Browse content similar to 11/02/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The Health Secretary tells us he had no choice but to impose a contract | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
What is the alternative? The alternative here is that in the face | :00:08. | :00:21. | |
of a union that militarily refuses to negotiate how we can improve care | :00:22. | :00:26. | |
for patients that week ends, I just go away. | :00:27. | :00:31. | |
The doctors threaten a brain drain - and say he's alienated | :00:32. | :00:34. | |
Predicted by EInstein a century go, Scientists finally detect | :00:35. | :00:38. | |
gravitational waves - that change the sound | :00:39. | :00:40. | |
Tonight we speak to one of the scientists who worked | :00:41. | :00:43. | |
And we're in Colombia, where a 21st century plague | :00:44. | :00:48. | |
So, this is Zika almost at its worst. You can see the restraint on | :00:49. | :01:06. | |
this patient's arms, his name is Edwin, and the oxygen pipe is | :01:07. | :01:09. | |
feeding oxygen into his lungs because he can't breathe on his own. | :01:10. | :01:18. | |
It was arguably not the day for the Health Secretary to announce | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
a review into junior doctors' morale. | :01:25. | :01:25. | |
Junior doctors, by and large, are quite good at spelling | :01:26. | :01:27. | |
And if morale is low, they know who they blame. | :01:28. | :01:31. | |
This morning Jeremy Hunt took the unprecedented and radical step | :01:32. | :01:33. | |
of imposing a new contract on thousands of medics | :01:34. | :01:35. | |
across England after negotiations between the Government | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
He had, he insisted, included many concessions that had | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
been chief stumbling blocks between the sides. | :01:46. | :01:46. | |
But the Shadow Health Secretary called the move a sign of failure, | :01:47. | :01:49. | |
the British Medical Association said he'd risked alienating a whole | :01:50. | :01:52. | |
generation of doctors, some of whom would now vote | :01:53. | :01:54. | |
And some hospital chiefs who signed a letter of agreement with the | :01:55. | :02:04. | |
contract later stated they hadn't agreed with the imposition. | :02:05. | :02:06. | |
So is there a real risk of a brain drain in the NHS now? | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
And what happens to patients when trust breaks down | :02:11. | :02:12. | |
between the Health Secretary and his NHS staff? | :02:13. | :02:14. | |
The dispute over the new junior doctors contract for England | :02:15. | :02:17. | |
Tonight these junior doctors met on Whitehall to respond to the fact | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
that a new contract is being imposed on them. | :02:23. | :02:31. | |
After years of rumbling along and two strikes, | :02:32. | :02:34. | |
the Government has taken the advice of its lead | :02:35. | :02:36. | |
negotiator to end talks with the doctors' union. | :02:37. | :02:38. | |
He has asked me to end the uncertainty for the service | :02:39. | :02:41. | |
by proceeding with the introduction of | :02:42. | :02:42. | |
a new contract that he and his colleagues consider both safer | :02:43. | :02:45. | |
for patients and fair and reasonable for | :02:46. | :02:46. | |
What exactly is this dispute between the Government | :02:47. | :02:52. | |
It has been running for a few years but it has | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
come to a head in the last year because the Tories were elected last | :02:58. | :03:00. | |
May on a pledge to introduce what they call a seven-day NHS. | :03:01. | :03:03. | |
In short, hospitals should offer more | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
services at the weekend, and to do that, they say they need | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
to change the contracts for the 50,000 or so | :03:11. | :03:12. | |
junior doctors so that it is cheaper to employ them during the weekend. | :03:13. | :03:15. | |
This is the current period when junior doctors get normal | :03:16. | :03:18. | |
It runs from 7am until 7pm on weekdays. | :03:19. | :03:25. | |
Under the new proposals, normal evenings would end | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
later, at 9pm, and working on a Saturday would also not attract | :03:31. | :03:33. | |
overtime, so doctors will get a boost to their basic pay | :03:34. | :03:36. | |
to mitigate the loss of that | :03:37. | :03:37. | |
Saturday a normal day is a particular frustration to doctors. | :03:38. | :03:45. | |
What would it have taken for the BMA to be happy on Saturday pay? | :03:46. | :03:49. | |
I think it would have taken a recognition that junior doctors | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
already work Saturdays for patients and will continue to do | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
so, and to acknowledge that the Government's | :04:00. | :04:00. | |
position that Saturday is the same as any other day of the week is not | :04:01. | :04:04. | |
Society is not set up so that schools are open on Saturdays. | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
Everybody knows that Saturdays are a bit different | :04:11. | :04:14. | |
and the people who work for patients on a Saturday should have a little | :04:15. | :04:17. | |
bit of recompense in order to compensate them for working | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
