Transcripts For BBCNEWS Newsday 20240713

Investigation. The bribe is to. And a low birthrate crisis in south korea is an opportunity for these grandmothers to go back to school. Hello, its 9 00am in singapore, 1 00am in london and 9 00am in beijing, where chinas president has made his strongest comments yet on hong kong. Xi jinping called on the territory to restore order and bring an end to the violence following the latest violent protests. Chinas president also warned that the unrest could threaten the principle of one country, two systems, under which hong kong has had significant autonomy from beijing. Earlier, protesters barricaded themselves in University Campuses in anticipation of possible police raids. Verna yu is a freelance journalist based in hong kong. Yes, i actually believe this is the first time that president xijinping has spoken out on the issue. Previously, in the communique of a key Party Meeting over a week ago, they made a pretty strong statement about the signalling the need for tighter control in hong kong, and also warning the Hong Kong Government has to be protected. So this latest comment by xi jinping on hong kong is a pretty strong indication that china wants to wants a stop to the current violence and protest. And i think this will probably cause, you know, a lot of people to worry. But also the protesters are likely that i think they will become more angry. Of course, this anger continues to spill into this week. We have already seen quite a lot of violence this week, a protester shot at point blank range, yet another pro beijing activist actually set alight. So this has been incredibly divisive for hong kongers. Give us a sense of how and when do you think this may end, if ever . There is no end in sight, im afraid. It has caused a lot of division in hong kong society. A lot of people are. I mean, given the protests are now in their sixth month, a lot of people understandably are getting very fed up with the situation, and there is a palpable anger on campus following the death of a student last friday. And on University Campuses, there is graffiti everywhere, and a lot of the graffiti actually says they want revenge blood debts have got to be paid. And im afraid the students feel that there is no other way to express their anger except by, you know, blocking roads, throwing bricks down onto roads. Kind of they want to paralyse hong kong, bring it to a complete standstill, to pressure the government into doing something. And meanwhile, i mean, ordinary peoples everyday life has been seriously disrupted, and schools are being suspended. Universities have announced the termination of the terms. Ordinary people, a lot of them just cant get to work and cant do their cant go about their daily lives. Plenty more detail on what is happening on the streets of hong kong on our website. Lets take a look at some of the days other news. Theres been another shooting incident at a school in california. Two students have been killed and several seriously injured. Los Angeles Police said a student opened fire on the campus in Santa Clarita, north of los angeles, before using his last bullet on himself. They said the suspect, an asian male who had turned 16 today, had been captured and was in a serious condition. He and three other victims were receiving treatment in hospital. In a moment, more form our north america correspondent david willis, but first heres what the Police Spokesman had to say a short time ago. Now we are going through the very lengthy process of conducting a thorough investigation to figure out what happened and why. At the same time, we are busy now doing the reunification of students with their parents, and all the affected students have been notified. Theirfamilies have been notified and they are with them currently. He has been identified, this gunman, as nathaniel berhow, date of birth 14 november 2003, making this his 16th birthday. Now, it is alleged that before classes got under way in Santa Clarita just north of los angeles today, he pulled a gun from his backpack and opened fire, shooting five of his classmates, two of whom have since died. Detectives say that he saved the last shot for himself, and shot himself in the head. He is said to be gravely ill in hospital. A boy and a girlare in a critical condition. Also making news today, investigators looking into the shooting down of a passenger plane over ukraine have released phone transcripts suggesting senior kremlin figures were helping direct the ukrainian rebels accused of the crime. Malaysia Airlines Flight mhi7 came down over rebel held Eastern Ukraine in 2014. It was travelling from amsterdam, and all 298 people on board died. It was brought down by a russian made buk missile, which investigators say came from the russian military. A cease fire between israel and islamichhad militants in gaza appears to be holding despite sporadic rocket fire. The truce ended two days of intense fighting that killed at least 3a palestinians and paralyzed parts of israel. Just before it was announced a pre dawn israeli airstrike killed eight members of the same family in gaza. The eu on thursday launched a legal case against britain for failing to nominate a commissioner in the midst of a British Election Campaign Already dominated by brexit. Britains departure from the bloc has been postponed from october 31 untiljanuary 31, so under eu rules it is supposed to put forward a candidate for the new Commission Led by ursula von der leyen. Art thieves tried to steal two paintings by rembrandt worth around 130 million each, from englands oldest public art gallery on tuesday. But police managed to stop them after alarms went off at the dulwich picture gallery in south london. An intruder was chased, but they managed to get away. Italys