Browse content similar to 04/10/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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This is BBC World News Today with me, Tom Donkin. | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
The headlines: The fiercest Caribbean storm in almost | :00:08. | :00:09. | |
Wind, rain and a massive storm surge have flooded coastal towns. | :00:10. | :00:16. | |
The US vows it won't give up on peace in Syria, | :00:17. | :00:22. | |
We'll hear from a top American official. | :00:23. | :00:27. | |
Also coming up - can you name these men? | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
The two vice-presidential candidates debate - | :00:34. | :00:35. | |
but how much does it really matter? | :00:36. | :00:38. | |
And the biggest mystery in modern literature may have been solved - | :00:39. | :00:41. | |
but was it right to unveil the author's real identity? | :00:42. | :00:56. | |
The most powerful hurricane to hit the Caribbean in nearly | :00:57. | :00:58. | |
a decade has struck Haiti, bringing winds of 145 miles | :00:59. | :01:01. | |
per hour, heavy rain and severe flooding. | :01:02. | :01:04. | |
This heat map shows the eye of the Hurricane | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
Matthew has been classed as a Category Four hurricane - | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
that's just one level below the most dangerous. | :01:13. | :01:14. | |
Locals are being urged to "do anything they can | :01:15. | :01:16. | |
Haiti's President has said a number of people have already been killed. | :01:17. | :01:24. | |
The BBC's Christian Fraser has the latest. | :01:25. | :01:29. | |
Hurricane Matthew is the most powerful storms across the Caribbean | :01:30. | :01:39. | |
in almost ten years. It is barrelling across an island that is | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
ill-prepared for what it will throw at them. Haiti is still recovering | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
from the earthquake that struck in 2010, and a devastating outbreak of | :01:49. | :01:53. | |
cholera. There are thousands of people living under corrugated iron | :01:54. | :01:57. | |
roofs, in shantytowns that have no defence from sustained, an hundred | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
and 40 mile an hour winds. The president has been urging people to | :02:02. | :02:07. | |
move to safer shelter. We have already seen deaths. People | :02:08. | :02:11. | |
who were out at sea. There are people who are missing. There are | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
people who did not respect the alerts. They have lost their lives. | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
The Red Cross has been out in those areas that will take the brunt. In | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
districts where roads are already filled with mud. But many like this | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
man have refused the offer of shelter. They came with a truck to | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
move us, he said, but what about the stuff we have at home? If we lose | :02:35. | :02:38. | |
our things, if they are stolen, we won't get them back. | :02:39. | :02:43. | |
From the International Space Station, Matthew looks like a vortex | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
of trouble. The forecasters predict it could dump up to 40 inches of | :02:48. | :02:51. | |
rain in the more isolated areas of Haiti, raising fears of mudslides | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
and floods in these heavily populated hillsides. Hurricane | :02:57. | :02:59. | |
Matthew has slammed into Haiti, very power. | :03:00. | :03:03. | |
And, it has been getting all its energy from the ocean waters. | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
In the next few hours, it will move into Cuba, and then out into the | :03:08. | :03:11. | |
Bahamas, where there are lots of very warm ocean tropical waters. | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
That will fuel the Hurricane, so it will maintain some of its intensity, | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
and then potentially moving very close to the Florida coastline as we | :03:20. | :03:25. | |
go through this week. In the Bahamas, they are in a hurry. Wood | :03:26. | :03:28. | |
and aluminium sheeting to protect what they own, and in Cuba, the | :03:29. | :03:33. | |
government is buzzing thousands of people to shelters in six eastern | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
provinces. In Jamaica, the outer bands of Matthew have now passed the | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
