Substantial chance that the planned summit with Kim Jong un won't take place next month Pyongyang has threatened to walk away from the plans of the U.S. Pushes for unilateral nuclear disarmament Jenny town is a research analyst there is a sort of pressure and a desire for this to be shorter process but at the end of the day you know it also has to be realistic and actually implementable and a lot of these actions especially when it comes to verification will take time no matter how quickly what the process Sajid Javid says he wants to reset the relationship between the government and the police he's making his 1st major speech as Home Secretary to hundreds of offices in Birmingham later it outlined his commitment to giving them the powers and the equipment they need we'll get a better idea of how Marks and Spencers is doing later as it announces its preliminary full year results it's already announced plans to close more of it shops than expected Here's our business reporter Guy Kilty things have been tough for Marks and Spencer for some time now and experts are expecting more of the same into days 4 year results with sales in both his food and non-food divisions expected to be down yesterday M. And S. Announced it is accelerating its current store closure program previously it said it would close 60 stores over the next 4 years that total has now been upped to $100.00 the security minister Ben Wallace says the U.K. Is fast becoming the cane capital of Europe he told M.P.'s that technology is making it easier for young people to trade drugs and make connections like never before Mark Zuckerberg has promised major changes to protect people's data the Facebook founder was speaking to leaders of the European Parliament the Belgian politician give a half step spoke to him You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered as one of the 3 big Internet giants together with Steve Jobs I should say and Bill Gates who have enriched all worlds were on the other hand in fact that the genius who created the digital monster that is destroying all democracies in our society storm that's a question that you have to put for yourself London ambulance service has been taken out of special measures after 2 and a half years inspectors at the Care Quality Commission rated the service inadequate in the vendor 2015 but its latest report has its good overall and outstanding for patient care. And there's a call for half of all films made by public organizations like the B.B.C. And film for to be written by women within 2 years it's been made by a trade union called the Writers Guild of Great Britain It estimates that female writers currently account for around 15 percent of film scripts and 30 percent of those for T.V. Chairs the guild television companies Paramount's their new shows for the season and the women are there the Writers Guild has done an independent research study about women writers and film and television over the last decade and the depressing result is it's flat lined over a decade and the figures are startlingly low to begin with the news Betty Glover has the Sport England captain hurricanes as his team have nothing to lose this summer's World Cup and is team should have a nice fit when talking about that aims so his name is Gary Rao it is that new ball sees left Darby to take over from Paul learned that he walked away falling stocks relegation from the Premier League England's AC Bronze has won the B.B.C. Women's Footballer of the year that was announced earlier this evening now Andrew Strauss is to take a step back from his role as England's director of cricket while his wife is treated for cancer he says the team will be in safe hands though while he initially takes 3 months out of the row and finally could Simon Yates become the 1st Britons win the Jerries Italia well is taking a huge step towards doing just that he will go into the final 5 days as the favorite after surviving stage sixteen's time trial with a 56 2nd lead that's you very latest from the sports this is B.B.C. 5 Live on digital online smartphone and tablet the weather dry night across the U.K. With clear spells and some patchy Mistry and fun for most of us heading further into Wednesday with some warm sunshine calling parkour Hello my name is Greg James our present tailenders alongside Felix white from the Maccabees alike and England's most successful boner of all time Jimmy Anderson yes that's me hard lots to talk about create wise to meet the. Talk about cricket is happening. A lot is going on there. I don't know I'm thinking maybe a midlife crisis he's already one of my favorite cricketers ever be switched on a really good bowler as if a rich opponent to. His secret seems to be Anderson download this from your favorite cult cost provider. On AM and F.M. Around the U.K. On digital and online I'm Roger Sharpe and we're up all night to so much being written about black holes in his days that some of it must surely be not since but the many scientists who stand on the shoulders of Einstein and Stephen Hawking are using better and better tools to tell us about the monsters that lock on to the bed of our own galaxy not 2 weeks ago scientists using data from Deep Space X. Rays told us that a swarm of star size black holes exist within 3 light years of the better part of our galaxy a dozen so-called little black holes co-exist rather perilous like with the monsoon in the middle. All over Britain it's 5 past to 5 past 9 in Grafton West Virginia Bailey Brown a Union soldier became the civil war's 1st victim of the battle of Philip I my prostate on North Poplar Street in Gasol Kansas the Mennonite Heritage Center includes 2 early schools at the bank $57.00 at the island in the sky in the middle of Canyonlands National Park in Utah 6000 feet up some people claim they can see 100 miles in 5 past 6 the eastern edge of Seattle of out A and Carson City California the greatest find of gold ever made brought wealth from the Comstock lode flooding in just one year after its founding the news comes from C.B.S. . This is B.S. News on the hour I'm Dave Barrett will we be focusing on Singapore 3 weeks from today the summit between leaders of the U.S. And North Korea is still a question mark I'm Steven Portnoy at the White House there was a difference the president says he noticed a change in attitude from North Korea after Kim Jong un met with Xi Jinping earlier this month I don't like that but he says he doesn't blame China's leader President Xi is a world class poker player Mr Trump says talks continue WANT TO SINGAPORE summit but he doesn't sound certain it will happen as scheduled in 3 weeks it may not work out for June 12th but there is a good chance it will have the meeting a South