History the u. K. Reported a record 53000 new infections on tuesday thats the only 12000 more than the previous record set just the day before the government is considering implementing a new restrictions to try to combat a highly transmissible strain of the virus 10 hong kong prodemocracy activists have been jailed for between 7 months and 3 years course in china 2 others who are teenagers have been sent back to authorities and on home part of a group of 12 who were caught trying to flee to taiwan on a speedboat in August Adrian brown reports now on what police said in a news conference. And they wanted to remind the public that the 10 still facing a rest for serious charges connected with the protests last year including arson including a Legal Assembly including attacking police so they wanted to you know remind people that these arent you know in their eyes innocent people these were people who absconded illegally to taiwan and must now pay the price here in hong kong protesters are rallying outside Argentinas Senate as it prepares to vote on a bill to legalize abortion the legislation was backed by the lower house earlier this month if passed the law would allow terminations up to 14 weeks of pregnancy the senate rejected a similar bill in 2018 rescuers in central croatia working through the night to search for survivors of earthquake that killed at least 7 people the worst damage from the 6. 4 magnitude quake is centered around the town of the train the other called less as half the town has been destroyed. Thats if youre up to date more news here on out 0 after the listening post next. What are sammy been doing with the money that its for we bring you the stories and developments that are rapidly changing the world we live in argentinas congress is debating a bill city to raise billions of dollars from the super rich poor families hit hard by them and counting the cost on aljazeera. Share. Your view on your land and standing in the political shift. As. The public with the news living the b. B. C. Is the most vital important accessible Cultural Institution in the lower bar no possibly in the world. The b. B. C. Was born almost a century ago in 1922 just count the 1st the worlds 1st public broadcaster 1st National Radio service 1st state backed television provider. The b. B. C. Wrote the book supplied the model for the networks that have sprung up across continents including the one youre watching now is probably the highest quality. Independent. News and documentary coverage of any broadcast you will rise edition of well nothing to you but i dont know i mean you sometimes the networks mission to inform educate and entertain a service for the people funded by the people. That funding is the b. B. C. Strength and its achilles heel the u. K. Government controls the Purse Strings which puts the b. B. C. s domestic calm on a collision course with the politicians it covers like the current Prime Minister baraks johnston who is out to get it. He was never. Underestimate the malice of a Prime Minister who wants to destroy or beast reduce the power of the b. B. C. Concept of a Public Service if the government has it in for the b. B. C. My advice is always try if you see. The enemy is. The movers. As its 1st director general john reefed put it the b. B. C. Would serve the whole of britain the wealthy and the poor the genius and the food and it would report the news without fear or favor Mission Statements are much easier to write the film and it didnt take long for conflict to sufis between the b. B. C. s dependence on the government and its journalistic need to be independent from it the b. B. C. s news and Current Affairs output here in the u. K. Is at the heart of that conflict one that has a various points in the networks history. Its very existence. There is a pub tension between the government of the day whatever political color and the b. B. C. Ive put it this way the b. B. C. Is independent of government pressure until such time as it is not a. Report from every other country to reveal the general which began it. Has caused enormous industrial. 926 millions of workers take to the streets in a general strike called in support of britains coal miners. Put workers stop the presses in solidarity that left the b. B. C. Less than 4 years old as the countrys only National News source one the conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin wanted on his side. As the b. B. C. s founder john reith knew that independence and impartiality crucial to its reputation he also viewed the governments patronage as key to the b. B. C. s future. So general strike was a really crucial moment in the b. B. C. s history the person who become the b. B. C. s 1st right to general is relying on the goodwill of government for the institutional future of the b. B. C. So thats the immediate context now the government strings along this kind of threat of the b. B. C. Being brought in the direct government control into the strike itself and the reason they do that is pretty obvious because they know that it will impact editorially on what the b. B. C. Does. John reith compromised the government would not commandeer the b. B. C. But it was effectively given a veto over what could be broadcast. Dissenting voices from the trade unions to the Opposition Labor Party band. In order to resume negotiations the general counsel the trades Union Congress decided the general strike today. By the time the unions called off the strike the strike as had a new name for the b. B. C. The british full said corporation. And