on their side, of course. at one level, you might worry that the words will run out, and missiles will take their place. but you might ask why it's just words, and not weapons yet? could it be that both sides know their own limitations in any form of military conflict? our diplomatic editor mark urban has been working through the logic. american carriers exercising off korea. but these pictures were taken in may, and none of them are there now. the president seems out of sync with his military and his top diplomats. today, he emphasised the defensive nature of us precautions. i think what the president was reaffirming his that the united states has the capability to fully defend itself from any attack and defend our allies. and we will do so. the american people should sleep well at night. tillerson is in tune with generations of american statesman who stuck to teddy roosevelt's maxim, speak softly and carry a big stick. but one reason he can be sanguine is because america's stick is not being brandished right now. america is not in a position to strike. it is only carrier in the area of korea docked injapan at the end of an operational tour. bombers in guam may have got the north's attention, but while the us has a few dozen aircraft in range that could mount a limited strike, none of the broader preparations you would expect are visible. i don't think there is a credible military option for the us to try to suppress north korea's nuclear programme. it would invite an unthinkable retaliation. to think that seoul, south korea's capital, is in artillery range, to think that us bases are in the cross hairs, to think that allies, who are very nervous at the moment, are also in the cross hairs. one of the problems trump faces is, as belligerent and inflammatory as the rhetoric gets, it is pretty difficult to use the stick. and america's stick, even when brandished, is not as big as it used to be. it could still strike north korea, and hard. but poor aircraft availability, reduced stocks of bombs and missiles, mean readiness for a major conflict is poor. add to that the vast size of north korea's armed forces, presenting hundreds of thousands of possible targets, many pointing to the south, america's ability to control any ensuing escalation is limited. its defence secretary has said as much. general mattis has been public in the statements he has made about just how significant the military risks would be going forward with any kind of pre—emptive strike. he has made those statements on the record and he has talked aboutjust how brutal any kind of military activity would be, how close seoul is, for example. so, bereft of a big stick, or one that could be brandished credibly, anyway, you think the president might moderate his tone. north korea's threats to the united states, if they make more, they will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never seen. why carry on with such language? maybe he is playing hard cop to china's soft? but north korea's nukes have changed calculations. the idea that north korea's bomb is a reality, that soon it will have the ability to deliver that bomb across the world, the idea that north korea identifies that bomb with its own survival and will not give it up voluntarily, it is a simple idea, but one of the most difficult to stomach, because it offends the whole notion of america's uncontested global leadership and its deep commitment to inhibit in the proliferation of what it sees as rogue states. with north korea now threatening a us base in nice, the war of words may have taken on a life of its own. some de—escalation, at least verbal, is now vital. we'll assess the north korean threat shortly, but it has focused attention on guam — for unwelcome reasons. guam itself is a petite, attractive, island in the pacific, around 6000 miles off the coast of california. it's only about 25 miles long, and four miles wide at its narrowest point. almost a third of it is actually occupied by the us military. the population of about 160,000 has us citizenship, but guam is not a us state — it was nabbed by the americans from the spanish in 1898. apart from us military, tourism is one of its main industries, for reasons that are quite understandable. the territory does not get to vote in us elections, but it does have a non—voting member of the house of representatives. she is madeleine bordallo, and i spoke to her earlier about donald trump's handling of north korea. we're all very concerned. i'm concerned, and everyone on guam. i'm one of these where i think we can solve everything diplomatically. coming on with harsh words like the president did, it's very dangerous to go through something like that. i understand that maybe the north korean leader did not even understand exactly what "fire and fury" means. he reacted again. this is no way to do it. i feel that we've been through threats with north korea before. 