Korean government spokesman now says according to President moon J N There is no need to doubt North Korea's will to hold a summit with the US Not many reporters get to see North Korea firsthand and C.B.S. Has been traces the only U.S. Broadcast network correspondent to be at this location this is the only no nuclear test site in North Korea in terms of where they have exploded nuclear bombs. To test weapons essentially the regime says the nuclear site will be dismantled since Friday's school shooting in Santa Fe Texas governor Greg. Abbott is hosting a roundtable discussion on school safety every single time there's a shooting everyone wants to talk about what the problems before but now we know what the problem here is the problem is that innocent people are being shot and that must be stopped a bright blue sky on the California coast in advance and burg Air Force Base a short time ago he. Thought a Space X. Rocket was launched it's carrying 5 Iridium communications satellites and 2 others that will track water distribution on earth and its relationship to gravity Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg speaking to the European Parliament after the data scandal that affected millions of users we didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility now is a mistake and I'm sorry for it and going forward I expect that these increased investments in security will significantly impact our profitability. But I want to be clear keeping people safe will always be more important than maximizing our profits and as the trading day closes on Wall Street Stacy Cunningham looks to make some history for the 1st time in the 226 year history of the New York Stock Exchange a woman is going to run it Stacey Cunningham takes over on the exchange this Friday on Wall Street the Dow at the closes down 178 points Nasdaq minus 15 this is C.B.S. News it's been one year since the blast hit the Manchester Arena in Britain where the singer Ariana Grande had performed 22 people were killed today a memorial service one by one the names and faces of the 22 dead were projected onto a screen there were prayers from Christian Muslim and Jewish clerics and the bible reading by Prince William and now face Hope and Love these 3 and the greatest of these is love this multi-faith Multi Racial city defying with its unity the attacker tried to tear them apart Vickie Parker C.B.S. News Arianna grounded tweeted today I'm sending you all will light and warmth I have to offer on this challenging day stateside up to 25000 casino workers are voting today in Vegas on whether to go on strike bartenders housekeepers servers and cooks may consider walking out as early as June 1st they've Barrett C.B.S. News. It's time for us to join film Arsenault who is in Sydney today Hello Phil yes morning to you wrote. Your feature on your visit to New Zealand recently which is a it just sounds more and more sparkly and interesting over there doesn't it complete with their their very new very young prime minister yes she appeared at a technology conference via hologram so she certainly creating waves everywhere she goes expecting a baby soon as well so that will create a massive amounts of attention in New Zealand and it's a beautiful part of the world it's very different from Australia when I was living in the United Kingdom you often had the tendency role to think of Australia or New Zealand as country consonance and the people certainly are but the land mass the countries themselves are very very different the climate is different and I think for that reason the character of the people is very different. And it's a fantastic place to go and visit my dad lives over there so I have ample opportunity to go over there many many times but as we heard in that earlier story it is becoming increasingly a magnet not just for the rich and powerful but migrants escaping problems and concerns elsewhere to. Make it sound like it was just next door but it must still be quite a long flight for you even from from Sydney. I think it's about 2 and a half 1000 kilometers about 1800 miles across the Tasman Sea So if you fly from Sydney to Wellington for example that's round about it's a 3 hour flight so it's close but it's not that close and it's worth noting too that Australia's nearest neighbor is to the north in Papa New Guinea parts of P.M.G. And parts of Australia separated by just a couple of miles up there on the Torres Strait But certainly when it comes to the flow of people Tories hts and migrants the flow of people between Australia and New Zealand is pretty busy Well thank you for helping us think about this and says because I know that's what we're going to think about no and we're going to have some fairly mind boggling this is a minute tell us about your 1st guest yes this is well for the next 20 minutes or so we're going to delve into some fairly mind boggling figures something happening 12000000000 light years away something that sets them a to be the size rod of 20000000000 suns and all of this is the research of Dr Christian Wolfe Christian is from the Australian National University is Research School of astronomy and astrophysics and he's been doing some very important work regarding black holes Christian welcome to 5 Live thanks for sparing the time now you've recently discovered the fastest growing black hole known in the universe many many questions to be asked of you but 1st of all how did you find it . Well it was a bit of a surprise to ourselves although we were hoping to find things like this we were setting out to do this because we believe that the fastest growing and brightest black holes in the universe have so far been overlooked and the problem is that they look remarkably similar to sort of innocent Cluny you know biased OS to the sun in terms of color and in terms of faintness they appear the same in the sky and they're difficult to tell apart so these very fast growing black holes actually has been hidden in plain sight for decades they've been photographed decades ago with old equipment it's just that they haven't been identified and recognized for what they really are and that's the thing that we want to rectify because I think we've really overlooked the big guys out there now what is the goal. What is a black hole it's a big lump of mosse that is really highly concentrated think of the sun and compress it into the space of about a 1000000 kilometers or so that it has in diameter but less than one kilometer if you concentrate it so much you make the gravity close to its surface extremely strong so strong that not even light can escape and this is why we call it a black hole because you concierge anymore you conned receive any information from inside if you could