The tough question is, how do you de-escalate | :04:21. | :04:25. | |
For the Department of Health, they have | :04:26. | :04:31. | |
a problem which is if they return | :04:32. | :04:34. | |
to the negotiating table it will cost them political capital. | :04:35. | :04:36. | |
For the BMA, they would have to persuade | :04:37. | :04:41. | |
their members to accept something they have argued about for a long | :04:42. | :04:44. | |
time with a Health Secretary that lots of doctors feel has | :04:45. | :04:47. | |
Doctors on the picket line seethe about Mr Hunt's claim that death | :04:48. | :04:50. | |
There is evidence of that, but there is not good evidence | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
that staffing is the critical | :04:56. | :04:57. | |
is a cost-effective way to save lives, but a seven-day NHS | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
This was the last junior doctors walk out. | :05:03. | :05:12. | |
This was the last junior doctor walk-out. | :05:13. | :05:14. | |
But they do have public sympathy for their action. | :05:15. | :05:17. | |
Two thirds of the public blame Jeremy Hunt for the dispute. | :05:18. | :05:19. | |
We need to think about the implications of this and to take | :05:20. | :05:26. | |
the temperature of our members on what they feel about this | :05:27. | :05:29. | |
imposition of a contract that is frankly unfair. | :05:30. | :05:30. | |
We will be taking into account when we do that what is happening | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, | :05:35. | :05:35. | |
where I have to say the governments there are not | :05:36. | :05:37. | |
They are continuing to deliver the seven-day | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
services that they have there in agreement with the medical | :05:41. | :05:42. | |
staff and agreement with all clinical staff, | :05:43. | :05:46. | |
and moving forward in a way that the Government in London has | :05:47. | :05:49. | |
For further strikes to work, they need to | :05:50. | :05:57. | |
do enough political damage to the Health Secretary to force | :05:58. | :05:59. | |
So doctors must gauge if they can take public | :06:00. | :06:03. | |
opinion with them through such a campaign, and whether it would be | :06:04. | :06:06. | |
worth the likely inconvenience to patients. | :06:07. | :06:08. | |
No wonder some are talking about seeking work elsewhere. | :06:09. | :06:19. | |
This imposition has never been done before in the history of the NHS. So | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
does Jeremy Hunt know what he's doing? I asked him earlier. | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
It is really disappointing that it has come to this. | :06:29. | :06:30. | |
We have wanted to discuss these changes for the best | :06:31. | :06:34. | |
part of four years, but last night Sir David Dalton, | :06:35. | :06:36. | |
the chief executive of Salford Royal, which is one | :06:37. | :06:38. | |
of our safest and best hospitals, who has been leading | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
the negotiations for the Government, said that he did not think | :06:42. | :06:43. | |
he negotiated settlement was possible | :06:44. | :06:44. | |
and he urged me to do whatever I thought necessary | :06:45. | :06:47. | |
That all the time and all the money and all the costly | :06:48. | :06:55. | |
negotiations have come to nothing because you have just imposed | :06:56. | :06:57. | |
The negotiations had come to nothing. | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
He is someone who wrote to me with that judgment. | :07:03. | :07:04. | |
He said there is no realise the chance | :07:05. | :07:06. | |
of a deal particularly on the issue of Saturday pay. | :07:07. | :07:09. | |
This is vital because we have not just a manifesto | :07:10. | :07:15. | |
commitment but an absolute determination that if our NHS | :07:16. | :07:17. | |
is going to offer the highest quality | :07:18. | :07:19. | |
care, patients should be confident that they are going to get the same | :07:20. | :07:22. | |
high-quality care every day of the week. | :07:23. | :07:25. | |
You are looking for a seven-day NHS, but it is going to be | :07:26. | :07:28. | |
cost neutral so you are stretching the five-day NHS to seven. | :07:29. | :07:31. | |
How is that possibly going to resolve | :07:32. | :07:33. | |
Next year we are putting in an extra ?3.8 billion in real terms | :07:34. | :07:42. | |
It is about meeting the clinical standards | :07:43. | :07:46. | |
that say that every day of the week you should be seen by a senior | :07:47. | :07:49. | |
decision-maker within 14 hours of being admitted. | :07:50. | :07:51. | |
If you are vulnerable you should be seen twice | :07:52. | :07:53. | |
The problem is, bluntly, that when you have got 98% of highly | :07:54. | :08:01. | |
trained, highly educated, dedicated junior doctors who reject | :08:02. | :08:04. | |
this, they have read it, | :08:05. | :08:06. | |
and say you are wrong, that is your problem. | :08:07. | :08:08. | |
What was so sad was that the BMA junior doctors, instead of sitting | :08:09. | :08:16. | |
Refused to enter into discussions and balloted for strike, | :08:17. | :08:23. | |
and they balloted for strike saying that pay was going to be cut, | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
which it isn't, saying that hours were going | :08:29. | :08:29. | |
to be lengthened, in fact we are doing the opposite | :08:30. | :08:32. | |