0ur former president, 0bama, had to deal diplomatically with this leader and other countries in the region. and it worked perfectly well. now we've got a real threat. and, you know, people say, well, people are calm on guam. we have a great number of military bases. we have two major military bases on guam and we have a large contingency of national guardsmen. we have the thaad missile defence operation there, which i was able to get a couple of years ago when these threats first came about. so, we've been told by the military, by secretary mattis and admiral harris that they were going to take good care of guam if anything like this happened. this was before the threat. so, i'm putting my faith in that the military will take good care of guam and its people. you sayjim mattis and the others, the defence establishment, say to you on guam, look, we'll protect you, we'll look after you. you are... not quite a part of the united states, but a territory of the united states. what's he promised ? what can they do? well, for one thing, you say we're not part of the united states. but i feel, even though we're not, we're an insulararea, but we are a us territory. they have said, well, they're ramping up their military activity. you know? we have huge bases on guam. and now, already, we are hearing that they're beginning to ramp up. and when they spoke to me, they always tell me, you know, of our close proximity to north korea. 0ur island would be a very strategic area to ramp up military activity if a war broke out. thaad, that missile protection system, does that work? does that give you much safety? does it give you a sense of security? absolutely. it's giving me the sense of security. they've been through a number of tests and briefings, and i understand that every one of the briefings has come out 100% accurate. you say you don't like this kind of tough talking that's going on. i wonder what you think the americans should be doing? because it is a problem, and it is going to be difficult to negotiate with kim jong—un. indeed, they did try to negotiate with the north koreans and persuade them not to have a nuclear programme all those years ago, and they reneged on the deal. what is the approach that you would take? well, that was all the years ago. now, it's now. i don't know that this current president has done any negotiating with kim jong—un. i don't know what kind of meetings have been set up, and everything. but, you know, to comment about fire and fury, and all that strong... it's just not making anybody comfortable in this part of the world. you know, the tensions... it'sjust ramping it up. i really think, i've worked many years in politics and i believe in the diplomatic way. i think that talking out things can bring about a peaceful solution. congresswoman, thank you so much. very good to talk to you. you're welcome, evan. very welcome. thank you. so what should we make of the mixed signals we're hearing from america — and where does this go next? i'm joined from across the atlantic byjon finer. untiljanuary, he was chief of staff for secretary of statejohn kerry as part of the 0bama administration. also with us from washington is peter feaver, who held positions on america's national security council under both presidents bush in the 1990s and 2000s. good evening to you. jonathan, what would john kerry be doing if he was secretary of state? he would be the best person to answer this question, but i have to believe, as a big believer, as a secretary kerry is, in the power of diplomacy, even diplomacy backed by force, but to achieve dramatic objectives, that he would be doing a version of what secretary tillerson has been doing and saying in recent days, making clear the real consequences that would come to the north korean regime if it continues down the path it is on, but also sending reassuring signals to our allies and keeping open the possibility of diplomatic process to try to de—escalate the confrontation. not rattling the sabre with provocative statements in public. you said you would tell them what would happen to them if they carry on, what would happen to them? i think the deterrent messages, this is what the messaging is about. it is about deterring bad behaviour by the north korean regime. they are best carried directly and privately. not carried in a public form, where they can very easily be misinterpreted. we spend a lot of time and energy, i'm sure peter can speak to this as well, trying to interpret the statements that come out of pyongyang, much of which involves rhetoric that we choose to discount because it is so over the top. but much of which we don't really know how to understand. we are in a situation that is very unusual for the united states. we have our own administration, not just anyone, but our own president, that are very difficult, not just for the rest of the world or even americans to interpret, but, much more of concern, for the north korean government to interpret. that can lead to misunderstandings. the only thing worse than choosing to go to war in this situation would be stumbling into a war that neither side wants. peter, could there be strategy or clever tactics in this kind of rhetoric that we had from donald trump yesterday? the fact it was rather different to the rhetoric from rex tillerson, good cop, bad cop, i don't know what is going on. is something clever going on? there are some plausible rationales. the president could be saying we have tried for 30 years, moderate rhetoric, and it hasn't worked, let's try some sauce for the goose. the language that the president used against kim jong—un is the kind of language you hear from north koreans. it could also be the case that he is trying to rattle the chinese, who very much fear this escalation spiral that john was talking about, and who have a lot of leverage on north korea. he could be trying to alarm the chinese into taking action on economic sanctions rant. the president took his own national security team by surprise with his rhetoric. so it is clear that the team had not drafted this rhetoric. if there was this calculation, it was the