03/01/2018 BBC News at Ten

The Health Secretary

is forced to apologise

to the tens of thousands

of patients in England

who've had their operations

cancelled.

At least one in ten hospitals

is put on the highest alert,

and patients are told

they must wait for their surgery.

I want to apologise for the fact

that we have, regrettably, had

to postpone a number of operations.

We are trying to do it

differently this year.

I underestimated how upsetting it is

to prepare for something like this

and then for it not to be occurring.

We'll be looking at whether

the Government's doing enough

to sort out the chaos now

and prevent it happening again.

Also tonight, after no communication

for the last two years,

North and South Korea break their

silence with a brief phone call.

Donald Trump unleashes a tirade

against his former chief strategist,

saying he's lost his mind.

The bionic hand

with a sense of touch -

an exclusive report on the woman

testing it in the real world.

# Oh I, oh I, oh I, oh I

# I'm in love with your body... #

And why 2017 was a great year

for the UK music industry,

and one particular British artist

had a lot to do with it.

And coming up on Sportsday

on BBC News,

an eventful London derby

between Arsenal and Chelsea

at the Emirates.

Find out if Jack Wilshere's

goal was enough

to get Arsenal the points.

Good evening.

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt,

has apologised to patients

after hospitals in England were

told to delay tens of thousands

of non-urgent operations

and appointments.

The health service is struggling to

cope with mounting winter pressures.

The BBC understands at least

one in ten hospital trusts

have been put on the highest level

of alert in the last 24 hours,

meaning they are unable

to deliver comprehensive care.

The Royal College of

Emergency Medicine

says patient safety

is undoubtedly being compromised.

Labour claims the NHS is in crisis.

Our health editor, Hugh Pym,

has the latest.

There's been extreme stress

at some hospitals.

Around 20 in England have

been on the highest alert level.

That means no available beds

and severe delays for

ambulances handing over patients.

One reason why tens of thousands

of non-urgent operations

this month will be cancelled.

That means patients like David,

who is himself a doctor,

will have to wait longer.

He was due to have heart surgery

today but was told yesterday

he'd have to wait for a new date.

As a patient, I think

I underestimated how upsetting

it is to prepare

for something like this

and then for it not to be occurring.

And as a doctor, I really feel

for all our patients

who are going through

the same thing.

So what did the Health Secretary,

Jeremy Hunt, have to say

to patients worried

about possible long delays?

I want to apologise for the fact

that we have had, regrettably,

to postpone a number of operations.

We're trying to do it

differently this year.

Last year, we cancelled

a lot of operations

at the very last minute,

so people got a call the day before

to say their operation

wasn't going ahead.

That is obviously very undesirable,

so we want to do it

in a much more planned way.

Surely the NHS can't be running

properly under your government

if you have to cancel

a month's worth of operations

and outpatients' appointments?

Well, I think it's important

to recognise that these pressures

are pressures that we're seeing

all over the United Kingdom,

in Scotland and Wales.

The Prime Minister said

she recognised that,

for people who'd had their

operations postponed,

it was disappointing

and frustrating.

She said NHS staff

were doing a fantastic job.

NHS England and the Government say

extensive preparations for winter

were carried out across the system.

But if that's the case,

the question is,

why were official instructions

on cancelling

non-urgent operations

extended this week?

Here and St Mary's Hospital

in west London,

they've planned to treat more people

without needing overnight stays.

The idea is to keep beds free

for those who really need them.

But it's been tougher

than they expected,

because patients this year

are sicker than they were.

The numbers are largely the same,

but the intensity of the illnesses

we've been seeing this year

actually is very, very significant,

and we've really had to work very

hard to find appropriate places

to nurse patients who've got

really very serious conditions.

And I think a number of things

play into this.

The weather, as we know,

we've begin to see an increase

in the number of flu cases -

all of that builds up to quite

a problem for us on some days.

Labour didn't say what

the Government should do now

but said ministers were to blame

for what it called a crisis.