in bringing down the maximum number of hours that | :08:33. | :08:34. | |
That is not quite true, because there is going to be | :08:35. | :08:43. | |
damage, if you like, by removing penalties if doctors | :08:44. | :08:46. | |
work excess hours. | :08:47. | :08:47. | |
That safety net is going to be removed. | :08:48. | :08:49. | |
When they tell you that they are worried about exhaustion | :08:50. | :08:51. | |
and the knock-on effects to patient safety, why is that not ringing | :08:52. | :08:54. | |
The problem is what we had before was not a penalty, | :08:55. | :08:58. | |
it was extra pay for the doctors being | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
That created a perverse incentive, particularly because doctors' basic | :09:03. | :09:10. | |
And so one of the things we are doing today | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
is we are bringing down the weekend premium | :09:16. | :09:17. | |
rates but increasing basic pay by 13.5%. | :09:18. | :09:19. | |
You keep on telling me I am wrong and if that is the case, | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
and this is what we are hearing from junior doctors, | :09:23. | :09:24. | |
well educated, highly trained, who have read and rejected | :09:25. | :09:27. | |
what you are proposing, what is the message you are giving | :09:28. | :09:29. | |
I fully understand in the heat of an industrial relations dispute | :09:30. | :09:37. | |
that people are not necessarily going to | :09:38. | :09:39. | |
take everything at face value from the politician who has been | :09:40. | :09:41. | |
If you do not want to take the Health Secretary's word | :09:42. | :09:48. | |
for it, listen to independent people. | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
Today's senior NHS leaders, including the head of NHS England, | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
Simon Stephens, have said that the new offer on the table | :09:57. | :09:58. | |
to what was on the table in September. | :09:59. | :10:01. | |
It is very easy to see through that list. | :10:02. | :10:04. | |
These are senior respected independent people who say | :10:05. | :10:07. | |
that the new contract on the table is fair and reasonable and we have | :10:08. | :10:11. | |
We initially said that Saturday should be treated | :10:12. | :10:16. | |
We have changed that position and said | :10:17. | :10:28. | |
that if you work one in four weekends or more you can get a 30% | :10:29. | :10:32. | |
That is a very significant concession. | :10:33. | :10:34. | |
The BME have not been prepared to make any | :10:35. | :10:37. | |
Which is why I have had to make the difficult decision to give | :10:38. | :10:41. | |
The BMA have said this risks alienating a whole generation | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
The best outcome, you are going to get more strikes in July or August. | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
The worst outcome, you are going to get people voting | :10:52. | :10:53. | |
We have heard from doctors who say, I do not know about my future | :10:54. | :11:00. | |
in the NHS and I do not know about my future in this country. | :11:01. | :11:03. | |
In difficult situation like this there is no risk-free route, | :11:04. | :11:06. | |
but what I have done today is given certainty for the future. | :11:07. | :11:09. | |
There would be huge risks to the service | :11:10. | :11:11. | |
if this uncertainty had continued to paralyse the service. | :11:12. | :11:13. | |
Is there a plan in place if there is a mass | :11:14. | :11:16. | |
I don't believe it will come to that because I think doctors | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
will look at what was proposed and they will see this, | :11:22. | :11:29. | |
when you impose a contract, which is the last thing anyone | :11:30. | :11:35. | |
wants, you can impose anything you like, you have moved | :11:36. | :11:37. | |
beyond the process of negotiation, I actually | :11:38. | :11:42. | |
chose to impose a position which moves a long way | :11:43. | :11:47. | |
to address the concerns of the BMA and many other | :11:48. | :11:49. | |
We have had eight studies in the last five years saying that | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
mortality rates are higher at weekends. | :11:55. | :11:56. | |
Six of those top about staffing rates as being one of | :11:57. | :11:59. | |
You have been accused of being rash and misleading for using a figure | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
of 11,000 more deaths at the weekend when is no evidence | :12:04. | :12:06. | |
as to how those were created or whether your solutions | :12:07. | :12:09. | |
There was one study that had the 11,000 figure. | :12:10. | :12:15. | |
We've had seven other studies in the last five years. | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
I don't know any doctors who are saying there is not an issue | :12:21. | :12:23. | |
about the weekend effect and the vast majority would say | :12:24. | :12:26. | |
I cannot as Health Secretary sit here and say that is not something | :12:27. | :12:35. | |
How do you as Health Secretary work with NHS staff who do not trust you? | :12:36. | :12:40. | |
You need them onside to get the public to | :12:41. | :12:43. | |
believe in the service, and they do not at the moment. | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
That is unfortunate, because we are in the | :12:48. | :12:49. | |