president's own. does confusion or mixed messaging ever have a place to play in dealing with a adversary? well president trump believes the united states has been too predictable and during the campaign he criticised president 0bama for being too predictable, predictable that he would make concessions he said. trump was unpredictable and there is the mad men theory that president nixon was said to develop, where kissinger would meet with foreign leader, saying, you can trust me, but we don't know what president nixon will do. but it is a very dangerous game to play and it is best done if all the team has gamed it out. have thought about it. jonathan, you mentioned the risk of a miscalculation that causes a mistake into conflict. talk us through that and how it could occur in the worst case? i think there are two dangerous scenarios for the united states, ambiguity, but that only works if there is a strategy behind it and there is a plan to implement on and take advantage of the ambiguous situation. the risk is that the president makes these statements and the north koreans say it is just bluster and continue and call the president's bluff and then the credibility of the president's threats is diminished or the north koreans take it too seriously and believe he is on the cusp of launching an attack and decide it is in their best interest to move first and you are in this conflict that neither sides wants. because it is in neither sides‘ interest to go to war, but it happens anyway. that's what we're worried about. at this stage, what is the best way to de—escalate this and settle it down and get back to where we were three years ago? well, there's two things that are concerning about where we are now. first, the administration has said that it is intolerable that north korea possesses a nuclear weapon. well, they already possess one. so that kind of language, declaring what is already a fact intolerable backs the president into a corner. the second thing is the president threatened north korea with more if north korea continued to make verbal threats. well, verbal threats is the daily activity of the north korean government. i think he would have been wiser to narrow it down to behaviour like missile launches. the president may have backed himself into a corner. what could happen... we have to leave it there. thank you both very much indeed. at a time when elites are viewed rather suspiciously, those in power need to be careful that their official expenses do not catch the ire of the public. mps here have never quite recovered since their expenses were publicised. so, is the eu commission about to get a caning for its expenses, two months of which were published today? the commission has been coy about releasing more data than that of january and february 2016, and that was forced out of them after a complaint to the european 0mbudsman. among the items we now know about, a 27,000 euro bill for a two—day trip to rome byjean claudejuncker. that was mainly to hire a plane. in fairness, there were nine of them in the delegation. at a commission press conference today, the spokeswoman was put on the defensive over the issue. these details were obtained by a spanish ngo, why doesn't the commission make the expenses public? we do publish mission expenses when ever we are asked to provide information. you have the whole budget of the eu that contains a section with expenses, namely heading five, that is available to you how much we spend. helen darbishire is the executive director of access info europe, the ngo which has been pushing the european commission for three years to disclose its expenses. shejoins us from madrid. john redwood is the conservative mp for woking and is with me. give us the background and how hard it was and what efforts you had to go to and what stalling there was when you asked for the expenses? good evening, evan. we first filed a request about three years ago. we realised that no one had asked for this information and to correct what the spokesperson said in the conference today, the information isn't actually available. we used the equivalent of the eu's equivalent of the british freedom of information act and asked for this. we got some total numbers at first. but there was a reluctance to give us the details of expenditure. so we have had quite a battle trying to use arguments as to why we should be given this and finally we have been given the expenses for the first two months of 2016. we asked for, in fact 120 requesters asked for the expenses of of 2016. john redwood, are you shocked by this, we have the private jet to italy. there was a bill for foreign affairs representative to get to a summit. does that shock you? no, i suspected that was going on all along. i remember when i negotiated for britain many years ago i went on the normal public transport fare, but there was a lot of executive jets, including one for commissioners. so it doesn't surprise me. all the time british taxpayers are helping to pay for the bill as we will until we leave. it's a matter of concern and they should be as transparent as the united kingdom government has to be in telling people where the money is spent and why. helen, were you shocked when you saw the figures, only the two months and we don't know if it was a high or low month, did you think they looked high? no, i didn't think they're that high actually. i did a comparison with david cameron's expenditure for the same period and whereas for the commissioner the average is about £1,500, david cameron was three times that much. theresa may's are over £6,000 a mission. it is important to keep a perspective, i don't know how many people have asked how much did theresa may's trip to visit donald trump cost? it cost about £43,000 and includes taking an raf plane for which the british taxpayer has to pay. so these expenses are quite... ..reasonable and in line with what we would be expecting government officials around europe to be paying for similar kinds of trips. is that fair, because actually, yeah, british ministers do fly on raf planes, they go to north holt and jump on a government plane. it not a comparison to compare a head of a government with a commissioner, a commissioner is a senior official, the heads of state and governments are the senior people in the eu. and we don't send our senior officials or ministers around on anything other than public transport flights at normal fares. but it is not a major item. i think the bigger item is the lack of transparency and that these are very big budgets and we are having to pay a lot for them and one of main reasons people voted to leave the eu, we want that money back, because we need it for hospitals and social care and other thins where we would like to spend more and the sooner we are out, the sooner we get that money back and it is important we don't go on paying for this. helen, this is going to get into the brexit debate, most people will tend to feel, whatever the figures, they are high, they may hear you say it is normal, but people say you never need to take a private jet. just go the next day. i think that the question of the amount, it is a very small amount. it is about £90,000 per country that has been contributed to the costs of these expenses and there haven't been that many private jets used. we see a lot of ordinary planes being taken as well. i do agree the transparency issue is important and it is unfortunately that the commission didn't make this information public sooner. it is the lack of transparency that can lead to a skewed debate about what is actually the european does, the value and the way it is working within pretty reasonable budgets to do everything it does. what we are doing now from access info europe is calling on the commission to step up and make public all of this information and put it online so that any citizen can check and see how much is being spent. as the british government does. thank you both very much. we asked for someone from the ec to join but they said they couldn't come. the belize there is a threat to the identity of welsh speakers. —— some believe. they believe there is too much bureaucracy. should they try to make life easier for non— welsh companies? should they do more for the language and those who speak it? before we discuss that, here is some information. in 1901, half the population of wales could speak the language. now the figure is not even a quarter, just shy of 700,000 people. 0nly around half of those people. 0nly around half of those people are fluent. all of them can speak english. there has been growth in welsh speaking since the introduction of the welsh speaking act in 1993. with me is an editor of a welsh news website and an analyst. you feel strongly about welsh. how much do you speak? not much at all. ican much do you speak? not much at all. i can save the basics. what is the importance to you as a small welsh speaker living as a welsh person. importance to you as a small welsh speaker living as a welsh personm isa speaker living as a welsh personm is a huge part of welsh culture. i wish i could speak more. ifeel the government drive is fantastic for showing how important the language is to the people of wales. umm... i just, like i said, ijust wish i could speak a bit more myself. is it possible most people in wales believes in the language even if they don't speak it? ? let me say i have nothing against a welsh speaker. but the statistics that you... they don't... they cloud over whether someone can read or write the language. now, as far as i am concerned, the expense to the taxpayer, that is the english taxpayer, that is the english taxpayer as well as the welsh, is far outraged by the number of people who can speak it. 150 odd million a year. now, sad to someone who is dependent on the health service that thatis dependent on the health service that that is the cause and they won't be happy knowing the money is going to the welsh language. —— say to someone. the welsh language. —— say to someone. no one the welsh language. —— say to someone. no one has the welsh language. —— say to someone. no one has mentioned in the news report about the welsh language commission are being an ex— chairwoman of the welsh language society. that is a conflict of interest, it should not be allowed. it isa interest, it should not be allowed. it is a classic liberal position. no one should be discouraged from speaking welsh. everyone should be allowed to speak welsh. you can see how many choose to speak it and how many have had as a hobby and who had it as their main language, companies that use it, is there not something to say about that position? everyone should be able to pick it up naturally and get on with it. they may say it is not for me, why do i have to pick it up if i do not want to? leave it to them. languages are the easiest thing to learn. of —— aren't. people need help. for as long as i have been alive, the welsh government has encouraged people to learn welsh. i have had encouragement and lessons at