When you've got ambulances

backed up outside hospitals,

you've got hospitals saying

they're overcrowded,

when you've got people waiting

on trolleys for hours

and hours and hours,

it is a crisis,

and it's because of seven years

of underfunding and cuts to NHS,

and the Government are simply

burying their head in the sand.

NHS Scotland said there'd been

a 20% increase

in A&E visits before Christmas.

The Lanarkshire Health Board

has, for now,

cancelled non-urgent procedures.

The Welsh Government says

thousands of hours have been lost

for ambulance crews waiting

to hand over patients at hospitals.

It's early in the New Year,

and the NHS across the UK

is already struggling,

and its patients who are

enduring the consequences.

We can talk to you now, is anything

the Government currently doing going

to stop this chaos at England's

hospitals?

Well, Fiona, ministers

say there is more money coming

through from the Budget which should

help the situation in A&E in England

next year, they believe the measures

of the last 24 hours should

stabilise the situation in the next

few weeks, but it comes at a cost -

tens of thousands of postponed

routine operations and procedures,

very important for patients

involved, hip replacements, knee

operations, cataracts, having to

wait longer, and a backlog which

will add to the growing waiting

lists with targets for routine

surgery already being missed. This

time last year, many doctors were

saying it was the worst they had

seen on the front line, there was a

lot of planning over the summer and

autumn by the NHS supported by the

Government, and now some doctors are

saying it is even worse now. Those

20 Hospital trusts we have

identified as being on the highest

state of alert in the last 24 hours

compares with just a handful last

year. I don't think we have heard

anything in the last day or so which

says this won't happen again,

possibly even worse next time, and

it reopens the debate about how much

more money the NHS need and where it

is going to come from to provide

sustainable quality patient care.

Hugh Pym, thank you.

North and South Korea

have conducted

their first direct communication

in nearly two years

via a brief conversation

on the phone.

North Korea said the aim would be

to discuss sending a North Korean

delegation to the Winter Games

in South Korea next month.

Meanwhile, President Trump has

boasted on Twitter that his nuclear

button is "much bigger" and

"more powerful" than North Korea's.

Our correspondent Rupert

Wingfield-Hayes reports

from the South Korean

capital, Seoul.

On Monday, Kim Jong-un

welcomed in the New Year

with a more conventional

display of fireworks

than the sort he's been

firing off throughout 2017.

But anyone who was hoping his

New Year message would carry

an offer of peace and goodwill

was quickly disappointed.

"The entire United States is within

range of our nuclear weapons,"

he said, "and the nuclear button

is always on my desk."

"This is reality, not a threat."

That was all the excuse

President Donald Trump needed,

and as we have now come to expect,

his response came

in a Twitter tirade.

So 2018 has begun

pretty much as 2017 ended,

with the President

of the United States

and the dictator of North Korea

hurling threats at each other,

while the rest of the world

looks on mostly in dismay.

But here in Seoul, 2018 has begun

at least with a glimmer of hope,

because as of this afternoon,

North and South Korea are talking

to each other again by telephone.

Out of the blue, Pyongyang

suddenly reconnected the hotline

between the two Koreas

that Kim Jong-un

had personally ordered

cut off two years ago.

In his New Year address,

Kim also said he was prepared

to send a team to take part

in the Winter Olympics

which begin here in South Korea

in a little over a month.

The US State Department accused

North Korea of attempting

to drive a wedge between the US

and its South Korean ally.

And it could be right.

But for the 20 million people

of Seoul

who live within firing

range of North Korea's artillery,

any sign that Pyongyang

is willing to talk

is a New Year gift

they will welcome.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes,

BBC News, in Seoul.

Following his tweet

about North Korea,

President Trump has gone

on the offensive again tonight,

this time to launch

an extraordinary attack

on his former chief strategist,

Steve Bannon.

What provoked it were reports

that Bannon had described a meeting

between the President's son

and a Russian lawyer during

the presidential election campaign

as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic".

It's understood the comments will

be published in a book next week.