fly a space ship inside of it let's just assume a magic spaceship and we could survive that process you couldn't send any pictures back out or you couldn't send any radio message messages because the radio signal. Would just all be in the black hole instead of getting out and reaching your destination so it is really a thing of mosse and a Think of information and we com describe it in detail we might wonder what does it actually look like how is it a ranged is it round or what's happening inside we know nothing about that because no information can actually reach us. But we can infer its presence from the gravity that it exercises on the bodies around it for example we have quite a massive black hole in the center of our own Milky Way galaxy so that's about 25000 light years away from us and for a long time we've known how much mosse is there we just have not known how concentrated that Moss is and the more and more resolution we had with the telescopes that were serving this region the more we could confine this mass to a smaller and smaller space until we realized OK while we're not getting any light from this big lump of mass there anyway we now have confined it to such a small space that if you put that much moss into such a small space and you use Einstein's equations off relativity you can just work out this thing is going to have an event horizon as we call it from within which no light can come out so we call it a black hole whatever its internal structure and this is so big it's consuming a mass equivalent to our sun every Today is the mass that it's chewing its way through what he sees. It was that sort of mass it's just gas clouds it lifts in a young galaxy this is we see this over 12000000000 years in the HOF the light has been traveling for such a long time to reach us that means the F. Pocket in which we actually see it was just 1200000000 years after the big bang and all the big black holes that we know of they live in centers of galaxies they 1st need to form from some sort of office whether it's in stocks collapsing in on themselves and then attracting more gas clouds or whatever is actually going on that it's nice to them in the very beginning they always live in galaxies and they then feed on streams of gas and potentially also stars that get too close and get disrupted Now our next hole in the center of the Milky Way which are only $5000000.00 times the masa sun it's a fairly modest black hole that is currently dormant it's not feeding on anything and one reason for that is that our galaxy is in a fairly peaceful dynamic state most of the stars and just all the teams on the ground are slightly elliptical albeit in the disk of the galaxy around the black hole and so these are stable orbits and then off getting anywhere near the black hole not near enough to be disrupted or suffer any particular fate whereas in the early universe not so for those galaxies that are forming for the 1st time there are lots of chaotic motions and streams of gas coming together also streams of gas hitting each other suffering friction slowing down falling towards the centers of these galaxies so it's much easier to actually feed these black holes with new material and also bring Stoss down there which then gets disrupted close to the black hole and get sucked in Hello Dr Wilson drop his or. Well no you made a very well thank you very good to hear you when you made your spectacular announcement you said that the mass of this black hole was equivalent to 20000000000 times the mass of the Sun How did you begin to arrive such an enormous figure. Hi Yes that's a good point that you're bringing up there because really we do not know for sure that this is the mosque of the black hole but we believe that this is a lower limit to it so we believe it is at least 20000000000 cell in a mosque this but we'll setting out to actually measure it with a suitable instrument that has often been used to measure the masses of other black holes by measuring this feeds off the motions of the gas that circles around the black hole unfolds in these speeds gives you an indication of how strong the gravity actually ease We'll get to that hopefully in a few months time and then we'll know a more accurate figure but the question is is is there why does it have to be at least $20000000000.00 times the mass of the sun already and the point here is that we observe that holds to have a speed limit to that growth they can only suck in so much matter time and how much they can actually suck in is directly proportional to the mosque they already have so if you keep feeding the black hole with ads a really high rate you just supply them enough food they can grow within the speed limit continuously and it's like an exponential growth like capital investment with a fixed interest rate and here the interest rate for the for the growth of the black hole mosque is actually fairly low it's just one to send in 1000000 years of time but the black hole ready is of course have a long time to grow so what we would fain here with the mouth of the black hole is we've never really seen black holes growing above that and so we argued that faith growing at the speed limit and this happens fairly often in the early universe we see that. Then. The growth rate from the amount of light that we use this is the fastest growing and that means also the brightest black hole in the early universe from that we can infer it must have to release so much mass in order to be able to actually suck that much methane but it could be more. Will you ever be able to calculate just how much stuff it's actually capable of consuming I mean my thought is if you're looking back 12000000000 light years to see it if you look back you know if you were here. 7000000000 years later would you be would you be seeing something that was indeed coming closer and closer and closer to our solar system is would it have reached its speed limit and would it be roughly where it is right now. Actually if the universe expands and it expands very quickly and what that does is it really drives a part of the galaxies from each other that kind of means the universe will get a lonelier and lonelier place over time if you if you fast forward many many 1000000000 years into the future. We will probably not be able to see many other galaxies outside of the Milky Way right now astronomers study millions and billions of other galaxies and they are within the reach of our telescope our own Milky Way galaxy will probably roughly keep its size and perhaps roughly its number of stars for many 1000000000 years to come but the other galaxies will receive away just driven by the expansion of space. And this particular one that we see so far away in the