that was before with invited Prime Minister board went to broadcast to the nation from return study. Even helped write the speech. I am. Of peace but i will not tolerate the safety and security of the british constitution. Hey we can say that silly found all of the principles of. An independence that was actually a man who allowed the Prime Minister of the day or when to broadcast from his own house and was very proud of his involvement in editing the words and making it sound better. Asking the b. B. C. We. Know. That. Grey area that the b. B. C. Ends up occupying during the general strike and the persons reporting which are very of value progovernment that tells us something about the organization of the b. B. C. From the beginning. John reiths diary entry about the b. B. C. s role during the strike is pretty telling the strike he wrote many have lasted much longer had it not been for us and just months later the network got the Government Official seal of approval through a Royal Charter that formalized its existence but it came with Strings Attached ministers were given the power to choose the b. B. C. s chairman and members of its board the government word control the b. B. C. s funding through a license fee collected from listeners on the network would be up by the government every 10 years. A room with. A lot of people. Right. When britain entered world war 2 its media had to toe the government grind. As the primary distributor an amplifier of Winston Churchills wartime speeches the b. B. C. Now a Global Player grew central to the governments propaganda drive. At the dawn of the Television Age the b. B. C. Was well positioned to grow with the technology and the times that was most clearly reflected in the 1960 s. And seventys when a culture of deference was making way for a determination to challenge authority it was an age of liberation questioning the old image of postwar assumption was a lot of foreign news more more more than they do not they were the wars in africa that was going. Every artillery support for the americans and. Also 1st theyre not immediately likely to lose out here but i feel that the Climate Change i see perhaps mostly under the Prime Ministership of Margaret Thatcher. Good evening well it looks like being one of the most exciting election nights with the possibility of a very close result and the prospect having its 1st woman Prime Minister at the end of the night. Margaret thatchers election victory in 1979 triggered a transformation of britains economy and institutions including the b. B. C. By then a vastly expanded confident and at times combative news operation. Had the network in her sights. And member doing an interview with her and when we sat down because it was live and we had to make sure it went out we doubled up on the numbers are twice as many cameras twice as many people mrs Margaret Thatcher is here on panorama tonight some time before so she went around going 1234 should turn to everybody in the room and the 13 people and she said to mr dimbleby you know ahead of the American Television here this morning and there were only 2 of them. She believed that the b. B. C. Was soft in the head the b. B. C. Was too liberal the b. B. C. Was not understanding what she wanted to do and from the very beginning she was trying to find ways of emasculating the b. B. C. There were 2 strands going on a government that was determined to. Believe the b. B. C. To make it easy to do what it wanted to in terms of the message. And it was also very busy chasing program that was its way of fighting back. The politicians and Programme Makers soon came into conflict critical documentaries on topics ranging from britains intelligence agencies to the falklands war were attacked censored sometimes shout but no issue was as contentious as the troubles in Northern Ireland where british troops were 10 years into fighting an insurgency by the Irish Republican Army the ira waged a Brutal Bombing Campaign while British Forces committed atrocities of their own and the pressure on b. B. C. Journalists covering that story from politicians from locals from their own bostons was unrelenting. In 1985 the facts a government got wind of a b. B. C. Documentary that followed 2 extremist politicians one of whom was a suspected ira media that they will be the cutting edge of a which will bring freedom. The government wanted to ban the film the b. B. C. s board of governors many of whom a been appointed by fracture agreed. But the decision was the director general alice to milne a t. V. Producer by trade was having none of it and today to reassert its already existing the controversial documentary on Northern Ireland would run the film was broadcast but only after the addition of footage like this 20 seconds dedicated to the victims of the ira. But members on borrowed time. Soon appointed a new b. B. C. Chairman his mission as he later wrote oust milne quickly and brutally. That was direct pressure i just. Feel now that. It is a ridiculous question because they are. The basis. For the old saying about the search area this is the b. B. C. So why i wasnt touched because he removed the director general but we will still win terms of the. Mind his striving really well to john but come along. For Thatcher John Birt soon to become director general was everything Alistair Milne was not namely a fellow believer in free market ideals. John birt point and was very important because he represented someone who share the view that more Market Forces ought to be brought into the b. B. C. Full