middle of a very difficult industrial relations dispute | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
and in any industrial relations dispute, | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
if you ask the protagonists | :12:57. | :12:58. | |
you will not get a particularly complimentary | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
language, but what is the alternative? | :13:03. | :13:08. | |
The alternative is that in the face of a union that militantly | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
refuses to negotiate how we can improve care for patients | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
at weekends that I just pack my bags and go away. | :13:17. | :13:19. | |
I cannot do that as Health Secretary. | :13:20. | :13:20. | |
I have to be there for patients and I think in the end | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
that is the right thing for doctors as well. | :13:24. | :13:27. | |
The sound ripples detected in the fabric of space time have | :13:28. | :13:35. | |
something more akin to a huge and excitable scream | :13:36. | :13:38. | |
from the scientists that discovered them. | :13:39. | :13:40. | |
Of that ilk, all credit must go to EInstein who first predicted | :13:41. | :13:43. | |
Today, in an anouncement that electrified the world, | :13:44. | :13:46. | |
astronomers finally detected the waves - and conceeded | :13:47. | :13:48. | |
The skies - one said - will never be the same again. | :13:49. | :13:52. | |
It's him again, making waves in the world of physics. | :13:53. | :14:02. | |
This is the equation behind Albert Einstein's | :14:03. | :14:03. | |
theory of general relativity, conceived 100 years ago. | :14:04. | :14:05. | |
A pillar of modern physics, it told us | :14:06. | :14:10. | |
everything from the motion of the planets to the presence | :14:11. | :14:12. | |
But it also proposed the existence of something else. | :14:13. | :14:21. | |
Our universe is a gobsmacking sight, but one of its most intriguing | :14:22. | :14:24. | |
It's awash with them, but we've never | :14:25. | :14:28. | |
We have detected gravitational waves. | :14:29. | :14:34. | |
The news today that we finally found them is quite literally | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
Almost certainly Nobel Prizes will be given out for what some | :14:41. | :14:49. | |
are already calling the discovery of the century. | :14:50. | :14:51. | |
The idea is that as any object moves through the fabric | :14:52. | :14:57. | |
of the universe, it gives off waves of gravitational energy, | :14:58. | :15:00. | |
much like the ripples that emanate across the surface of the water | :15:01. | :15:03. | |
Everything on the move including you and me emits them, | :15:04. | :15:15. | |
but, in universal terms, we are pretty puny, so our waves | :15:16. | :15:17. | |
When it comes to cosmic giants, though, like | :15:18. | :15:20. | |
exploding stars, these generate tsunamis of gravitational energy, | :15:21. | :15:23. | |
so a good opportunity for scientists to | :15:24. | :15:24. | |
As gravitational waves move through the universe, | :15:25. | :15:32. | |
they eventually reach the Earth, and when | :15:33. | :15:36. | |
they do, they gently warp anything and everything they pass through, | :15:37. | :15:41. | |
stretching and squeezing atoms, but by a tiny, tiny amount. | :15:42. | :15:45. | |
And it's this minute disturbance that | :15:46. | :15:51. | |
scientists have detected emanating from this explosive event that took | :15:52. | :15:54. | |
Two black holes moving ever closer together. | :15:55. | :16:03. | |
Eventually they smashed into one another, merging. | :16:04. | :16:05. | |
The collision generated a surge of gravitational ripples that | :16:06. | :16:07. | |
reached Earth just in time for the switching | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
on of an experiment designed to find them. | :16:14. | :16:15. | |
So, why should anyone care about a few ghostly oscillations? | :16:16. | :16:19. | |
on of an experiment designed to find them. | :16:20. | :16:31. | |
So, why should anyone care about a few ghostly oscillations? | :16:32. | :16:33. | |
Aside from providing another feather in Einstein's cap, | :16:34. | :16:35. | |
who has been proved right once again, it heralds | :16:36. | :16:37. | |
Until now, even our most advanced telescopes could share only | :16:38. | :16:41. | |
Now we can detect gravitational waves, we will be able to learn more | :16:42. | :16:47. | |
about the events that generated them, looking | :16:48. | :16:49. | |
deeper into space and further back in time than ever before. | :16:50. | :16:51. | |
It really does give us a brand-new perspective of the universe. | :16:52. | :16:58. | |
Professor Sheila Rowan, Director of the Institute | :16:59. | :17:01. | |
for Gravitational Research in Glasgow, is one of the researchers | :17:02. | :17:03. | |
I cannot imagine what your day has been like. | :17:04. | :17:12. | |
He knew about this a hundred years ago. | :17:13. | :17:23. | |
People have written books about the history of the field because it is | :17:24. | :17:33. | |
so interesting. Einstein made this prediction 100 years ago but for | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
decades it remained a mathematical curiosity. People were not sure that | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
this prediction of gravitational waves had any real physical meaning, | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
that it was an effect we could detect and it took until the 1960s | :17:47. | :17:50. | |