early universe that will be driven further and further away so now is the time to observe it because it will only get harder with the billions of years we might be waiting what happens to it is difficult to guess and it's right now in a period of very fast growth and we have to assume it's been in such a fast growing state for probably most of the age of the universe at this time so it's probably been growing for a 1000000000 years. To get to this mass. It could well continue doing this for a while sucking in more matter from his home galaxy and indeed we do know of super massive black holes in more nearby galaxies that are bigger than this one that has actually more than 20000000000 times the mass of the sun so we know it's possible to form them asshole. And those are rather dormant black holes that are not doing much because they're galaxies are fairly stable and and don't give black holes much opportunity to feed on things. But of course for this particular option we will never really find out what its future is because there is no way that we could we could receive any information from from the time that has passed between sending Alice alive and US now receiving light. And I'm Kyle just of a vase fantastical question but you know I've kind of way that is beloved of our listeners you've told us that there's a massive black hole the center of our Milky Way and I'm very grateful to learn that it is dormant at the moment if this thing was a heart of our Milky Way would we all be being sucked towards it right now. We would not be sucked towards it it would feed mostly on stocks and gas streams from the you know POS of our Milky Way and at 25000 light years distance from the center of our Milky Way we would be on a pretty safe albeit However it would still ne making us very comfortable to have this thing sitting there because with all the matter that it sucks in it would use this enormous heat for ideation and this heat variation is not only in the near infrared some people have heard of heat ideation and thermal camera and you know you can look at a friend with a thermal camera and and that's infrared and you can see how the face is warmer than the hands and things like that the heater ideation in this case is not temperatures of 20 or 30 degrees Celsius it is thousands tens of thousands and as you get close to the event horizon of the black hole you reach millions of degrees in temperature and we get the heat ready a sion from that and that's how that's how we see the object in the 1st place this heat graduation out shines its own home galaxy by factors of several 1000 so if we had this monster sitting at the center of our own Milky Way it would shine several 1000 times brighter than our entire Milky Way galaxy with its billions of stars put together in fact from our vantage point at the location of the sun and the earth it would shine many times brighter than the full moon in the sky just in the visualize that our ice can see but then that would also be ultraviolet heat radiation and X. Rays as he tried from the hottest HOF which would likely kill us in under a day so it would make the Milky Way Galaxy really not a nice place to live overall Oh well I was going to be reassured I'm not sure no but it is a fast. I think saying and I must like I have to let you come back in but. I can't imagine a black hole actually shining it seems like a contradiction and it's absolutely and and you're right and and what is black about the whole is really the inside the black hole and that's how we define a black hole with a rounded by what we call the event horizon and the size of this event horizon depends on the mass of the black hole so the more MA You lumped together as a stronger it's the gravity and the further out will be the larger will be the volume from within night cannot escape because of the strength of the gravity and and this fear within which light cannot escape this we call the event horizon everything that is outside of that event horizon and that's not going to be the majority of the mass the mass is all going to be inside but every matter that flows around for example the one that's presently being sucked in that is visible because light can still reach us from there and the thing with this black hole is. I mean we said it's fairly big and said 20000000000 times the mass of the sun or even more but it doesn't have 20000000000 times the volume of the sun spatially this is actually a fairly small thing it's going to be the size of our solar system even though it's a mass Bob Levy exceeds it because the mass is actually a quarter of the mass of our entire Milky Way galaxy crammed into the space of our solar system so it's a small thing even though it's a very very massive thing and if you imagine all the matter that it sucks in as that gets close to this it gets pretty crowded and you get friction between the gas streams and. That of being disrupted and so on and so forth and that he thought that matter and that matter shines brightly in its own heat ready ation until it crosses the event horizon it probably shines pretty bright often with the swells. Being at millions of degrees and God knows what it experiences beyond the event horizon but that's then the POV that looks black to us the path that we come to see and as I get any information about it before it crosses the event horizon all the action of the informing matter that we see perfectly well and that is really what was enables us to see the object over such a great distance could probably see this particular black hole or rather its creation screens with a fairly large backyard telescope if you had an enthusiastic astronomer as a friend who has a telescope with a high off need to size thereof in a private observatory in the garden or something and if they had a camera with me infrared capabilities being able to see the light that is just beyond what the what the eye can see around about $800.00 nanometers that would be a good number but that camera that Amatus can actually afford to buy can see the slide they could take pictures of that it is actually relatively private given that it is so far away and in fact the brightest thing in the universe that we know of right now but you know what I think these bright guys they have overlooked the fastest growing black holes has been overlooked because they are so rare and they're so easy to confuse with Sa sa with their I think we've just not been looking carefully enough and we've been able to afford to. Well you know you know what I'm talking about it is so interesting just to just to hear you talk about this because you painted such wonderful pictures for us. And. I'd like Phil be very very quiet and I wonder if he has a last question for