disclosure for much of the 1990 s. The Government Official in charge of the department handling broadcasting policy was my father hayden phillips. He and john byrne had their work cut out. We worked closely together in the run up to the b. B. C. Charter renewal and hears it were. Managed to enable the government to agree to a charter set. Which was after years of tension was a sort of peace treaty. It was a very important person in terms of the acceptability of the b. B. C. Within government oh we couldnt stand him in new risks couldnt stand him because he was shaking things up and he was a pain in the bum in 2 different ways. But birds great cheap and it was to recognise when the Digital World was going had it not been for bert in the b. B. C. Would not be word news today. Which is. Willingness topside to help if i had friends. Of mass destruction. The 1st director general of the 21st century greg dyke was a controversial appointment greg dyke was all smiles this morning when he heard the top broadcasting top job. As a former donor to the party in power new labor during his Prime Minister tony blair as favored candidate but he was no pushover by 2003 that rosy relationship had moved into another confrontation between the b. B. C. And a government at war tony blair as the Prime Minister wrote to me just before the war started to say he thought that our reporting of the run up to iraq had been unfair so i heard a clear aggressive letter back saying look im sorry but youve got thousands and thousands of people in the streets protesting against you half your party going to vote against you your whole future is in doubt. No sir you cant be the judge of pashtuns youve got to leave it to us. Baghdad tonight to have equal partners on the day of. The invasion of iraq was britains Largest Military operation since world war 21 that lacked International Legal authority. What the majority of the British Press supported the war the b. B. C. s mandate was to be impartial not that that was always obvious when Coalition Troops captured baghdad in april 2003 some b. B. C. News reports sounded similar to the spin coming out of the blair government and even tiley ungracious even for his critics not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger Prime Minister as a result weve become a government most peace the worst specific voices who were not allowed tariq ali was one of them i remember saying to my to my admitted when you go to low until war protestors onto this program and he said well we have to let the parliamentary opposition do his job for us. Meanwhile i saw it was true 1000000 people on the streets of london. Norm of them ever being reflected properly in the program i rather doubt that news and newsnight and those people deliberately withheld opponents of the war do you think they did enough to scrutinise the case for war all i know is that from the moment 911 on words on the program i was doing question time we had a wide range of views both for and against im just going to go and have a look ive got a folder with all the questions im staff said just cause a 2nd and ill get it Michael Moore was Michael Moore in favor of the war rather doubt it here we are september 26th 2002 tara kelley you see. So he certainly wasnt banned. Some b. B. C. Journalists directly challenge the official line which led to trouble. Defense reporter Andrew Gilligan was investigating the blair government dubious claims of iraqi weapons of mass destruction claims the from the case against saddam husseins regime. That he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical or biological weapons which could be activated within 45 minutes gilligan had been briefed by government weapons inspector and concluded that downing street had quote sexed up its case for war. He took his story on to b. B. C. Radio 4. Because correspondent is Andrew Gilligan yes i did the 1st interview. With gilligan downing street. Says ordered a week before publication ordered it to be sexed up to be made more exciting you can get everything right but he got the heart of it right thats to say that effectively weve been lied to. And the world when. We forget we can clear this group pretty much at the end of the interview number 10 was phony the b. B. C. Demanding a right look by demanding that we retract everything that we got it said because we do. Greg dyke the director general defended the b. B. C. And his report but when going to going source was found dead a case of suspected suicide gilligan was left exposed and the government went on the offensive but ordered what came to be known as the hutton inquiry its official brief to establish the cause of death of gilligans source but when the inquiry published its findings it exonerated the government over its w m d claims and focused on the shortcomings in gilligans report the verdict was that the b. B. C. Was guilty. Hayden phillips was the Civil Servant in charge of setting up the inquiry. The hutton report is often described as a whitewash what was your reaction when you 1st saw the reporters i mean a lot of my colleagues in government would you believe that the result of the b. B. C. Had a lot to answer for in the way they handled something which was quite difficult for them but they sort of dimes themselves into a trench and wouldnt move. Im not saying that the b. B. C. Innocent and the government was guilty but i was genuinely surprised by the decisive this in which he pinned blame on the b. B. C. And nobody else. The chairman of the b. B. C. He designed i thought wrongly and