The President has hit back

with a statement tonight,

claiming Steve Bannon

had nothing to do

with helping win his presidency.

Mr Trump says, "When he was fired,

he not only lost his job,

he lost his mind."

Our North America editor, Jon Sopel,

is at the White House.

This is an extraordinary outburst,

even by the standards

of Donald Trump.

Fiona, I thought it would take quite

something to eclipse Donald Trump's

tweet about Kim Jong-un, it now

seems that the president and Steve

Bannon are engaged in a battle for

who has the biggest button and the

most powerful one. Let me read you a

bit more of what the president has

said about his former chief

strategist, Steve had very little to

do with our historic victory, he

doesn't represent my base, he is

only in it for himself, Steve was

rarely in a one-to-one meeting with

me, and only pretends to have had

influence to fool a few people. This

is an unprecedented statement from a

president, so why the Ben An? One,

Steve Bannon has gone after family,

and it makes it much more difficult

for Donald Trump to deny collisions

with the Russians when you have got

someone who was on the inside

talking about treasonous and

unpatriotic behaviour. There is one

source of comfort for the White

House - Steve Bannon continued to be

an influence after he was fired. Not

only moral, he has now been cast out

into outer darkness, and the

question is what does Steve Bannon

do next? I don't think he's going to

go away quietly, he has the

Breitbart news website, which is

hugely powerful, and he will

continue to be a thawed in the side.

There was an earlier president who

commented about a troublesome ally,

better to have him inside the tent

looking at, than outside the tent

looking in, although that is not

exactly the quote.

Certainly not as

I run a Brit, Jon!

Storm Eleanor has swept

across the UK, causing flooding,

power cuts, damage to homes,

and disruption to motorists.

Gusts of up to 100 mph

were reported in the Pennines,

and thousands of homes were left

without power across

Northern Ireland, Wales,

the Midlands and South West England.

From Cornwall, Jon Kay

has this report.

Breached - nervous moments

in Portreath tonight.

Part of the old harbour wall

had collapsed,

letting the Atlantic seep

through at high tide.

Quite a gap, isn't it?

It is an awful gap.

Sandra's house is right

next to the giant hole

that's been left

in the sea defences.

What are your thoughts?

Scared!

Yeah, we just had

all new carpets put in,

so you know, it's...

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be

a frightening night, I think.

It was the early hours

of this morning

when Storm Eleanor smashed away

the 20m section.

Cornwall's coastal communities

are used to fierce weather,

but Portreath now feels

especially vulnerable.

They weren't the only ones.

This was Galway

in the Irish Republic.

High spring tides

added force to the storm -

a potentially deadly mix.

In Northern Ireland,

gusts reached 90 mph,

leaving 25,000 homes

without electricity.

We have to bring in crews

to cut the trees,

we have to bring in digging crews

to pull out the poles

and to replace poles

and to re-string lines.

All of this takes time

and effort,

essentially to restore small numbers

of customers at a time.

Back in Cornwall tonight,

the collapsed sea wall

has become a tourist attraction.

Just take a step back, please.

Much to the alarm

of the authorities.

We've just got to move them back

to a safe distance

so that they don't get

their feet swept away from them,

cos the sea is a powerful thing,

it's a silent killer,

it'll have you quick as a lick.

Absolutely crazy, it looks

like a very, very angry sea,

and it's got a lot of

things to answer to.

I think it's amazing,

I absolutely love it,

but it's so unpredictable,

it's quite scary.

In the end, tonight's

tide was slightly lower than feared,

and no properties were damaged,

but there are already more warnings

in place for tomorrow.

Jon Kay, BBC News,

Portreath in Cornwall.

The head of the powerful

Revolutionary Guard in Iran,

which supports the country's

clerical leaders, has claimed

that the week of unrest

in the country's towns

and cities is over.

Tens of thousands of people have

been taking part in pro-government

demonstrations today,

organised by the regime.

22 people have died in six

days of demonstrations

against the government,

which were initially

in response to price rises

and alleged corruption.