capital Kingston. Heavy rains have left lots of damage behind, but this | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
may be nothing compared with what awaits the impoverished island of | :03:48. | :03:57. | |
Haiti. Our correspondent game this update | :03:58. | :04:00. | |
in the last hour. From the early hours of this | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
morning, Hurricane Matthew has been buffeting this country, with winds | :04:04. | :04:10. | |
of up to 140 miles an hour. The fear is that it will dump rainfall of up | :04:11. | :04:17. | |
to three feet. You can see already the problem of flooding. There is | :04:18. | :04:21. | |
also a worry about mudslides in this very mountainous area that is | :04:22. | :04:27. | |
denuded of trees, and as you can see here, there is some flash flooding | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
happening already. Now, Haiti has already got so many problems. It is | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
suffering still from the earthquake that hit it in 2010, which killed | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
more than 200,000 people. It is suffering from a cholera outbreak | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
too. Public health officials fear this will exacerbate that particular | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
crisis. The conditions here are atrocious. To step outside is to be | :04:50. | :04:55. | |
drenched within a matter of seconds. Nick Bryant there. | :04:56. | :05:00. | |
Charities and NGOs in Haiti have been scouting the damage and handing | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
out supplies, and I'm happy to say, we can speak to Plan International | :05:05. | :05:15. | |
bat director. What do people need the most, and are they getting it? | :05:16. | :05:21. | |
Thank you for up offering me the opportunity to share with the wider | :05:22. | :05:29. | |
world about Haiti. The country now is suffering. All | :05:30. | :05:39. | |
our staff are mobilised to support the population especially as they | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
are coming out, because we have three officials in the south-east | :05:47. | :05:57. | |
and in the West. Hurricane Matthew, the situation is virtually more | :05:58. | :06:00. | |
critical in the south and in the south-east. We now have heavy rain | :06:01. | :06:17. | |
and some violent winds, and we have the river, that we explained, is at | :06:18. | :06:25. | |
a high risk of flooding. This is the situation now in Port-au-Prince, and | :06:26. | :06:29. | |
the population are very afraid and scared of the situation. But all the | :06:30. | :06:40. | |
NGOs are mobilised, both at central government and local level. They are | :06:41. | :06:43. | |
already mobilised, but we are waiting after the Hurricane to make | :06:44. | :06:50. | |
an assessment to support all the population are different levels. | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
Thank you very much for that update. I'm sure our viewers will join me in | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
wishing you all the best in Haiti. And now, some of the day's other | :07:00. | :07:01. | |
news. Fighting has continued | :07:02. | :07:02. | |
around the city of Kunduz Government forces have been trying | :07:03. | :07:04. | |
to repel Taliban militants who entered several areas | :07:05. | :07:07. | |
of the city on Monday. An Afghan government spokesman says | :07:08. | :07:09. | |
the security forces are now in control of large | :07:10. | :07:12. | |
parts of the city. Kunduz fell briefly to the Taliban | :07:13. | :07:14. | |
last year, but was recaptured The International Monetary Fund has | :07:15. | :07:16. | |
delivered its latest Police in South Africa have used | :07:17. | :07:21. | |
stun grenades to move on student protesters | :07:22. | :07:23. | |
at Wits University in Johannesburg. Their protests over the high cost | :07:24. | :07:25. | |
of education have forced the closure of some of the country's most | :07:26. | :07:28. | |
prominent universities The Court of Arbitration in Sport | :07:29. | :07:30. | |
has cut the ban given to the tennis player Maria Sharapova from | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
two years to 15 months. The Russian tested | :07:36. | :07:38. | |
positive for meldonium It means the five-time | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
Grand Slam champion CAN return The US Secretary of State, | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