school. but i did not pick it up enough. mining education was not enough. there needs to be a bigger push to make sure people learn it every day. but is the key. you can go to a welsh school and come out of it and you cannot speak welsh. what is the point in all of the money? it is nonsense. the sac is down, radio cumbria is down, all are down. all of this money they are pumping into the language is not making more people speak welsh. that is a fact. i think you will find across the board in wales, a lot of english—language welsh media has lost its audience as well. there are new forms of welsh language media, especially online, that are building up a new audience, especially in that category. is there an issue around economic development? is it a deterrent to english companies, or international companies, that have no welsh speakers at all, in investing in wales, putting something in wales, if they are thinking, my goodness, we are going to have all of these welsh language issues? if we are deciding between a welsh region or an english region, it could tip the balance? i can't speak from experience, but i don't think that is the case. the welsh government has done a lot of work to encourage international companies to come to wales. they don't see it as a barrier at all. hold on, this is a nationalist argument. nationalism turns companies, whether they be small, medium or large, it turns them away. you say to a company, come and work in wales, and then you give them a massive bill to convert everything to welsh. they are going to take a hike. and it is a hike left. thank you very much indeed. if you happened to be a fish that likes to dwell at the bottom of the north sea — like plaice or sole — which do you think you'd prefer, as a way of being raised from the sea bed and scooped into a net to be caught for human consumption? would you opt to be dragged up into the net by a huge metal cable, which is the current and legal method of catching such fish in the eu? or would you opt to be disturbed by an electric shock, that stirs you from the depths, into the human food chain? well, this latter method is called pulse fishing, or electro fishing, and although illegal in the eu, a number of experimental licenses have been given out by the dutch. so many, in fact, that the vast majority of the commercial dutch beam—trawling fleet now "electro—fish". it's not to the liking of british fishermen and environmentalists. james clayton went to the netherlands to find out more about this experimental form of fishing. you don't really associate disruptive innovation with fishing. however, what's going on in the north sea could well revolutionise how we catch fish. but there's a snag — the technique is incredibly controversial and officially banned by the eu. welcome to pulse or electro—fishing — the saviour of fishing, or the fracking of the ocean, depending on your perspective. den helder on the northern tip of the netherlands and trawlers are making their weekly trip back to port to deliver their catch to market. for hundreds of years, these boats used a method called beam—trawling. large chains are dragged behind the boat on the seabed to raise mainly flat fish from under the sand. greenpeace has described this traditional beam—trawling method as one of the most destructive forms of fishing. the friction of these chains means that fishermen need a lot of diesel to fish this way. so much so in fact that with high oil prices a decade ago, many trawlermen went out of business. but the dutch are an innovative bunch and a group of locals came up with a plan — rather than dredging up the bottom, they would simply pass an electric field over the surface and stun the fish up from the bottom. it's not like you put yourfingers in. pim visser represents some of the fishermen. so this it? this it it, this is the net. they just tow these electrodes just over the bottom. they barely touch the bottom. so we switch on the current. this doesn't have the current and this has the current. so the shiny ones have the current. you might be thinking this kind of fishing must be regulated in some way. the eu has this guidance: the catching of marine organisms using methods incorporating the use of explosives, poisoning or stupefying substances or electric currents shall be prohibited. but pulse fishing is allowed under an experimental licence, with research continuing into its short and long—term effects. tammo bult represents an institution undertaking research into pulse fishing. we have done a lot of experiments on a suite of organisms ranging from ragworm to shellfish, fish species, sharks and rays and in general we don't very, we don't find an effect, or very limited effect and there are some exceptions and the one exception to that is the cod. you have a larger cod, it is not so much the smaller cod, when you have larger cod, then in some instances they have a breakage of spine. apparently, for that size of cod, the electric stimulation is too much and then their muscles, their own muscles break the spine. this looks like a really bad idea. what the fish feel is much debated. they aren't actually electrocuted and the dutch are so confident the technology is safe they rigged up a rather unscientific experiment. you canjust put your hand in, it is absolutely, this is the pulse. this is what you feel. everything about this looks slightly... slick. dangerous. it's not. fine, it isjust electrodes and water. yeah, try it. oh, yeah. you feel it. you can feel it already. but