20/03/2018 BBC World News America

This is BBC World News America...

Reporting from Washington,

I'm Laura Trevelyan.

A fifth package explodes in Texas.

Is it linked

to the bombs in Austin?

The President vows to track

down those responsible.

These are sick people

and we will get to the bottom of it.

Meanwhile the Saudi crown prince is

welcomed to the White House by the

president. The two speak on rising

tensions with Iran.

And...

The last male northern white rhino

in the world is gone,

leaving his daughter

and granddaughter as the only

ones of their kind.

Welcome to our viewers on public

television in America

and around the globe.

A small bomb exploded in a FedEx

facility near San Antonio this

morning. The fifth this month. No

one was injured in the latest blast,

but the death toll remains at two.

Hundreds of federal agents

are now in the state,

trying to find out who could be

behind these incidents and why.

Our correspondent Gary

O Donoghue reports.

It's becoming an all too

familiar sight in Texas.

Another explosion, the fifth

since the beginning of the

month.

Police were called to this FedEx

distribution centre around midnight,

after a bomb exploded

on a conveyor belt.

No one was injured.

Investigators were saying very

little about the details.

But were trying to

reassure the public.

Safety is our number one priority.

We have agents from

across the country.

We have our national

response team here.

We've got canine explosive

detection canines here.

We have Intel research specialists.

We are working hand-in-hand

with our FBI partners,

state and local permits.

--state and local partners.

Sources have told local media

that the bomb contained shrapnel

and nails, something the police

are waiting to confirm

on the record.

The uncertainty is creating

understandable anxiety.

Is it going to happen again?

Where, when, why?

Who, who is doing this?

I don't know.

Very scary situation.

At the White House, meeting

the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,

the president had strong words

for the situation in Texas.

What's going on in Austin,

a great place, tremendous place,

is absolutely disgraceful.

So we have a lot

of power over there.

We are looking, it

is not easy to find.

But these are sick people

and we have to find them

as soon as possible.

The resources going into this

investigation are significant.

There are hundreds of agents

on the ground, trying to determine

some kind of motive.

But still, it appears

the police have little by way

of significant leads.

In the meantime, Texas

holds its breath for

further possible attacks.

Gary O Donoghue, BBC News, Austin.

For more on this, my colleague

Katty Kay spoke to former FBI

Assistant Director Ron Hosko

a short time ago, for her

programme Beyond 100 Days.

Ron, this is a really curious case,

what is happening down in Texas.

What is your read on it?

Well, it's very concerning.

First, we've had a round of bombs

that were what sounds

like hand-delivered.

Presumably to targets of the bomber.

Specific targets, presumably

his desired victims.

And a handful of people injured.

And then some relative

silence for a few days.

And now we've had some additional

bombings that have come,

using a different methodology,

not hand-delivered,

but one with a tripwire,

another one put into

FedEx, the delivery

chain for FedEx.

And perhaps some additional ones

that are in the delivery chain

now that are being looked

at by law enforcement.

So the methodology has changed,

we don't know if this object has had

these devices built

already, over time,

or has been stockpiled,

has the additional components

for additional devices.

It is very scary.

You say the subject.

You're assuming that

it is one person.

I am.

You know, if we look

at bombers over time,

they tend to be angry individuals

who have a purpose in mind.

Whether it is, you know,

the Unabomber, certainly

a very solitary person,

very capable, deadly,

going to the killer of Judge Vance

and other bombers,

other bombings in Georgia.

And in the Florida area.

to Eric Robert Rudolph,

the Centennial Park bomber

who also bombed an abortion

provider in Alabama.

These folks tend to

work by themselves.

You don't tend to see

teams of bombers, people

working in concert.

So it remains to be seen.

Maybe there are other

people, and of course

that is what the appeal

is through the media

by the law enforcement now,

for the public to come out and help.

So if you are running this case,

what are the clues that

you are looking at?

Well, first, there are

a couple different channels

going on right now.

One is the forensics of the devices

that they can recover

and the post-blast investigation.

That is very detailed examination

of anything that came out

of the already exploded devices.

They are looking for DNA,

they are looking for fingerprints,

they are looking for essentially

the bomber's signature.

What type of initiation,

what were the explosive components

how is it constructed,

what was the shrapnel.

So they're looking for all that.

They're looking at technology to see

if there's any link to the victims

or intended victims.

And what are you doing to try

and prevent future attacks?

I'm doing what they're doing,

which going to be media.

Recognising that this

is the opportunity for the best

partnership between law enforcement,

through the media, to the public.

They may have 500 agents

on the ground down there,

but that is no match for thousands

and thousands

of eyes of the community,

of a loved one, of a neighbour.

Somebody who sees something

of concern and says,

"You know who did that?

That's my next-door neighbour.

I see him in his garage at night."

So that has to be leveraged,

that is what they're trying to do.