before people thought that this was maybe something that was real that | :17:51. | :17:56. | |
we could try to sense, and they have taken the following decades in | :17:57. | :17:59. | |
between to get to the point where we are now. The sound of space has | :18:00. | :18:09. | |
changed. Through that sound, do we get the history of the Big Bang? Do | :18:10. | :18:17. | |
you buy that? Not yet, but that is a call for us in future. What we have | :18:18. | :18:22. | |
started to be able to do is listen to the gravitational history of our | :18:23. | :18:26. | |
universe and hear sounds from our local universe, from black holes, | :18:27. | :18:34. | |
spiralling, and so far we can listen to those within a certain volume of | :18:35. | :18:41. | |
our local universe. We would like to make our detectors even more | :18:42. | :18:44. | |
sensitive to sense further out into the universe. The further out we go | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
the further back in time we can sense and eventually if we can make | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
our detectors sensitive enough we would like to reach back to | :18:55. | :18:57. | |
gravitational signals potentially coming from the Big Bang. | :18:58. | :19:05. | |
Extraordinary. Does this tie in with Einstein's theory of relativity? | :19:06. | :19:12. | |
Does it prove it? Today's result is a fantastic confirmation of | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
Einstein's theory of general relativity. Everything we detected | :19:17. | :19:20. | |
today fits with general relativity and in some ways that is a fabulous | :19:21. | :19:28. | |
confirmation. We know that general relativity, a fabulously, does not | :19:29. | :19:36. | |
tell us everything, the. The of all the forces that govern our universe. | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
In some ways it is a fabulous confirmation of general relativity | :19:42. | :19:44. | |
but still there are boundaries to push. Does it disturb things that | :19:45. | :19:51. | |
scientists had thought were set in stone? Has it created more problems | :19:52. | :19:59. | |
for you? I do not think it has created more problems for us. It has | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
given us a new tool that we did not have before to study the dark side | :20:05. | :20:10. | |
of our universe, because pretty much everything we know so far we have | :20:11. | :20:16. | |
got by going out and turning our telescopes are up and sensing the | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
light we can see. It has all been done with light and visually. Light | :20:21. | :20:26. | |
and its different spectrums, x-rays and gamma raise, all part of the | :20:27. | :20:32. | |
spectrum of light. What does this do to our understanding of gravity? It | :20:33. | :20:38. | |
has always been mysterious. It gives us a new tool to try to understand | :20:39. | :20:44. | |
where our limits of Einstein's theory stop because for the first | :20:45. | :20:51. | |
time we have objects that have the strongest gravity that we can think | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
of, like polls are black because not even light can escape them, and two | :20:57. | :21:04. | |
merging is gravity in its strongest form and we have just darted to be | :21:05. | :21:08. | |
able to see what is happening in those limits of the strongest | :21:09. | :21:15. | |
gravity we can think of. We got our first ignored today, our first hint. | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
To study those systems it will push our understanding of general | :21:21. | :21:23. | |
relativity to the limits and test what we know. Thank you. | :21:24. | :21:29. | |
The Zika virus, carried by the Aedes Egypti mosquito, | :21:30. | :21:33. | |
is suspecting of being the cause of 400 birth deformities in Brazil. | :21:34. | :21:38. | |
Now the disease has moved north to Colombia where it has also been | :21:39. | :21:41. | |
The science behind Zika is not proven but the fear is real enough. | :21:42. | :21:49. | |
Imagine losing control over the muscles in your body. | :21:50. | :22:00. | |
Tropical Colombia is at the centre of a 21st-century | :22:01. | :22:14. | |
And the suspected cause is the Zika virus. | :22:15. | :22:23. | |
You can see restraints on the patient's arms. | :22:24. | :22:25. | |
The oxygen pipe is feeding oxygen into his lungs because he can't | :22:26. | :22:34. | |
The connection between the creeping paralysis and Zika | :22:35. | :22:43. | |
But here at the front line, it's taken for | :22:44. | :22:49. | |
Fabian is 22, a young man in the prime of his life. | :22:50. | :22:56. | |
Then he got pins and needles, lost feeling | :22:57. | :22:59. | |
in his legs, and then he couldn't breathe. | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
I ask, did you use mosquito repellent? | :23:05. | :23:13. | |
That is his wife, and she's pregnant. | :23:14. | :23:42. | |
He's recovering, but he can still barely | :23:43. | :23:44. | |
This is the alley where his family live. | :23:45. | :23:58. | |
There is fear here, but the message isn't | :23:59. | :24:10. | |
People should wear long-sleeved shirts, trousers and use repellent. | :24:11. | :24:17. | |
It doesn't take long to find where the mosquitoes might come | :24:18. | :24:23. | |
It is Zika's suspected effect on unborn | :24:24. | :24:42. | |
babies which is causing her as much anxiety as the fate of her husband. | :24:43. | :25:01. | |