you before we let you go because just been wonderful to have you as our guest as I'm just wondering Christian what life is like is an astronomy store an astro physicist. It's a very particular endevor that you've embarked on for you'll you'll daily life in your career as a whole will what's it like spending your life looking into the staus. Lots of ups and downs. Really most of the time we are working towards goals and nothing much happens so sometimes we get something like this we get a discovery like this and it's even on the news and it is it is wonderful to make the discovery in the 1st place and we had a bottle of champagne with my wife immediately after it was clear what was going on here because it was just a celebration really. Form of choice and these are moments and then you get a quiet period where you have to work towards the goal and you will never know whether it will pay off or not so $1.00 thing that's very characteristic for astronomical research is long waiting times and you don't know whether it pays off one way of putting this perhaps this it's a treasure hunt but you don't know whether there's a treasure Maybe you find one maybe you don't want to Joy thank you so much. Good bye bye. Fell will be back with you and your next guest and just a couple minutes time and it's just after help us to form digital on smartphones and tablets this is B.B.C. 5 Live now the news here is Richard Foster President Trump says there's a very substantial chance that a historic summit with Kim Jong un next month may not happen he says North Korea must meet certain conditions for the summit to go ahead the president was speaking as he met the leader of South Korea at the White House Sajid Javid will address hundreds of police officers in Birmingham later it's his 1st major speech is becoming home secretary he'll try to reset the relationship between the government and the police and outline his commitment to giving them the powers they need an archbishop a Catholic archbishop found guilty of concealing child abuse in Australia has announced he'll resign later this week Phillip Wilson could face up to 2 years in jail when he sentenced next month and the Environment Agency says people in the south and east of the U.K. Face serious water shortages within decades unless they reduce waste it says it will work with the government to agree personal consumption targets as the news Betty Glover has the Sport England captain hurricanes as his team have nothing to lose at this summer's World Cup and they should just enjoy the tournament in Russia he says the team have nice day when it comes to voicing their targets may be where bit afraid to say we want to win the stuff because we're afraid of the reaction of maybe the media or the fans what I'm trying to say look we're not afraid to say we're we want to win every fight you want to win it so we have to be brave whether we go out in a group stage or the semifinal is the same you don't win the World Cup So when we talk about we want to wear and we go from there start give names Gary rallyists is the new Bull sees left Abhi to take over from Poland that he left falling stags relegation from the Premier League so why is while it making this move all sports correspondent John Murray Well he is someone Garry rightward whose reputation is is on the applied arc and he. He needs to take that next step he needs to be at a club that gets into the Premier League and he needs to do well in the Premier League and he must be considering he's got a better chance of doing that at Stoke that he has a daughter England's Lisi Bronze has won the B.B.C. Women's football of the year the defender helped her club on reach this week's Champions League final they were surprised I can know why I won with clay and the 1st yeah I'm still surprised than of him very grateful to receive the warder award I was really grateful to even be nominated. You know the people who've been nominated alongside me when a great player great years also saw him in a really special to one of the he can watch the moment Lucy was given her award on the B.B.C. Sport website now England director of cricket and you Strauss's to step down from his role his role while his wife undergoes treatment for cancer he says the team will be in safe hands while he initially takes 3 months out of the world we have a number of things that we're focusing on I've not next 12 months or so to be working on for a number of months and none of those change with me being away all that happens is the responsibility for those various projects gets hard to get handed to various people in the concrete department and Andy Flower is the sort of the go to guy for the stuff on a day to day basis your Captain Thomas bio on his picks Lee Westwood Graeme McDowell pulled it Carrington and Luke Donald as vice captains to the sea is rising up sorry does leave us would think he would do a good job in the vice captain role as an experienced Ryder Cup player you know use that power and knowledge and I get on so well with everybody you know over the years I've had many different Ryder Cup partners so obviously I get on well with most people and I think that's what you need a vice captain you know you need to send them off and say you're going to wherever so on so just just help and advise we have a possible 5 lives golf podcast The COT is available to download now and finally could Simon Yates become the 1st Britons win this year I did tell you. Well he has taken a huge step towards doing just that he will go into the final 5 days as the favorites to surviving side sixteen's time trial with a 56 2nd lead that's the latest from the school. The back. To. The Champions League final Could it be a 6 to European Cup for little on Saturday a Real Madrid bus is a little cool from Kiev to come in sri on 5 Sunday night schedule 745 in the build up begins on the sidelines for a midday listen only digital radio small speak to you wait for the Champions League to find 5 life across the U.K. This is B.B.C. 5 OK you explain what show. The world slightly closer with Phil Phil who is our guest. Going to spend the next 20 minutes or so road talking about the fate of koalas probably Australia's most well known marsupial after the kangaroo here in New South Wales in the last couple of weeks Australia's most populous state announced quite a and expensive broad plan to try to protect koala populations and the next we will be talking to Daisy Barr and Daisy is the campaign's director at the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales thanks for coming in today where it's great to be here Daisy when when you heard of the plan for the koalas in New South Wales 25000 hectares of land for reserves the centerpiece