John Kerry, says Washington is not abandoning the search for peace | :07:46. | :07:53. | |
in Syria, that's despite The US blames Russia AND the Syrian | :07:54. | :07:55. | |
government for fresh More than 400 people have been | :07:56. | :08:00. | |
killed in the city of Aleppo since Russia in turn has blamed | :08:01. | :08:05. | |
the Americans for the collapse So, if there are no talks with | :08:06. | :08:23. | |
Russia, what happens from here? Our chief international correspondent is | :08:24. | :08:26. | |
in Brussels with more. Over to you. Yes, what happens and what is left, | :08:27. | :08:33. | |
four months, if not for years, the main thread in a very tangled and | :08:34. | :08:36. | |
not a very optimistic process of trying to move the Syrian conflict | :08:37. | :08:42. | |
towards some kind of resolution, has been the talks between John Kerry | :08:43. | :08:48. | |
and Sergei Lavrov. Last week at the UN General Assembly. John Kerry said | :08:49. | :08:51. | |
the situation in Syria was hanging by a thread. The only thing keeping | :08:52. | :08:54. | |
that thread alive were the talks with Sergei Lavrov, so what happens | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
now that they have broken down? I am joined here in Brussels by the State | :09:00. | :09:02. | |
Department spokesman, John Kirby. I know you said in your statement that | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
it was a not a decision you took lightly, that you are to continue to | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
work for peace. How can you, when your main interleukin-2 is no longer | :09:12. | :09:15. | |
talking with you? Well certainly, we don't like being in the position | :09:16. | :09:18. | |
we're in right now, having to suspend those talks, because Russia | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
does have considerable influence over Assad, and it made sense for us | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
to try to workouts and sort of arrangement with the Russian | :09:27. | :09:28. | |
government, but obviously, that didn't happen, because they won't | :09:29. | :09:31. | |
stop supporting the Assad regime. They won't stop with the bombing, | :09:32. | :09:35. | |
they weren't stopped the siege of Aleppo, so we were left with little | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
choice. That said, there are still multilateral forums we can work | :09:42. | :09:44. | |
inside. The UN led process that is trying to get the political talks | :09:45. | :09:50. | |
back on track still exists, and of course, the UN Security Council is | :09:51. | :09:53. | |
still there. So there are plenty of opportunities for us to try and | :09:54. | :09:56. | |
attack is from a multilateral perspective. The other thing is, we | :09:57. | :09:59. | |
suspended the stored. It doesn't mean that if Russia is willing to | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
commit to a significant step, like putting Assad on the ground, that we | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
would restart it. It is not like it is over for ever. | :10:09. | :10:11. | |
As you know, many critics in the State Department and the pens again | :10:12. | :10:16. | |
said that John Kerry was on a fool 's errand. You would not be able to | :10:17. | :10:19. | |
make a deal with Russia. Have they been proven right? | :10:20. | :10:22. | |
I don't think so. Nobody is happy about where we are right now, what | :10:23. | :10:27. | |
is the alternative? If you don't keep trying a diplomatic solution, | :10:28. | :10:30. | |
the alternative is just more war, more bloodshed, more violence, so I | :10:31. | :10:35. | |
don't think the secretary would have one bit to apologise for in terms of | :10:36. | :10:39. | |
the effort that he went to to try to get some kind of an accord, an | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
arrangement, that would get the cessation of hostilities enforceable | :10:45. | :10:47. | |
and sustainable. So again, we did not take this decision lightly. We | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
would prefer not to have had to make the suspension, but if Russia is | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
willing to prove in some form of fashion that they are willing to | :10:58. | :11:02. | |
make a significant step, stop this bombing, we will certainly be | :11:03. | :11:04. | |
willing to listen to those ideas and to restart some kind of dialogue. | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
And it is also what is called Plan B. We understand talks have been | :11:09. | :11:13. | |
stepped up about a possible military option. We know from that audio tape | :11:14. | :11:17. | |