told him only and the following day the governors of the b. B. C. Got rid of me so you would say that you were pushed i was pushed was no doubt the governors of the baby she lost their battle. d like honesty milne almost 2 decades earlier paid the price for defending the b. B. C. s independence. The new government to prove management struck a more compliant term we must now study the hutton report carefully learn appropriate lessons and implement relevant measures. There were in the wake of the departure of the chair and the director general attempts to once again introduce a risk averse editorial controls over controversial issues at the b. B. C. So we see the same pattern in place risk averse culture disseminating for the organization as a result of an overt conflict with the government this for me was an important turning point when i talk to older more senior people they date that that money isnt seizure of power away from journalism much earlier sometimes in the 1990 s. On the john birt but by the time you had this defeat by the government over the report. It was that level of management control on steroids impartiality became really the excuse for an ideologically driven safety a refusal to challenge those in power personally. Trained anything quite literally anything about well none of the editors i think well maybe i should qualify about some of the editors with whom i worked with. Maybe a bit more cautious would be otherwise might be i think that was in the. Issues theyve normally use. Since the turn of the century the b. B. C. Has tried to move with the times through diversity drives streaming services as well as physically branching out of london with its own 100th birthday just 2 years away its future is by no means assured like many other state but broadcasters around the world over the past decade the b. B. C. Has been under constant pressure from right wing governments just like those other networks its enjoyed wave after wave of cuts to its journalists programmes and channels to top it off the b. B. C. Is now confronted with a conservative Prime Minister who came into office with his own broadcast agenda. Good evening and welcome to the b. B. C. News at 6 from downing street where Boris Johnson has promised to repay the trust of voters last december 1 day after his election victory Boris Johnson lead a government boycott against flagship b. B. C. Programmes within weeks his aides were Briefing Journalists of their plan to quote whack the b. B. C. By abolishing t. V. License is its main source of income. As it turned out it was the government that was about to get whacked. The u. K. Governments emergency. Cobra committee met this often to discuss coronavirus the b. B. C. Reminded the country of what it had to offer what citizens were paying for supplying Vital Services to a population under lockdown from home how do you know. Close. To home schooling. This part size its audience tripled and keener than ever to reach british aizen is johnson was back on the b. B. C. Working together tackling the the disease using the social distancing measures following your boy collect whether the pandemic has forced johnson to change course or whether its just delayed the inevitable is far too early to say at the heart of this uncertainty is the b. B. C. s journalism if an increasingly cautious b. B. C. Can still speak truth to power and hold its government paymasters to account on enviable challenges for the b. B. C. s new director job. Tim davie is a b. B. C. Insider but one with commercializing instincts and a background in conservative politics compared with the lofty ambitions of his predecessors davies mission is a modest one keep the b. B. C. s enemy is at bay its been a really troubleshoot or. Has to be has to be Simple Organization live with a trusted you. Almost 100 years after the b. B. C. s birth john reiths dream of a broadcaster that would inform and educate and entertain the nation has been realised several times over but wreaths ideal of a truly independent b. B. C. Has been far harder to deliver. The tension it created with its government sponsors has at times of crisis looks more like a contradiction one that as the b. B. C. Heads towards the 2nd century looks no closer to being a result. Were going to lose a lot not just to be lose the b. B. C. But if we lose what it still capable of doing for those of us who kind of how this love hate relationship with it i mean i love the father exists i hate some of the things it does. We must all be concerned about that but weve already lost a lot because weve lost a lot of independence and a lot of desire to pursue truth above above the goal of impartiality and. I think the battle to the independent is constant ongoing and depends on the characters of the chairman of the b. B. C. The director general of the b. B. C. The heads of news and if ever they get sucked into a lovely relationship with government and there are moments when that may happen were finished. Im a dream figure and the top stories on aljazeera u. S. President elect joe biden has criticized the trumpet ministration for flowing behind its rollout of covert 19 vaccines hes warned that if the rollout continues at its current pace it could take years before the population is fully vaccinated you have returns he reports from washington. The president elect delivered a grim message from his base in wilmington delaware as i long feared in war the effort to distributed administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should a few weeks ago trumpet ministry