Our Middle East editor,

Jeremy Bowen, is here.

Is it all over?

Well, the Major General say it is.

The sedation is over. What if he's

right. He says 15,000 people were

involved. His men had to only get

involved three times. Well, it could

be correct or it could be that this

now is at a test, this movement is

at a test, a crossroads. Will they

go back on the streets to try to

take on the authorities? Or, will

they just say, well, rub their hands

and say - maybe we've made our

points. The thought of an

interrogation in one of the regime's

prisons is not attractive and people

now know what we think. We have to

wait and see about that. I think

that even if it all stops now,

because people can get intimidated.

The authorities, the security forces

there can be very intimidating, if

they were angry enough to take on

the security forces in the first

place, if they were angry enough to

get on the streets and not call for

reform of the system but to call in

some cases for something new. No

that's going to stay there, that

anger will stay within them even if

they've gone home. A lot of them are

young and under 30. Some Arab states

have found out that if you alienate

those people and don't give them

what they want, it can be a very

serious problem for a regime. Now,

The General says that something has

ended, but perhaps he's wrong.

Perhaps something has just started.

We shall see. Jeremy, thank you.

A brief look at some

of the day's other news stories.

Six people are being held

on suspicion of being members

of the banned far right group,

National Action.

They were arrested in raids

across England and are being

questioned by officers

from the West Midlands force.

National Action was banned

by the Government in 2016.

A homeless man who was hailed

as a "hero" for helping those

injured in the Manchester Arena

bombing has pleaded guilty

to stealing from them.

Chris Parker admitted taking a phone

from a teenage girl and a purse

from a woman whose granddaughter lay

dying yards away.

22 people were killed

in the suicide attack last May.

The construction company, Carillion,

is to be investigated

by the financial regulator.

The UK's second biggest construction

company's statements, made

between December 2016 and July last

year, will be examined when the firm

issued a profit warning.

The company's shares have since lost

more than 90% of their value.

An international team of researchers

has unveiled a bionic hand

which enables the person wearing it

to actually feel

what they're touching.

Until now, it has only

ever been used in labs.

But for the first time, it's

being tested out in the real world.

Our medical correspondent,

Fergus Walsh, has been to Rome

to meet the woman who's been

using it to see what difference

it makes to her life.

Here's his exclusive report.

A bionic hand with a sense of touch,

and here's the proof.

Blindfolded, Almarina Mascarello

knows whether what she's

holding is soft or hard.

She gets it right every time.

Over lunch, she told me that nearly

25 years after losing her hand

in a factory accident,

it's almost like it's back again.

TRANSLATION:

The feeling

is spontaneous, as if it

were your real hand.

You're finally able to do things

that before were difficult,

like getting dressed,

putting on shoes.

All mundane, but important things.

You feel complete.

The world's first feeling bionic

hand, given to this Danish man,

never left the lab, the technology

was just too bulky.

Now nearly four years on,

it is portable, allowing Almarina

to go back to her hobby

of car mechanics.

All the electronics

are in her rucksack.

Here's how it works.

Sensors in the fingertips

are linked to a computer,

this converts the signals

into a language the brain

will understand.

The information is relayed to it

via tiny electrodes implanted

in nerves in Almarina's upper arm.

This represents a significant

advance in neuro prosthetics,

the interface between machine

and the human body.

The next patient won't need

to have a rucksack to carry these

electronics because they're

going to be miniaturised

and implanted under the skin,

and the team here are hoping to do

the same with a bionic leg,

which will have pressure

sensors in the foot.

Engineers, computer scientists

and surgeons from several

countries are involved

in this EU-funded research.

A truly human-like bionic hand

is still decades away,

but the team here think

it will happen.

You see that we are going more

and more in the direction

of science fiction movies,

like Star Wars, Luke Skywalker

after the amputation of the hand.

So a fully controlled,

fully natural, fully sensorised.

Prosthesis very similar,

identical to the human hand.