that was released of John Kerry's own feelings about the war. He said | :11:18. | :11:21. | |
he had argued for a military option. Is it time to look for another way | :11:22. | :11:23. | |
forward? I would tell you this, and that is | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
for months now, the US government has remained open to having | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
discussions about other options available to us, options outside | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
diplomacy. This is not a new idea. This is something that our agency | :11:37. | :11:43. | |
and the president himself has welcomed. | :11:44. | :11:45. | |
The president hasn't welcomed it all? He doesn't want to get | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
involved, necessarily, and he has come under criticism about that. | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
He has welcomed a robust discussion inside the US government about all | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
our options, and to stay open to all options, but he has also said that | :11:59. | :12:02. | |
no other option is better than a diplomatic one. All the other | :12:03. | :12:06. | |
options we have looked at, be they military and non-military, don't end | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
up in a better place in terms of a more peaceful Syria than a | :12:11. | :12:13. | |
diplomatic approach. So we continue to believe that the right solution | :12:14. | :12:17. | |
is a political one, not a military one, but we would be irresponsible | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
as the government and we did not continue to have these discussions. | :12:22. | :12:24. | |
You talked about ramping it up. I would actually say that discussions | :12:25. | :12:27. | |
about options, the whole panoply of options, has been something on the | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
table now for many months. The BBC spoke to Sergei Lavrov | :12:32. | :12:35. | |
recently, and he blamed the United States that this breakdown, saying | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
you refuse to separate yourself from backing Al-Qaeda linked group, and | :12:40. | :12:42. | |
he said that the main problem in Aleppo. | :12:43. | :12:45. | |
Well, any suggestion we are backing Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda linked groups | :12:46. | :12:48. | |
is absolutely false. It flies in the face of the facts. We recognise that | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
there has been a co-mingling of some of the groups with al-Nusra, which | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
is Al-Qaeda in Syria, and we have been working hard to get that | :12:57. | :13:03. | |
separation to take place, but the fault here for the breakdown, the | :13:04. | :13:08. | |
fault for the suspension, lies squarely in Moscow. The secretary | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
was clear about that today, and at the UN. The fault lies with Russia, | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
and the fact that they continue to bolster and support the Assad regime | :13:16. | :13:18. | |
as that regime continues to attack its own people. | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
Do you think Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry will find a moment to speak | :13:24. | :13:25. | |
here? I did the granny plans for them to | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
have a conversation in Brussels. John Kirby, here in Brussels, where | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
leaders are gathering to talk about the situation in Afghanistan, | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
another conflict where on some issues they don't see eye to eye, | :13:38. | :13:40. | |
but many will be asking if John Kerry, the quintessential double, | :13:41. | :13:43. | |
will look for some way to try to get this process back on track. | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
That is all from Brussels. Thank you bring much indeed. Thank | :13:48. | :13:53. | |
you for joining us, our chief international correspondent. | :13:54. | :13:54. | |
In little more than a month's time, either Tim Kaine or Mike Pence | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
will be, as they say, one heartbeat away | :13:59. | :13:59. | |
The role of American Vice-President is famously a low-key one | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
But in a few hours' time, the running mates to Hillary Clinton | :14:04. | :14:07. | |