Before 2000, there are no reports of Zika causing birth defects. | :25:02. | :25:04. | |
Along with other scientists he's noted that Zika | :25:05. | :25:15. | |
used to be a mild virus and now it isn't. | :25:16. | :25:18. | |
It looks as if the virus has changed in some way. | :25:19. | :25:25. | |
We have to see exactly what happened. | :25:26. | :25:28. | |
I'm afraid that there is a change in the genome of the virus. | :25:29. | :25:35. | |
Zika plus, a mutation in this genome. | :25:36. | :25:39. | |
And a problem in the environment that is specific | :25:40. | :25:41. | |
to South America and Central America. | :25:42. | :25:43. | |
We will have the answer soon I think. | :25:44. | :25:45. | |
The health systems in our countries have to deal with the complications | :25:46. | :25:52. | |
that we did not have, and we are not really ready to deal | :25:53. | :26:00. | |
All that the authorities can do is fumigate, | :26:01. | :26:11. | |
and hunt down the Zika larvae which flourish in still water. | :26:12. | :26:31. | |
So this is absolutely what you don't need | :26:32. | :26:33. | |
How can you convince people who live in a tropical area to cover up? | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
The hospital here is under massive pressure, not least from patients | :26:40. | :26:41. | |
like this one from Venezuela, who the doctors believe have got | :26:42. | :26:44. | |
Zika, and now the beginnings of paralysis. | :26:45. | :27:10. | |
Instead, she ended up here in Colombia. | :27:11. | :27:15. | |
So far, the Western world has been watching the spread of Zika almost | :27:16. | :27:18. | |
Soon the southern United States and even parts of southern | :27:19. | :27:24. | |
Europe may be dealing with its grim reality. | :27:25. | :27:27. | |
Russia has submitted a proposal for a ceasefire in Syria, | :27:28. | :27:38. | |
Russia's foreign minister gave few details but it's understood | :27:39. | :27:46. | |
to envisage a truce starting on the first of March. | :27:47. | :27:48. | |
The US has demanded an immediate end to hostilities, as it suspects | :27:49. | :27:51. | |
Russia wants to give Syrian government troops three weeks | :27:52. | :27:54. | |
Earlier I talked to General John Allen, a former commander of US | :27:55. | :28:00. | |
forces in Afghanistan and President Obama's special envoy | :28:01. | :28:02. | |
He's flown in from the States to take part in the Intelligence | :28:03. | :28:11. | |
I began by asking him why there are still no Western fighting | :28:12. | :28:15. | |
We are there to provide air support, precision air support to both deal | :28:16. | :28:23. | |
with Daesh as a target, but also to support the manoeuvre | :28:24. | :28:26. | |
of the Iraqis, and the Syrian opposition element. | :28:27. | :28:30. | |
We have trainers on the ground at multiple training sites | :28:31. | :28:33. | |
throughout the region who are training Iraqi security | :28:34. | :28:35. | |
We have advisers on the ground who are with some of | :28:36. | :28:41. | |
these manoeuvre forces and helping them to gain the advantage locally. | :28:42. | :28:45. | |
We have special operators on the ground to work closely | :28:46. | :28:49. | |
with their counterparts so that in the event we can target a key | :28:50. | :28:52. | |
Isil location, a compound, a leader, an infrastructure, | :28:53. | :28:54. | |
So there are boots on the ground, there are Western forces | :28:55. | :29:01. | |
on the ground, and that's the kind of support we want to provide | :29:02. | :29:04. | |
to the indigenous population so that they | :29:05. | :29:07. | |
are the authors of the defeat of Daesh. | :29:08. | :29:10. | |
So just to clarify, because when people talk about boots | :29:11. | :29:12. | |
on the ground, they mean, as you know, | :29:13. | :29:16. | |
Western boots doing a military, as in a fighting, job. | :29:17. | :29:18. | |
I think we should be very clear that as the operational environment | :29:19. | :29:27. | |
evolves, we should be prepared to make the kinds of decisions that | :29:28. | :29:30. | |
There could be the day when as Daesh continues to feel the pressure, | :29:31. | :29:45. | |
the continued global pressure that we | :29:46. | :29:46. | |
are bringing to bear on it, that we could see a real | :29:47. | :29:49. | |
vulnerability, and we should have the capability of moving very | :29:50. | :29:52. | |
quickly with indigenous forces, with the right kinds of Western | :29:53. | :29:54. | |
forces if necessary, to exploit that for ability. | :29:55. | :29:57. | |
The question isn't whether we apply large numbers of forces. | :29:58. | :30:00. | |
The question is whether they stay on the ground for long | :30:01. | :30:02. | |
Do you think the West missed a chance | :30:03. | :30:05. | |
in not going into Syria a lot earlier? | :30:06. | :30:08. | |
It isn't a hypothetical question in the sense that they had | :30:09. | :30:12. | |
I think more could have been done earlier, frankly, | :30:13. | :30:18. | |
with some of the Syrian opposition elements. | :30:19. | :30:20. | |
We would be in a different place today. | :30:21. | :30:22. | |
But again, the question begs how much | :30:23. | :30:27. | |
and how long and who would have contributed, and we didn't do it, | :30:28. | :30:30. | |
so we are where we are today, and that | :30:31. | :30:32. | |
is a real challenge, it is a humanitarian catastrophe | :30:33. | :30:34. | |
of unparalleled extent in the aftermath | :30:35. | :30:38. | |