it's. .. oh, yeah. yes, it's sort of like pins and needles. like pins and needles, exactly. it is weird. open and close your hand and you can feel the difference. the bigger you are, the more you get. so the issue is if you were a big cod, and you run past that, then your body starts going into spasm and things like that? yeah, maybe. maybe. it goes like that. how many cod a week do you catch? now, one box, 40 kilos. the whole week they have about 20 cods. a0 kilograms of cod, compared to tonnes of plaice and sole is not a lot in the grand scheme of things and there are other good arguments to say that pulse fishing is more environmentally friendly than beam fishing. the carbon emissions are significantly lower and the sea bed isn't physically destroyed. but many environmentalists aren't happy. it's possible that it is better than beam trawling and influenza is better than bubonic plague! beam trawling is so fantastically damaging that it would be hard to conceive of anything worse than that. but we don't know. and what we have been told is this is an experiment. it is an experiment in the same way that japanese scientific whaling is a scientific experiment — how many whales can we bring on board and what do they taste like once we have caught them? the problem with this experiment is there is no control area. there is no methodology. there is no way of assessing the results of this experiment. the dutch argue that the research they have conducted over many years into pulse fishing is scientifically rigorous. however — and this is important — it is still in the research phase. so if you look at all the trawlers here, one, two, three, four, five, arejust coming into the dock this morning. they're all pulse fishing vessels. in total, there's about 80 of them. and it begs the question — how many trawlers do you need to do an experiment? at the moment there are about 79 vessels that fish with the pulse gear and strictly speaking for research purposes, you don't need 79, you can do with a lot less. but again, the reason why the dutch government has decided to do it in this manner, i think you have to ask them. we, as the international community, share a responsibility for a healthy and blue economy... but despite the main research institute saying they don't need all these experimental trawlers, the dutch government told newsnight: we think the research is fine and the extra research will only underpin what we have already found. for dutch fishermen, pulse fishing has been revolutionary. 0ne told me a few years ago he was earning about 30,000 euros and he now takes home 70,000. 80% of the dutch beam trawling fleet have now converted to pulse fishing and the research period will end in 2019. at which point, the eu will decide whether to either approve or ban the technique. but inevitably there are questions about whether the dutch government has allowed en masse a questionable form of fishing to operate in the north sea for in part commercial reasons. that's just about it for tonight. but although the weather is not uniformly bright, it is still summer — so it's still proms season. the last few weeks we've been bringing the proms to you, and here's another instalment. tonight we have the acclaimed german cellist alban gerhardt, playing the sara bande from bach's sixth cello suite. he'll be at the royal albert hall tomorrow. his cello is not far off being as old as bach himself, it has been around for about 300 years. hello there. conditions were atrocious across the south—east today. wet, windy and cold. elsewhere, though, it was glorious thanks to the ridge of high pressure. the south—east will be joining in as well as we had only to thursday, is that weather system and front thursday, is that weather system and fro nt m oves thursday, is that weather system and front moves away. conditions will improve here. another system slowly approaching to the far north—west will introduce thicker cloud to the far north—west of scotland but elsewhere a good—looking day. light winds after a chilly start. fine and dry with sunny spells, and feeling warmer, particularly across the south—east. into thursday night it looks like much of the country will be dry, especially in wales. it will be dry, especially in wales. it will bea be dry, especially in wales. it will be a chilly one here. for scotland and northern ireland that weather system will make inroads, wet and windy and not quite as cold. a big area of low pressure with us on friday means it will be wet and windy from the word go across western areas, but a fine start across the eastern half of them early sunshine. that will gradually fade as cloud thickened up from the west. this weather system will move in to bring some heavy pulses at times. 17 to 21 degrees, clears away and into the weekend it will be fine thanks to this ridge of high pressure. this is newsday on the bbc. i am rico hizon in singapore. the headlines. new threats to guam. north korea says it is working on a plan to launch four missiles to the tiny territory of the us. the new threat comes despite a warning from the us defence secretary that north korea's actions could result in the end of its regime and the destruction of its people. end of its regime and the destruction of its peoplelj end of its regime and the destruction of its people. i am babita sharma in london. australia's bitter political battle over legalising gay marriage comes to a point as the government pushes on with a postal vote. and president duterte of the visit philippines