and Donald Trump will be the centre of attention | :14:08. | :14:09. | |
as they hold their first and only TV debate. | :14:10. | :14:11. | |
When it comes to the debates between those who will be | :14:12. | :14:18. | |
second-in-command, perhaps James Stockdale put it best | :14:19. | :14:19. | |
Who am I? Why am I here? | :14:20. | :14:27. | |
So, let's start with Hillary Clinton's pick, Tim Kaine. | :14:28. | :14:29. | |
Even Republicans have struggled to find fault with | :14:30. | :14:31. | |
His first speech as a Democratic vice-presidential candidate | :14:32. | :14:41. | |
was aimed at Donald Trump, no doubt skills he will have been | :14:42. | :14:44. | |
We've seen again and again that when Donald Trump says | :14:45. | :14:47. | |
he has your back, you'd better watch out. | :14:48. | :14:49. | |
Donald Trump chose Indiana Governor Mike Pence, although their initial | :14:50. | :14:52. | |
He is an experienced Washington hand and a favourite of social | :14:53. | :14:59. | |
conservatives, and as the politician in this relationship, | :15:00. | :15:02. | |
he often finds himself translating the views of businessman Trump. | :15:03. | :15:08. | |
It seems like just about every day, the national media latches onto some | :15:09. | :15:11. | |
Turn on your Twitter account, turn on your cable TV, | :15:12. | :15:14. | |
The vice-presidential debates can often draw huge audiences. | :15:15. | :15:23. | |
This 2008 contest between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
70 million viewers tuned in, and this year's vice-president's | :15:29. | :15:35. | |
We've got two presidential candidates who are seen deeply | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
unfavourably by the vast majority of Americans, and two vice | :15:41. | :15:43. | |
presidents candidates who are largely unknownby the vast | :15:44. | :15:46. | |
majority of Americans, but those vice-presidential | :15:47. | :15:48. | |
candidates have a level of credibility talking | :15:49. | :15:50. | |
about their presidential running mate that the presidential candidate | :15:51. | :15:52. | |
can't really have talking about themselves. | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
Candidates do get a chance to distinguish themselves. | :15:58. | :16:00. | |
In 1988, Dan Quayle compared himself to President Kennedy. | :16:01. | :16:04. | |
His opponent, Lloyd Benson, had this scathing reply. | :16:05. | :16:08. | |
Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
There has been nothing conventional about the 2016 election | :16:13. | :16:24. | |
year, apart from perhaps the two vice-presidential picks. | :16:25. | :16:28. | |
And yet, as the past has shown us, when you take to the stage, | :16:29. | :16:34. | |
And don't forget, all you need to know about the US | :16:35. | :16:46. | |
We also have this piece on why the Vice-Presidential debate | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
matters, plus Katty Kay on Bill Clinton's women, and much more. | :16:51. | :16:53. | |
bbc.com/news is where you need to head. | :16:54. | :16:58. | |
Pope Francis has made an unannounced visit to Amatriche, | :16:59. | :17:00. | |
the Italian town devastated by an earthquake | :17:01. | :17:02. | |
Crowds of photographers and onlookers surrounded the Pope | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
as he emerged from his car at the local school where he met | :17:07. | :17:09. | |
children, survivors and relatives of the victims. | :17:10. | :17:12. | |
Here's our Rome correspondent James Reynolds. | :17:13. | :17:15. | |
The Pope described this as a private visit, so he made the two-hour drive | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
from Rome in a regular car, notable only for its tinted windows | :17:20. | :17:25. | |
In Amatriche, Francis was taken to see earthquake survivors. | :17:26. | :17:32. | |
Many are still living in temporary shelters. | :17:33. | :17:41. | |
From the first moment, I thought I should come here, | :17:42. | :17:44. | |
Pope Francis met firefighters who showed him the extent | :17:45. | :17:53. | |
The Vatican itself sent relief teams here in the hours | :17:54. | :17:59. | |
The Italian government has promised to rebuild this entire region. | :18:00. | :18:06. | |
The Pope, the Bishop of Rome, normally surveys the grand works | :18:07. | :18:11. | |
This morning, by contrast, the view in front | :18:12. | :18:15. | |
Three British-born scientists have been awarded | :18:16. | :18:28. | |
David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz were | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
recognised for their discoveries about unusual forms of matter. | :18:33. | :18:34. | |