of this what did you think well we were really encouraged that our premier was paying attention to the plight of koalas like El organization has long said that koalas are really at risk of going extinct in New South Wales in our lifetime it's shocking I think for many people to realise just the dire state they were in but then when we looked into the detail of the strategy it was really clear that it was a Band-Aid solution it really the strategy from the government really wasn't dealing with the heart of what is pushing that the koala to the brink of extinction and so was it on the one hand great they were saving political attention to you on the other hand the actions on just on and off. The number one threat presumably is land clearing and logging does this plan to set aside quite a big chunk of state forests for core koala reserves doesn't that address that issue or do you think that land clearing in development is so widespread the population of koalas will continue to decline spot on that land clearing and habitat loss and deforestation is the number one threat to koalas and not just them but to a range of other animals as well and so you know that's really is the threat that we need to be addressing it's great that $25000.00 hectares of land will be protected under the Premiers plan but to put those figures into a bit of perspective so $25000.00 hectares protected in a one off announcement mean well every year we have. $30000.00 maybe even up 250000 hectares is lost from deforestation every year in New South Wales and in addition another $30000.00 is lost from logging in the state every single year and so on the one hand we've got the government protecting $25000.00 Hecht is but we've got more than double that amount being bulldozed or chopped down every single year in the state and so when you look at the both sides of the ledger there you can see it just doesn't stack up and in terms of conservation status the the status of the koala new self New South Wales is vulnerable so yeah that's right so vulnerable both at a federal level and under a New South Wales state law so vulnerable to extinction but is it also true that in other parts of Australia there is debate about the conservation status in South Australia for example are koalas not more numerous down there are not vulnerable to the same degree that they are here in New South Wales Yeah that's certainly right in parts of Victoria and South Australia population numbers of koalas are quite different to New South Wales but if we focus back on New South Wales you know within my lifetime on my early thirty's and within that lifetime we've seen it 25 to 30 percent of the koalas that used to be there when I was a kid on there anymore and I used to you know that used to be in my local backyard so it quite a personal issue for me and you know if you look at that trajectory you don't have to be amazing at math to know if you lose 25 percent every 20 years or so you're going to have you know it's really not too long until we're losing those animals from you know huge parts of our state and I don't think anyone wants to get to the stage where we have to take kids to zoos to see koalas you know these animals that should be abundant in huge parts of our state particularly our coastal strip and that's simply not going to be the future unless we stop clearing the habitat really really quickly Howard this is Rod here get a road. How do. I think I remember when I went to Australia you know and I went to a special park and sure enough you know I saw some quality. How did koalas live I mean what sort of family units to they have to they do they live in small groups or big groups Yeah great question they're very territorial so I don't know if you you might have heard some of the crazy grunting noises that koalas make they are really territorial they leave to 12 to 15 years they way like 6 to 12 kilos depending on which part of the country they're interested to paint a bit of it for them though they were much bigger than I expected them to be yeah they're quite big animals on they but they can be quite hard to see in the tops of trees and they also they're incredibly deisel they really don't move around much in the day which is good because they're much safer when they're up in the tops of trees. You know the ground is a bit of a danger zone for koalas because they're very susceptible to attacks by dogs or by by being hit by cars by the sides of right so we like them when they're up in the tops of trees but it can be quite hard to spot them. So what size of groups to they actually live in that. It's a good question I don't know the answer to that to be honest right so you might have to get in. A wildlife character to answer that one but I do know having spoken to a wildlife carer just last week actually that there's a lot of problems now with say when an animal or a koala comes into care so let's say it's been found on the side of the road looking a bit dazed and and it needs to spend a bit of time with the walk life Kara there's a real problem now of going and putting that koala back into the bush and the problem is that because they're such territorial animals. And if their habitat has been lost you can't simply go and put them somewhere else you know that is somebody else's home now some other koalas home and so as we continuing to destroy their habitat it's displacing a lot of animals as well which end up on the side of roads or getting attacked by dogs and as a result into the care of amazing wildlife carers across the state but if we keep bulldozing the habitat no amount of koala hospitals is really going to help if there's nowhere left that we can put them back into the wild because they also territorial. What a social strain on the quality of population you when you talked about the number of trees that are being logged feasibly the the number of trees that will be saved because of this you know 25000 hectares being set aside it made me wonder how much territory a koala needs that was my my sort of basic saw Trilly the idea being do you need do you need a whole acre for one koala trees you know what sort of they must feed pretty voraciously and I'm not very not very good at it they're not all know for sure they are. No absolutely not they are only the labors of a few species of you clip so that's an issue as well and Wildlife Care as a having to travel further info there and work harder to get you know to get food for them is that as those species are kind of lost in the wild and so yeah that's an important part piece of talking about habitat as well as making sure that you know a tree might look the same to many of us but for a koala to have very specific needs of what they want there's also