Since we filmed with Almarina, she's

had to give back her bionic hand

because it's still in the research

stage, but she says when it's

commercialised in a few years,

she wants the feeling bionic hand

back for good.

Fergus Walsh, BBC News, Rome.

The bloody civil war in Yemen

has claimed thousands

of lives and driven millions

to the brink of starvation.

The current crisis started three

years ago when Houthi rebels took

control of parts of the country.

Last year Yemen was hit by

the world's worst cholera outbreak.

Now diphtheria - not widely seen

in the country for 30

years - has returned.

The BBC's Nawal Al Maghafi travelled

to the remote village of Beit al

Haboob where more than 40 people

have contracted the deadly,

yet preventable, disease.

Hidden between mountains,

Beit al Haboob has mostly been

spared the violence of Yemen's civil

war, but not its consequences.

The people in this isolated village,

halfway between the warring

cities of Sanaa and Aden,

have endured starvation,

cholera, have had no

schools and no healthcare.

Now they face a new and entirely

preventable threat.

14-year-old Raqma has diphtheria,

a bacterial infection of the throat.

If left untreated, it

can kill within days.

It's been virtually eradicated

in most of the world,

but has now come to Yemen.

TRANSLATION:

At first

she had a really bad fever,

then someone in the village died.

Suddenly, a second person

died from a sore throat.

My daughter was terrified, she said,

"Mum, my whole throat is white."

It was so scary.

This is what it looked like.

TRANSLATION:

When I see my

children helpless and sick,

it breaks my heart.

My daughter will die and we have

nothing to treat her with.

The outbreak was made worse

by a blockade imposed

by Saudi Arabia, which delayed

medicines getting in.

Off camera the villagers,

who we didn't film for their own

safety, told me the supplies that

did make it here were taken

by the Houthi rebels

who control this area.

As ever, it's the ordinary

Yemenis who suffer.

TRANSLATION:

Because the nurses

and doctors didn't get paid

for months, they closed the local

clinic and left.

That's why all these

diseases spread - cholera,

diphtheria and many others.

The nearest hospital is an hour's

drive, the villagers can't

afford to get there.

Can you show me maybe one

of the patients that came yesterday?

Yes, I can show you.

Diphtheria's spread

through the air, which is why it's

transmitted so easily.

Sandra, from the aid organisation

MSF, introduces me 10-year-old

Zainab, who's finally on the mend.

TRANSLATION:

This war has

starved us of everything.

We must fight for food,

water and medicine.

Now, we have nothing.

God help us, this crisis,

this war, it needs to end.

It has starved us and made

us ill with disease.

We've been resilient,

but now we can't handle any more.

Enough is enough.

This war has brought

Yemen to its knees -

air strikes, starvation,

now disease.

The people here say all

they have left is prayer.

Nawal Al Maghafi, BBC News,

Beit al Haboob, Yemen.

At least 48 people have been killed

in Peru after a coach plummeted down

a 100 metre cliff near the capital

Lima.

55 people were on board the bus,

which landed upside down

on a deserted beach.

The accident happened

on the notorious Devil's Turn bend

of the Pacific coastal road.

The problem of plastics

and the impact they're having

on our planet is a subject we've

been exploring this week.

According to a recent study,

95% of plastic pollution

in the world's oceans comes

from just ten rivers.

One of them is the Ganges in India.

Our correspondent, Sanjoy Majumder,

reports from the banks

of the holy city of Varanasi.

This looks like a drain carrying

sewage, but it's actually

a tributary of the Ganges.

The waste along its banks choking

and contaminating one

of the world's greatest rivers.

Every day wrappers, bottles,

cups and other plastic

waste is deposited here,

slowly sliding into the water

and then eventually

flowing into the Ganges.

For centuries some of India's

greatest cities have been

built along its banks,

Varanasi the oldest one of them.

It's only when you come

to the ancient city of Varanasi that

you realise how this mighty river,

that's so central to the Hindu

faith, that sustains the lives

and beliefs of nearly half a billion

people, is as polluted as it is.