of World War II, and we are going to have to deal with that for a long | :30:39. | :30:42. | |
You could argue in that absence, Assad got stronger, Russia came in, | :30:43. | :30:48. | |
how much do you think Russia has changed this whole game | :30:49. | :30:51. | |
when you look at what is happening in Aleppo now? | :30:52. | :30:53. | |
We had had some hope that, with the Russian incursion, | :30:54. | :30:59. | |
there could be a partnership in dealing with Isil. | :31:00. | :31:02. | |
There could be some reduction in the violence that the regime has | :31:03. | :31:05. | |
And there could be a coherent conversation about a political | :31:06. | :31:17. | |
We had hopes in all of those areas, and none of them have come to pass. | :31:18. | :31:22. | |
In fact, the violence is greater than it has been before. | :31:23. | :31:25. | |
There have been valiant attempts to create a political conversation | :31:26. | :31:31. | |
about transition, but the Russians and their allies in the region | :31:32. | :31:34. | |
are about the destruction, if you will, | :31:35. | :31:35. | |
of the terrorists before we can have this coherent political | :31:36. | :31:38. | |
Where do the differences lie between you and | :31:39. | :31:41. | |
President Obama in terms of strategy on Syria, an Isis? | :31:42. | :31:43. | |
I'm not going to answer that question. | :31:44. | :31:45. | |
There have been, and I offer my advice to our leadership, | :31:46. | :31:52. | |
and they are free to take that advice as they choose. | :31:53. | :31:56. | |
I think that there have been areas where I have | :31:57. | :32:01. | |
offered advice that has been embraced, and those areas I think | :32:02. | :32:04. | |
are areas where we are now finding that we are making some progress. | :32:05. | :32:09. | |
But it's not just me, it team effort, and that team has | :32:10. | :32:12. | |
been together now for some period of time | :32:13. | :32:14. | |
dealing with this crisis and trying to give the president our very best | :32:15. | :32:17. | |
The focus is also including Libya now. | :32:18. | :32:20. | |
Is it right to step on the Isis in Libya? | :32:21. | :32:28. | |
I think we should attack Isis wherever we find it. | :32:29. | :32:37. | |
And in the context of how Isis has globalised, | :32:38. | :32:39. | |
we find that there have been a number of organisations, | :32:40. | :32:42. | |
one in Libya, one in the Sinai, one in West | :32:43. | :32:44. | |
Africa, Boko Haram, which people are familiar with. | :32:45. | :32:46. | |
And in other locations where they have been | :32:47. | :32:48. | |
franchised by Isil to fly the black flag. | :32:49. | :32:50. | |
We're going to need to deal with these over time. | :32:51. | :32:52. | |
We have to prioritise our efforts, because we | :32:53. | :32:54. | |
don't have the capacity, we being the Western community | :32:55. | :32:56. | |
of nations, we don't have the capacity to deal | :32:57. | :32:58. | |
But I do believe as your question implies | :32:59. | :33:02. | |
The presence of Isis has made it much | :33:03. | :33:09. | |
more difficult potentially to find a political solution in Libya, | :33:10. | :33:12. | |
but the presence of Isis in Libya has a destabilising effect | :33:13. | :33:15. | |
to Egypt, and potentially across the Mediterranean | :33:16. | :33:21. | |
So we have to watch this very closely, and we should be, | :33:22. | :33:25. | |
and we have been, attacking Isis forces | :33:26. | :33:27. | |
And how significant is the British involvement? | :33:28. | :33:32. | |
I'm always very careful to point out it is not | :33:33. | :33:35. | |
about the numbers of aeroplanes or numbers of bombs or special | :33:36. | :33:37. | |
It is the presence of Britain in the crisis | :33:38. | :33:41. | |
General John Allen speaking to me earlier. | :33:42. | :33:51. | |
Its slogan when it first launched was "It is - | :33:52. | :33:54. | |
The paper that wore its editorial independence with pride, | :33:55. | :33:57. | |
the Independent, could be moving off the press to become online only. | :33:58. | :34:00. | |
The final decision has not yet been made but the paper, | :34:01. | :34:02. | |
which has existed for 30 years, is in the process of selling | :34:03. | :34:05. | |
the iPaper to the owner of the Scotsman in a ?25 million deal. | :34:06. | :34:08. | |
Today the Independent's editor, Amol Rajan, sent staff at the paper | :34:09. | :34:14. | |
an e-mail acknowledging a lot of questions and uncertainty. | :34:15. | :34:16. | |
Steven Glover was one of the founder members of the paper | :34:17. | :34:19. | |
What is your gut feeling about this? Are we nearing the end of the | :34:20. | :34:30. | |
Independent? It won't be the end of it, because it will have a life | :34:31. | :34:33. | |
online, and that will be the future of the many newspapers. If it is | :34:34. | :34:38. | |
true, I think it will be the first of many newspapers which stop their | :34:39. | :34:43. | |
print editions and have another existent online. That e-mail went | :34:44. | :34:48. | |
out today suggesting that the editor doesn't quite know what is going on. | :34:49. | :34:53. | |
It is very difficult when you are talking about staff. I guess the | :34:54. | :34:58. | |
bigger question is, does a paper need to exist paper for many more? | :34:59. | :35:05. | |
It is a good question. Anybody under 35 who reads the Independent | :35:06. | :35:08. | |
probably read it online, so whether the print edition continues is not | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