some concerns about the impact that climate change will have on koalas so there is a pretty shocking example of the Pilliga Forest which is the largest temperate woodland left in the whole of eastern Australia if you look at Google Maps it's like a green eye right in the middle of our state and that has been traditionally a real refuge full for koalas but in the last 10 years of the populations have crushed by 80 to 90 percent and a large part of that was because of climate change like that and koalas simply can't handle really extreme temperatures for a long time and so that's a concern for the for the species but the impacts of climate change kind of run a bit a bit deeper for the koala as well there's some new science out looking at well what is changing. Carbon in in the atmosphere and in the air that plants are then absorbing you know what difference does that make for the composition of the leaves and how does that impact on animals like the koala that rely a 100 percent on Eucalyptus leaves for their diet and so I think it's quite a wicket example of the flow on impacts that climate change will have that it's not just the heat waves it's not just the bushfires it's changing the fundamental kind of dynamics and characteristics of ecosystems that we might not know the extent of for animals or the impacts on animals like the claw effect what some time. And Phil of course of response you've reported a lot of. Women must be very very sad to to be out there in beer the line of fire you know and and see animals escaping as best they can. The been some iconic images haven't their daisies of koalas caught up in these bushfires being given a drink of water by a firefighter in many ways that just illustrates Australia's affection for these animals but as you say Daisy much of Australia's wildlife quite secretive it's quite if you're going to fit in into the bush for example your sort of walking along the track invariably scares them away it is often the case that you see koalas and kangaroos dead on the side of the road but when you drive out of Sydney you see these remarkable the like bridges aren't they love our wildlife bridges right I think there must be sort of steel in rope that occasionally say an animal a possum or a koala crawling across just take us through the thinking behind those sorts of things do they work yeah good questions that connectivity is a huge problem not just for koalas but for all animals in the bush you know we need if populations of koalas and other animals are going to be healthy in viable into the future they need. To be able to mix with other populations that not in breeding . Animals need to also move across the landscape say as seasons changes food becomes available in one part of the forest but not not in another and yet if you look at a Google map of New South Wales what a heavily cleared landscape we live in you know it's very visible and so those like connectivity is a massive massive issue with certainly quite concerns on the climate change scenarios. We know animals are going to be moving particularly south and they'll be moving up to high elevations but if there is you know say there's a often hills or mountains a covered still in that then native trees but if all the area around them is is completely clear and how the animals going to get to these you know climate refuge areas so they. Yeah connectivity of lot of landscapes is absolutely vital if we're going to protect them and of into the future there's been a lot of critique of those kind of road crossings that you were talking about Phil because often they put in place on a new road that is just destroyed a whole bunch of habitat and so there's a lot of flights from nowhere to nowhere then effectively Well they can connect pieces of Bush but where there used to be a really healthy forest there's now a massive highway and so you've that particular issue on the north coast of New South Wales with the expense expense of the highway. You know you are moving thousands of tens of hacked is of habitat and replacing it with just a bridge so that's obviously a concern for the for that animals live there that don't have the home anymore and why is the koala so important is there a sort of a beauty contest between trying to save the koala at the expense of other species is it a deliberate effort to say the koala is so important because ecologically it's important for X. 100 reasons but does this mean that other animals that might be vulnerable. Because they're not as iconic and not as cuddly as the koala Yeah great question that such a live debate really within the conservation community is like it do we prioritise the ugly looking worm that might be critically endangered right on the brink or one becoming an ugly looking Well they certainly Well you know time also for me don't know any you know exactly not matter. But the benefit of of protecting the koala if we do that we know we have to stop rampant deforestation destroying habitat which of course will benefit the koala but it will also benefit so many other threatened animals and plants species as well and so if we can protect the koala we know that it will have many flowing benefits to other species and so that's often why conservationists will talk about really iconic species because they connect. It connects with the community but there is another reason is that if we can protect it for one species we protect it from many and you mentioned before that attacks by dogs account for quite a few casualties among koalas when you look at Australia's recalled of invasive species cats dogs goats pigs cane toads the list is pretty long and depressing it's been an absolute catastrophe and I've remember there was a figure that feral cats kill and 1000000 birds in Australia every single day how on earth does a country like Australia is so big how do you reverse that damage all of these animals that were brought in for various barmy reasons over the last 200 odd years how do you actually get to grips with that you know you're so spot on feral animals have just had such a devastating impact on our landscape and we do have the worst mammal extinction record of any continent in the whole planet so pretty shocking track record there I think one of the best things we can do to control feral animals and to stop their spread in like minimise the impact that they have on animals like the koala but like thousands of others as well is to keep habitats healthy like we know healthy ecosystems with healthy numbers of you know predatory animals but the whole you know food chain a much more able to sort of withstand the incursion of feral animal species more feral of invasive plants species as well and so you know where we've got