The Ganges is more than a river

to Indians, it is sacred to Hindus

who pray and worship along its banks

and cremate their dead in it.

From the time it flows out

of the icy heights of the Himalayas,

until it gets here, its crystal

clear waters give way to a fetid,

muddy flow contaminated

by the millions who live

along its banks.

Five generations of Sanjit's

family have lived along

the Ganges in Varanasi,

living witnesses to its

gradual degradation.

TRANSLATION:

There is an old saying

here that the Ganges

belongs to everyone.

You are free to do what you want,

throw what you want,

cremate dead bodies,

bathe, wash and you'll

achieve salvation.

But we are being irresponsible,

we do not have the right to pollute

the Ganges this way.

Three years ago the Indian

government pledged more

than £2 billion to clean up

the Ganges, but much of the money

remains unspent and the focus in any

case is on treating sewage

and industrial effluents.

So the only people trying

to prevent plastic waste

being dumped into the river

are these scrap pickers.

TRANSLATION:

Every day we pick up

about 10 to 20 kilos of plastic.

We have to sift through the rubbish

and segregate the plastic.

It is estimated that every year

1.2 billion pounds of plastic waste

is dumped into the Ganges,

much of it carried into the Bay

of Bengal where the river

eventually empties out.

Sanjoy Majumder, BBC News, Varanasi.

Football, and in the Premier League

Arsenal and Chelsea have drawn

after a tense game at the Emirates

Stadium.

Chelsea were ahead with just minutes

to go, but Arsenal's Hector Bellerin

snatched a late equaliser

in injury-time to leave the final

result at 2-2.

2017 was a great year

for the music industry.

Across the UK, the amount of music

we bought, streamed and downloaded

rose at its fastest rate

since the 1990s.

And home-grown artists,

like Ed Sheeran, accounted for eight

out of ten of last year's

best selling albums.

It's not just digital downloads,

there's been a vinyl revival too.

Our consumer affairs correspondent,

Nina Warhurst, reports.

2018 is set to be big

for Francis Lung, releasing his

first album on Manchester's

buzzing music scene.

Because of the internet,

he doesn't need the backing

of a big label to be heard.

I've got the power to put it online

immediately and everybody

that is waiting for it can hear it.

Whereas before, I would have to wait

for someone to give me permission,

wait for somebody to tell me that

it's good enough for

other people to hear.

Last year we streamed more music

than ever, 68 billion songs,

the equivalent of more

than 1,00 each.

-- 1,000.

Father Christmas brought it,

and that's Elbow...

Perhaps more surprising

is how the tables have

turned with vinyl records,

as some who'd flirted with digital

returned to their first love.

Just the beauty of having

the record in your hand,

I think and looking after it,

making sure it doesn't

get scratched.

So you like physically holding it?

Physically holding it, looking

at the artwork on the covers,

maybe reading the song lyrics

as you're listening.

Vinyl sales were up an astonishing

26% on the year before

with 4 million records sold.

# Now my bedsheets smell like you #.

And the shape of the British

music industry was helped

by one Ed Sheeran.

For the thirteenth year

in a row, the number one

artist was home-grown.

Today's news is encouraging

for studios like this one

in Manchester, which is home

to a small record label, but there's

still what's termed a value gap.

That is a disparity

between the amount of music that's

being listened to and the amount

of money that that's

generating for the industry.

We're getting a bit too used

to getting music for next to nothing

and that isn't really the value

of the music.

The music is somebody's life's work.

And if the business model

that we currently have

continues, artists are paying

the price of that.

So artists like Francis Lung

won't be singing from

the rooftops just yet.

But our willingness to spend more

on music as times get tighter does

give the industry a little something

to dance about.

Nina Warhurst, BBC

News, in Manchester.

Newsnight is coming up

on BBC Two, here's Emily.

Tonight we're live in America,

as we talk to Steve Bannon's

right-hand man about his spat

with Donald Trump.

And we ask the Health Secretary

why he's continually

missed his own NHS targets.