cabinet has declared a state of emergency in venice, following serious tidal flooding in the city. The countrys prime minister, giuseppe conte, said 22 million had been allocated as the first emergency funds to help the city, its citizens and businesses. Jenny hill is in venice. Even as they clear up, the flood alarms are going off. In a few hours, it is feared venice will be deluged again. Its a disaster, for ourfamily and for all the venetian people. A really, really, really big storm. They havent seen anything this bad since the 1960s. 0ne couple filmed as they tried and failed to keep the water out. Water coming from everywhere, and we we found ourselves surrounded by water. The beauty of this ancient city fragile now. Inside st marks basilica, they are still assessing the damage. The crypt was full filled of water. Venice lies low, prone to floods, vulnerable to the effects of climate change, a planned flood defence scheme delayed for years by corruption, scandal and overspend. Little comfort for those watching as the tides rise, fall, and rise again. Jenny hill, bbc news, venice. Today the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, said that President Trump has already admitted to bribery when it comes to the ukraine phone call which is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Her comments come the day before a Second Public hearing, which will feature the former Ukraine Ambassador marie yovanovitch. And when it comes to continued republican pressure on the whistleblower, this is what she had to say. Nobody nobody president , the president is not above the law. The president will be held accountable. And nobody should have the right to endanger whistleblowers, and that is the system that i will defend. And the American People the American People understand that. Earlier i spoke to ksenija pavlovic, an independent White House Correspondent covering the trump administration. I asked her if there had been a shift in tone from the democrats. As the public hearings get under way, the democrats are clearly trying to make a stronger case, stronger legal case, for voting on the articles of impeachment, and the statement nancy pelosi made this evening is speaking to that fact. However, the first day of impeachment yesterday didnt really move the needle in anyones favour in particular. The people who supported trump remain to support him. The ones who opposed him remain to oppose him. And that is pretty much the situation here, in a very divisive american society. The republicans are now going to continue to say how this is nothing but a witch hunt, and the democrats are going to try to present the president as someone who made an attempt of bribery, and by doing so he betrayed the office of the american presidency, and really created big damage on the very institution of the american presidency and its ideals. Its interesting you say yesterdays first public hearings didnt shift the dial. A huge number of people watched them. 13. 8 million people, according to reuters, watched the first day of the impeachment hearings. Do you think that that will continue to be the case that the people who are anti trump will remain so and the people who are pro trump will remain so . What about any floating voters . Will they be impacted by this . How important will it be for next years president ial elections . It is going to be very important for the election, and the way im seeing these impeachment proceedings is that they are the extension of the president ial campaign battlefield, and were going to see more and more of that as the impeachment unfolds. Whats important here is that there is a big percentage, a High Percentage of people, who are still undecided, have not formed views on impeachment as of today. Australias latest bushfires have claimed at least four lives and destroyed hundreds of homes. And after few days of cooler weather in the east, temperatures are forecast to pickup again into the weekend, leading to fears of more strong blazes. Shaimaa khalil is in glenreagh in northern new south wales, one of the towns badly hit this week. Catastrophic fires have been blazing through this area for the last few days and this is what they left behind. The earth here is scorched and you can still feel the heat beneath. Some bits still smouldering. The smoke is just so thick it is like a blanket of haze that has descended on the place and the smell is just so strong. We have met some locals and they said they are still shocked and are still trying to get over the catastrophic and traumatising events they have been through. There has been a lull in the weather and the wind has settled down, temperatures have dropped but the weather forecasters are saying they expect heat to pick up, so hot conditions and with the continuing drought and strong wind there is a fear there could be a wave of more fires over the next few days. We also met some firefighters who say that until we have rain, which they do not expect, this will happen time and time again for the coming weeks and months. Also on the programme, its never too late to learn the grandmothers filling classrooms left empty by south koreas ridiculously low birth rate. The bombastic establishment outsider, donald trump, has defied the pollsters to take the keys to the oval office. I feel great about the election result. I voted for him because i genuinely believe that he cares about the country. Its keeping the candidates name always in the public eye that counts. Success or failure depends not only on public display, but on the local Campaign Headquarters and the heavy routine work of their women volunteers. Berliners from both east and west linked hands and danced around their liberated territory. And with nobody to stop them, it wasnt long before the first attempts were made to destroy the structure itself. Yasser arafat, who dominated the palestinian cause for so long, has died. Palestinian authority has declared a state of mourning. After 17 years of discussion, the result was greeted with an outburst ofjoy. Women ministers whod long felt only grudgingly accepted in the ranks of clergy suddenly felt welcomed. This is newsday on the bbc. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore. Im in Samantha Simmons in london. Our top stories beijing has issued a direct warning to hong kong, saying it urgently needs to end violence and restore order. Two students have been killed and several injured when a fellow student opened fire at a high school in california. Lets take a look at some front pages from around the world. Commuters could soon be speeding from dubai and abu dhabi, thats according to the gulf news. Visitors to the dubai motor show got a first look at the hyperloop passenger pods. They could cut the journey time tojust12 minuets. The Straits Times says singapore has become a safer place for people who work at great heights. Apparently the number of workers whove died as a result of a fall has declined by more than half over the past decade. Good news, given all those skyscrapers. And the japan times reports that Emperor Naruhito has performed his last major succession ritual. The centuries old shinto thanksgiving ceremony known as the daijosai was performed in the gigantic daijokyu halls which were specially constructed for the rite. That brings you up to date with the papers. South korea is running out of children. It has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. The impact is being keenly felt in rural areas where schools are struggling to fill classrooms and stay open. Facing a year without any first graders, a school in the south west of the country decided to open its doors to illiterate grandmothers who asked to learn to read and write. 0ur correspondent laura bicker reports from seoul. We will study hard, these grandmothers tell their teacher. For decades they dreamt of learning to read and write. Now that they have their chance, every moment in this First Grade Class is special. Translation i never went to school because we were poor. Now i am learning new things and realising it is really nice to go to school. Translation now i know how to read and write. I can thank my teacher 100 times. That is how good i feel. Theyve lived most of their lives sacrificing for their families, usually male siblings. There was a culture of sending sons to school but not daughters. The root cause was poverty. This rural school once had 90 pupils in each grade. Now there are 22 in total. Last year there were no new first graders. So the grandmothers asked if they could come. Translation when i was young i couldnt go to school because i had to raise my siblings. Now that i am older i heard this was a good opportunity. That is why i am doing it. Babies are becoming an increasingly rare sight in rural areas as south koreas birthrate plummets to one of the lowest in the world. Im the first scottish person you have met. To try to help, officials have built a new baby unit to support new mothers and encourage them to stay in the area. Translation the trend for young people is to just to live happily with themselves and their husbands. I think the economic factor is the biggest concern in raising a child. But Family Finances are not the only concern. A demanding work culture makes it difficult for many women to balance their career with family life. As a result, south korea is running out of children. In this class there is only two students and they are in different grades. But amidst this crisis has come a rare opportunity. To offer an older generation a chance to make up for lost time and lost education. Translation now i can write my name. It is fun. It is just fun to walk to school. Many of us enjoy a seafood spread, but do you ever stop to think where the catch on your plate actually came from . Last year a un backed report found exploitable fisheries in the Asia Pacific Region are on course to decline to zero by 20118. Overfishing isjust one of the issues being discussed at National Geographics explorers festival, being held here in singapore for the first time. Earlier i wasjoined by one of the speakers, the oceanographer sylvia earle. Shes known in some circles as your deepness and she was instrumental in having google earth display ocean data. I asked what can be done mitigate further damage to the oceans. We have to take seriously what we now know that we really could not know in fairly recently. We thought 50 yea rs know in fairly recently. We thought 50 years ago that the ocean was infinite in its capacity to accept whatever we were willing to put into it, it would just go away. And we could take out of the ocean whatever we wa nted could take out of the ocean whatever we wanted to. That was 50 years ago that first view of the earth from space took place and we could see this is all there is, its one little blue miracle in a universe of unfriendly places. My role as an explorer, with thousands of hours under the sea, if you like an astronaut in a way because ive seen things others have not. And thats why im motivated. Tells a bit about what youve seen, because its been horrifying, hasnt it . Earlierthis year we found plastic in the deepest depths of the ocean. But you have said that actually banning single use plastic will not save the planet, but making the right choices well. Your approach is much more pragmatic when it comes to ecological choices that we can make. So what are some choices consumers should make . I think banding Single Use Plastics is positive, but its not enough. Its symbolic of we have to take care of what we do, individual choices