really an important question. For people who like reading newspapers, | :35:14. | :35:19. | |
as I do, it does matter. And there is a longer question as to whether | :35:20. | :35:22. | |
online newspapers will be able to support the same number of | :35:23. | :35:26. | |
journalists that went newspapers traditionally have. Will they have | :35:27. | :35:29. | |
the same resources? Will they be able to do the same sort of | :35:30. | :35:34. | |
journalism. We have some pictures I think of the early days of you and | :35:35. | :35:38. | |
colleagues starting this off. Did you have an impression in your head | :35:39. | :35:42. | |
of its life span? Did you think that it would still be going today? Many | :35:43. | :35:47. | |
people thought we would be out of business in about six months. That | :35:48. | :35:52. | |
was the common Fleet Street view. We were more optimistic, but if you had | :35:53. | :35:56. | |
asked me whether I would be around in ten or 20 or 30 or 100 years, I | :35:57. | :36:01. | |
wouldn't have been able to give you an answer. What decides, there are | :36:02. | :36:06. | |
some hope as you can't imagine not exist in paper form, and there are | :36:07. | :36:10. | |
some that seem to be able to make that transition. What is it, what | :36:11. | :36:14. | |
decides whether a paper stays in paper form? What decides it is in | :36:15. | :36:19. | |
the end the bottom line. The Independent is now selling so few | :36:20. | :36:22. | |
copies that it doesn't really make sense to go on printing it everyday. | :36:23. | :36:27. | |
But that has to be the editorial content, then, essentially? You | :36:28. | :36:31. | |
could say it is what attracts in advertisers, but is it that | :36:32. | :36:36. | |
advertisers will only come into a high end money focused paper like | :36:37. | :36:43. | |
the FT, awkward content do it? The FT, I wouldn't be at all is a prized | :36:44. | :36:47. | |
if the FT itself stops printing copies in the foreseeable future. | :36:48. | :36:53. | |
You think it will? Think it is likely. The ones that may follow | :36:54. | :36:57. | |
quickly are the FT and the guardian, within the next few years. How many | :36:58. | :37:03. | |
papers will be on the shelves in five years? Most of them, but not | :37:04. | :37:09. | |
all. In 10-15 years, not very many, I'm afraid. Do you recognise the | :37:10. | :37:14. | |
same paper today as the one that you launched? Do you read it? I do look | :37:15. | :37:20. | |
at it. It has been an very depleted resources compared to what it had | :37:21. | :37:23. | |
when we launched it, but it is still a feisty little paper, it still has | :37:24. | :37:28. | |
high standards, and it has been very well edited. Its reach on social | :37:29. | :37:36. | |
media, on Twitter, on the sites, is probably a totally different | :37:37. | :37:38. | |
audience, but it is very visible online, isn't it? It is, and the | :37:39. | :37:47. | |
Independent is something like the eighth most read newspaper in the | :37:48. | :37:52. | |
world, and I think they will put more resources into the online | :37:53. | :37:57. | |
version. UI divided between saying closing is | :37:58. | :38:01. | |
not quite staying closing, do you think from the emotional | :38:02. | :38:04. | |
perspective, your baby has gone now? It has grown-up certainly | :38:05. | :38:09. | |
transformed into something we couldn't have conceived of 30 years | :38:10. | :38:12. | |
ago, but I think it will still be there. In some way, the dream lives | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
on. Stephen Glover, thank you very much, thanks for coming in. Let's | :38:18. | :38:21. | |
take you through tomorrow's front pages. The Independent has the | :38:22. | :38:26. | |
theory of relativity proved, going back to those gravitational waves. | :38:27. | :38:30. | |
The Daily Telegraph has the same picture, and their top story is the | :38:31. | :38:34. | |
deal that could split the Tories, they said 130 grassroots members | :38:35. | :38:38. | |
want Cameron he risks the future of the party if he ignores their views. | :38:39. | :38:46. | |
The Guardian has the doctors vowing to fight on. The Times, Turkey | :38:47. | :38:51. | |
threatens Europe with millions of migrants, saying tensions mount as | :38:52. | :38:56. | |
the President of Turkey warns that we are not idiots. They are | :38:57. | :39:03. | |
expecting another 600,000 people to flee over the border. The Daily Mail | :39:04. | :39:08. | |
has the flight of the strike doctors, junior doctors threatening | :39:09. | :39:12. | |
a mass exodus to Australia, and the FT has a day of turmoil as negative | :39:13. | :39:17. | |
rates strike fear into global markets. | :39:18. | :39:19. | |
We leave you at Propsman, the propeller specialist | :39:20. | :39:22. | |
Props to them, forgive us, for apparently inventing what looks | :39:23. | :39:25. | |
like an authentic 21st century sport. | :39:26. | :39:27. | |
Good evening. It has been turning pretty cold and frosty across many | :39:28. | :40:21. | |
parts of the country, particularly the central and northern areas. | :40:22. | :40:26. | |
Further south, rather more cloud, so not as cold as it was on Thursday | :40:27. | :40:31. | |
morning. Some bright spells through the day, but also one or two | :40:32. | :40:36. | |
showers, wintry over higher ground. Some of the snow fit Easter Scotland | :40:37. | :40:42. | |
right down to lower levels. Brightness across the borders, just | :40:43. | :40:45. |