\/a> We'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. Hello and welcome. I'm lyse doucet.<\/a> I'm one of the cohosts of the bbc podcast ukrainecast,<\/a> and with my colleague vitaly shevchenko,<\/a> we've just recorded a conversation with the prominent british writer and broadcaster stephen fry. He's also a campaigner for mental health awareness,<\/a> and he's been to ukraine to cohost a conference on this very issue, along with the first lady <\/a>of ukraine, 0lena zelenska.<\/a> So vitaly <\/a>and i have been speaking with stephen fry <\/a>about the mental scars of conflict. Ukrainecast from bbc news.<\/a> It's a great pleasure to be in your presence, stephen. People in ukraine know who you are, they follow you, and they appreciate what you do. No, i'm thrilled to be here. It was extraordinary to visit ukraine almost a year ago, and i still think about it almost every day and follow what's going on in the news with puzzlement, hope, sometimes despair, and often bafflement. Wars are such complex machines, beasts, whatever we want to call them, aren't they? and it's very hard to understand them. And, you know, you're a journalist, you both have every right to visit and to be embedded amongst military and to, you know, describe the theatre and the home front <\/a>and all the elements of war, but i was very worried whether i would come across as some kind of creepy","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800801.us.archive.org\/25\/items\/BBCNEWS_20240901_020000_BBC_News\/BBCNEWS_20240901_020000_BBC_News.thumbs\/BBCNEWS_20240901_020000_BBC_News_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240901T12:35:10+00:00"}