The Nobel Committee said their work has | :18:35. | :18:36. | |
"opened the door on an unknown world". | :18:37. | :18:38. | |
Our Science Editor David Shukman has more. | :18:39. | :18:47. | |
From steel strong enough to hold up bridges to the intricate robot on a | :18:48. | :18:53. | |
production line, to the myriad devices in our everyday lives we | :18:54. | :18:57. | |
depend on materials that have qualities that make them useful for | :18:58. | :19:01. | |
particular tasks, but there is another unseen world of materials | :19:02. | :19:04. | |
that don't behave in ways you would expect. Research into that world was | :19:05. | :19:09. | |
awarded the Nobel Prize for physics today. To the logical phase | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
transitions... Three scientists, born in Britain, | :19:14. | :19:17. | |
recognised for making some strange and conjugated discoveries. | :19:18. | :19:23. | |
New kind of phase transition. One of the judges resorted using | :19:24. | :19:26. | |
pastries to explain their work. The bagel has one hole. | :19:27. | :19:31. | |
How materials change their characteristics of the smallest | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
scales. One of the winners was Duncan Haldane, awarded by his | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
students at Boston University. Time to double down and learn! He told is | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
that fundamental research could lead to unpredictable benefits. | :19:48. | :19:51. | |
Science goes by people exploring where they want to go, and sometimes | :19:52. | :19:55. | |
they find something good, and sometimes that actually leads to | :19:56. | :19:58. | |
technologies, so we don't know where it is going to go, so it is very | :19:59. | :20:01. | |
important that people should follow their dream, basically, and not be | :20:02. | :20:05. | |
constrained to work on something that the funding agency thinks is | :20:06. | :20:09. | |
going to be in the national interest. | :20:10. | :20:11. | |
So what is this Nobel Prize for physics been awarded for? Well, it | :20:12. | :20:16. | |
is all about revealing the materials -- that materials can exist in | :20:17. | :20:19. | |
states that we never even thought of. So, take water. When it is | :20:20. | :20:24. | |
heated, it is in the form of steam. A little cooler, and it becomes a | :20:25. | :20:27. | |
liquid that you can drink. Colder still, and it freezes into ice. But | :20:28. | :20:31. | |
it turns out that when the temperature is even lower, materials | :20:32. | :20:38. | |
can exist in a whole range of different states in which they | :20:39. | :20:41. | |
behave in ways that just as expected. For example, allowing | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
electricity to flow without resistance. If this can be | :20:45. | :20:48. | |
controlled, new, much faster computers might be on the cards, so | :20:49. | :20:52. | |
this research is seen as having huge potential. | :20:53. | :20:56. | |
It is a theoretical results, but if you want to apply materials to | :20:57. | :21:00. | |
modern technology, for example, future generations of smartphones, | :21:01. | :21:04. | |
you can't do it without having an understanding of what these | :21:05. | :21:06. | |
materials will do. Duncan Haldane and is to ballot | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
prizewinners were at one stage seen as out on a limb with their | :21:12. | :21:14. | |
research. Now it has become in stream, and they are looking for the | :21:15. | :21:18. | |
next challenge. -- his two fellow prizewinners. | :21:19. | :21:19. | |
It's a literary storm worthy of a bestseller. | :21:20. | :21:21. | |
A journalist in Italy says he has solved one of modern | :21:22. | :21:24. | |
Gent-macro two claims to have revealed the real identity of the | :21:25. | :21:41. | |
writer known as Elena Ferrante, who has sold more than 2 million copies | :21:42. | :21:45. | |
worldwide. Very little is known about the author, who writes under a | :21:46. | :21:48. | |
pseudonym, but the Italian journalist has published a story | :21:49. | :21:51. | |
naming errors enabled professional translator. | :21:52. | :21:52. | |
A number of high profile literary figures have slammed | :21:53. | :21:54. | |
Bestselling British novelist Matt Haig wrote on social media: | :21:55. | :21:57. | |
"The pursuit to discover the 'real' Elena Ferrante is a disgrace | :21:58. | :22:00. | |
"A writer's truest self is the books they write." | :22:01. | :22:03. | |
Author and journalist Jojo Moyes tweeted: "Only criminals | :22:04. | :22:05. | |