things like logging You know you might have a logging coup so an area that's been logged surrounded by intact healthy forest once you've logged that area in the middle it's much easier for weight species to kind of get a foothold into those other healthy areas and so if we can protect in particular in national parks protects large areas of healthy habitat. As well as really active management to get a lot of the feral animals out then that's the best chance. That we can have controlling ferals. Plants or animals but it's a huge issue and it's something that Israeli or I think just hasn't grappled with is you know we're an island continent we haven't evolved with so many of the species you mentioned at the start Phil. And yet we just haven't grappled with how we going to deal with it there's an emphasis on pest species that have an impact on agriculture much more so you know they'll be money they'll be federal management strategies state government attention if the feral animal or plant has an impact on agriculture if it just has an impact on native animals the funding just isn't there for dealing with the with the problem so that's a huge concern and some of these cats they're not like you know neighbors Maki they are enormous when you think of the Fox hockey lation wild dogs they're not as you would imagine a domesticated cats or dogs to be some of them are lots of small lions and some enormous roaming around the countryside Yeah they're absolutely ferocious Yeah the wild cats maybe listeners maybe not over breakfast or dinner but have a look if you google some images about you know feral cats in Australia what do they eat every day there's some shocking anything and everything is pretty much but scientists have literally you know cut open the stomach of of a dead feral cat and worked out how many animals has this killed recently by the number of bones that are inside the cat and it is shocking how many they ate every night as you mention. I know it's so in the in the United States is a problem though with dogs not not good dogs but choreo to these. Packs of correlatives ranging our own. Obviously feeding quite well on different things. Is there are an issue with with our native wild dog population in Australia. You'd like to go so there are already I think there goes of course us. There's a you know incredibly beautiful animals and they do have a really important role to play in maintaining So ecosystem health so we know that having more dingoes in the landscape helps control other feral animals so having dingoes in the landscape is really positive having wild dogs which are you know animals have been domesticated some time ago and now are wild they are a problem for animals like the koala so when the koala comes down to the ground to you know find its next tree they can be particularly vulnerable to dog attack and so that's a lot of the reason why koalas end up in wildlife care is across the state is you know they've come down they're trying to get across to the next area of Bush that they can have some more trees maybe they're looking for a mate and yet on their way walking often across like a cleared landscape or across a suburb or road they getting targeted by wild and feral dogs so you know that's where I think the problems of koalas intertwined you know it's habitat loss and then that lack of habitat means they're more vulnerable to other things like dog attack or sort of feral dogs and feral cats maybe wonder if a bit more careless than other people when it when it came to letting these things out. I think our landscape is just you know hasn't evolved with those certainly nothing like the cat I mean that the Tasmanian tiger is a bit cat like some people say but more aligned with the the dingo of course. But yeah landscape just hasn't evolved with these kind of you know really big predators and so native animals have no defense against a cat you know particularly feral ones that we have been in so much of the of the country and so it's hugely concerning to see the numbers just continue to expand this innovative projects happening at the moment building a cat proof fence across like a big square in the center of Australia where the idea is build a massive fence get all of the feral cats and dogs and other you know crazy animals we have here out and then put in a whole bunch of you know native animals that should be in that area and let's see let's see how much our native bushland and animals can come back from the brink of extinction the challenge I see how do I do it though isn't it it isn't it's not a solution for the it's not a solution for the whole of Australia we can't build a massive fence images of Donald Trump are coming to mind for the doing in New Zealand only in parts of New Zealand are doing that absolutely and we are we kind of are getting to that dire stage of animals like the koala and so many others getting close to extinction in our lifetime and so you know we need it's time for bold solutions and you know the logging industry land clearing we've already transformed Sorry much of our landscape to agriculture and to the houses and suburbs that we live in it's time to really think about you know is that have we cleared enough can we protect what we have left so that we can hand it healthy landscapes with koalas and other animals in for future generations are the audibles that are endangered but you're really only going to see you know in a non-story. Yeah absolutely so some of our of our mammal species are are on the brink of extinction we lost the 1st mammal to climate change that was confirmed 1st in the world on an island just off of Western Australia quite recently is about actually my apologies so that's pretty concerning like extinctions on something that happened in the past you know straightly and they're happening now. It's sobering really and it's not it's not it's not great news you bring us but you know good luck with the new koala. Protected Areas or anywhere that it's it may not be much but it sounds really important yeah thanks very much for and thanks for interest in the story thank you thank you Andy. Thank you very much. President Trump says his summit with North Korea might. In schools we can win the. President says there's a risk his plan summits with Kim Jong un won't go ahead next month he says Pyongyang must meet certain conditions before he'll meet the North Korean leader Jessica Lee is from the Council of Korean Americans there are certain things United States has to be confortable offering by way of negotiation and there are things that we should anticipate North Koreans saying so that there are no surprises that is a tall order given how difficult the U.S. North Korea has been for the last year.