matter. And whether it is what you eat, what you wear, how you deal with whatever it is you encounter in life, but plastics are new on the scene in my lifetime. When i was a child they did not exist and today they are everywhere. There in the air breathe, its not just everywhere. There in the air breathe, its notjust the large nets that are discarded in the ocean that i killing, killing, killing animals in the sea that we dont even bring to market. They break down into little pieces, micro plastics are now nano plastic stutter in the water, that are in the air, data everywhere. A british inventor, who calls himselfjetman, has smashed his own record for the fastest flight inajet suit. Richard browning shot through the sky above Brighton Beach at more than 85mph. Ian palmer was there. We have lift off, but can he break the jet propelled bodysuit world record . Ive shouted so loudly before ive been heard over myjet engine noise, on the gopro on my head as i was just exclaiming with joy. It is like this unparalleled degree of freedom when youre flying. It is super fun. Richard browning is on his second adjudicated run. Can he go any faster . The british inventor didnt just go faster, he obliterated his own world record reaching a top speed of more than 85 miles an hour. It did start out for no practical reason at all and its still not how you will take the kids to school any time soon. But as a first stepping stone that opens the door to a whole new way that it might inspire. It already has. These air scouts travelled all the way from northamptonshire to witness this extraordinary event. Its a wonderful opportunity. You dont get to see a jetpack every day. It was amazing. Its a wonderful chance to be able to come down here and watch it. We really passionate about aviation but this is something really different. This is great, actually. I was very surprised to see a guy just take off and go into the sea, so, yeah. Yeah. Today is Guinness World records day, with more than 650,000 people taking part worldwide. Whats certain is that none of them will have stimulated the imagination quite like the british inventor, richard browning. Ian palmer, bbc south east today, brighton. Terrifying speed there, ive got to admit. You have been watching newsday. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore. Im Samantha Simmonds in london. Stay with us. This finnish sauna has broken the world record for most people in a sauna, taking the title from china. Hello. Thursday was another rough day of weather across the uk. Snow fell for some, this is how it looks over high ground in staffordshire. For many more it was rain, rain falling on sodden ground so there are a number of flood warnings in force and you can read about those on the bbc weather website. An area of low pressure spinning across Continental Europe and the strap of cloud here is what brought the persistent rain across parts of the midlands and north england. Snow for some as well. That rain band is now working westwards and weakening but our area of low pressure still spinning around and still in charge of the scene so it will throw more outbreaks of rain in from the east as we go through the day. Across england and wales, largely cloudy day with outbreaks of rain at time. Light and patchy at times and heavy rain into the south east later on. Some rain expected in eastern and southern parts of scotland, also Northern Ireland. Morning showers will tend to fizzle and leave some sunshine through the afternoon. It will still be breezy but perhaps not quite as chilly as it was on thursday. Into the early hours of saturday you can see further outbreaks of patchy rain spreading from the east towards the west and the best of the clear spells we found across scotland and Northern Ireland although in scotland there could be dense fog patches to take into saturday morning. Into the weekend, an area of low pressure still with us but notice the white lines, those isobars. There are not many of them. The low is flabby which means theres nothing to push the various areas of rain around and so it is a little tricky for us to forecast the exact details at this stage. It looks like many of us will see cloud in some outbreaks of rain during times during saturday. The dest chance of brightness down towards the south. It will not be as windy as it has been. On sunday, a greater chance of seeing heavier and more persistent rain from the east, potentially moving into parts of Northern England and the midlands that have seen flooding, so with staying in touch with the forecast. Best of the sunshine across the west, particularly Northern Ireland. Into monday, a little ridge of High Pressure is going to move its way through and for the start of the week that will settle things down. But there is a big low waiting in the wings in the atlantic and that will bring the return of some rain at times as we head through next week. It will often be windy but will eventually turn a bit milder. Im Samantha Simmonds with bbc world news. Our top story chinas president has warned that protests in hong kong are threatening the one country, two systems governing principle. In rare comments on the unrest in hong kong, xijinping said the city needs to urgently end violence and restore order. A student has opened fire on a campus near los angeles, leaving two dead and injuring three others. The 16 year old suspect, who was also injured, was taken into custody. And this video is trending on bbc. Com. A british inventor has broken his own record for the fastest flight in a jet suit. Richard browning, also know as jetman, raced through the air at almost 137 kilometres per hour at Brighton Beach in southern england, smashing his previous record by more than 80 kilometres per hour. Thats all. Stay with bbc world news