"deserve to be unmasked, if they have consciously | :22:06. | :22:07. | |
"sought privacy. Badly done, @nybooks." | :22:08. | :22:10. | |
And Marlon James, last year's winner of the Man Booker prize for fiction, | :22:11. | :22:13. | |
wrote: "What kind of person supports this... | :22:14. | :22:15. | |
"And no, I have not and will never read the article." | :22:16. | :22:26. | |
Well, I'm joined now from Rome by the journalist | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
at the centre of the story, Claudio Gatti. | :22:32. | :22:33. | |
Very good of you to join us. I first want to ask you, what annoyed you so | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
much about ton-macro that made you dedicate so much time to uncovering | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
who she really was? Nothing annoyed me. Actually, I was a fan of hers. I | :22:44. | :22:50. | |
started this as a reader. I read the four books and I loved them all. | :22:51. | :22:54. | |
Then I read the autobiography, the same autobiography that is being | :22:55. | :23:01. | |
published in the US in November. Just to know more, like many, many | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
other readers. I was interested in knowing who was the author behind | :23:06. | :23:11. | |
the pseudonym, and I was interested in that, and then, I noticed that | :23:12. | :23:17. | |
there was a lots of details in that autobiography, and I realised that | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
it should be established, it should be clear from those details, who the | :23:23. | :23:28. | |
person was, and the more I looked, the more things didn't quite turn | :23:29. | :23:33. | |
out to be right, and then I decided as an investigative journalist to | :23:34. | :23:37. | |
use the typical technique of investigative journalism, which is | :23:38. | :23:40. | |
following the money, seeing who was paid for the huge commercial | :23:41. | :23:48. | |
success, and I've found the evidence that led to the person identified as | :23:49. | :23:53. | |
the real Elena Ferrante. Of course the author has said many times that | :23:54. | :23:56. | |
she does not want to be outed in this way, she liked to privacy. | :23:57. | :24:01. | |
I wonder, as many others have, would you have gone after this author if | :24:02. | :24:05. | |
it was a man? The Bronte sisters and Jane Austen had to hide their | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
identity. Are you just punishing this because of her success as a | :24:09. | :24:12. | |
woman, some calling it sexist bullying? | :24:13. | :24:15. | |
Well, I was accused of being a misogynist, except that the people | :24:16. | :24:18. | |
who do that do know how investigative journalism works. In | :24:19. | :24:23. | |
writing, the writing starts as a subject and then develops into a | :24:24. | :24:28. | |
story. In investigative journalism, you start with the mystery and want | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
to find out what the mystery is. In Italy, the number one suspect, or | :24:32. | :24:39. | |
candidate, for Elena Ferrante was a man. In fact, it was the husband of | :24:40. | :24:45. | |
the person I identified. So, when I started, I had no clue if the real | :24:46. | :24:51. | |
Elena Ferrante would be turn out to be a man or woman. | :24:52. | :24:54. | |
It does sound like you have the some kind of public service, but many of | :24:55. | :24:58. | |
her readers would argue that they enjoy this intimate contract, if you | :24:59. | :25:02. | |
like, with her. The reader doesn't know the author's background, the | :25:03. | :25:05. | |
author does not know the reader's. You seem to have railroaded that | :25:06. | :25:09. | |
sacred contact and denied a lot of readers they enjoy ability of | :25:10. | :25:11. | |
reading their work? Well, in the history of art, I am | :25:12. | :25:16. | |
not aware of any situation, any work of art, that has been ruined by the | :25:17. | :25:22. | |
fact that people would know who the author is, or the artist is. As far | :25:23. | :25:28. | |
as I am concerned, knowing the cultural millionaire, the | :25:29. | :25:32. | |
background, the history of an artist, only enhances the art, so I | :25:33. | :25:38. | |
don't see how that would work. Thank you very much for joining us. | :25:39. | :25:42. | |
An interesting topic, we will no doubt discuss online. | :25:43. | :25:45. | |
You can more detail and analysis on our website, bbc.com/news. | :25:46. | :25:48. | |
From all the team here, goodbye. | :25:49. | :26:06. | |
Good evening. Temperatures won't drop as much tonight, because there | :26:07. | :26:10. | |
is a bit | :26:11. | :26:11. |