If you see something,

saying something.

Thanks very much for joining us.

You're welcome.

President Trump has welcomed Saudi

Arabia's Crown Prince to the White

House. It was the Crown Prince's

first visit to Washington since

becoming the heir apparent to his

kingdom lasted Jen. The two leaders

discussed tensions with Iran and a

weapon still. President Trump tended

a strong relationship when the US

and Saudi Arabia. For more I spoke

to Brian, a senior fellow for the

centre for American progress.

In the White House today sitting

next to the crown prince.

The president said, "We have become

very for good friends

in a short period of time."

What is driving that?

Well, Trump's strategy

for the Middle East,

most of the roads on the things

he is dealing with my

through it.

The Arab-Israeli peace process,

Iran and the nuclear deal.

As well as counterterrorism.

He has pended his strategy

heavily on Saudi Arabian

and placed a big bet on them.

And it maybe a bet that is

quite shaky and risky

for a number of reasons.

Well, the Crown Prince said

that he would be talking

to the president about the Iran

nuclear deal, which of course

the Saudis really want

the US to pull out of.

How do you think the

conversation will have gone?

Well, I think he probably would have

found a very sympathetic resident.

It looks to me like President Trump

may be moving towards pulling

America out of the deal.

In my view, that

would be a bad move.

It would isolate us

from our friends in Europe.

And China and Russia

who are part of the deal.

And it would probably

weaken our hand.

But I think the Saudi Crown Prince

and President Trump agree on this.

The the Crown Prince is here to tell

us to a story to America, isn't he,

about how he is modernising this

kingdom, women are driving

and so on and so forth.

But is there any concern what you

detect within the administration

about for example, his alleged

crackdown on corruption

in which many of his

opponents were arrested?

There is concern about that,

there is concern about his

conduct of the Yemen war.

There is concern about a blockade

against Qatar that has been

in place for nearly a year.

That is just within

the Trump administration.

And this afternoon, some

in the Senate were considering

a measure to essentially cut off US

military support to the Saudi-led

coalition in Yemen.

So there are a lot of

questions about the Saudi

Arabian America today.

But when it comes to Yemen,

do you think that within

the White House itself there is real

concern about humanitarian crisis?

Which might have been raised

with the Crown Prince?

I don't know if President

addressed it in this

meeting but late last year

he voiced public concerns

about the humanitarian

crisis in Yemen.

Those words of concerns are shared

by people in the Pentagon and parts

of the State Department as well.

Unfortunately President Trump's

posture generally has

been quite passive.

He's offered a blank

check to Saudi Arabia.

And I will be surprised that

if the topic came up,

he brought it up in a way that

would use our leverage.

The Crown Prince is also very close,

isn't he, to be resident's

son-in-law Anna Jared Kushner.

What impact does that relationship

have on how US, Saudi policy is

developing?

In some ways this

relationship is pretty close and it

mirrors the Saudi system. In essence

have a close family member be the

main channel. Unfortunately, this

presents some challenges for some of

the other Cabinet secretaries who

may not be well briefed on what

those conversations Jared Kushner

has had with Mohammed. If the US and

Saudi Arabia really want to build a

stronger foundation for the

relationship they need to actually

institutionalize it and not make it

so focused on the president and his

inner circle.

The president talked a

lot today about the arms sales that

the US is going to make to the

Saudi. Is that now the fulcrum of

the economic relationship?

It is

now. But what I think will be

interesting as I understand the

Crown Prince is going to many cities

around the United States, to

Seattle, to California. And they are

looking to expand what has been a

limited military intelligence and

energy sector basis for the

relationship and expanded to be tech

and other things. Of the arms sales,

that something going on for years

and they far outpaced any other

country that we have sold weapons

to.

Thank you so much for joining

us.

Great, thank you.

Currently the

US military supports the Saudi led

coalition rebels backed by Iran.

Today US lawmakers voted whether to

end US involvement, a motion that

was voted down by the Senate. BBC's

cheap international correspondent

has recently travelled to Yemen to

meet children of the conflict.

We travelled into

meet children of the conflict.

We travelled into Yemen with

meet children of the conflict.

We travelled into Yemen with the

Saudi. They wanted us to see the

suffering being inflicted by their

enemy. They took us to meet these

boys, robbed of their childhood.

Forced to fight alongside grown man.

Children and Yemen are recruited by

all sides. Especially the Houthis.

Passion was 13 when his best friend

was shot dead in front of them.

So many children, so young, have

been dragged into this destructive

war. But even in more, there are

rules. And in Yemen, they are being

broken, time and again by all sides.

These children live in Sana,

the capital controlled by Houthis.

Their families sought refuge

here after their home

was bombed by the Saudis.

Coalition air strikes have

reportedly caused the greatest

number of child casualties.

Six-year-old Lamees

wants them to stop.

There was no place to

hide for Yaya's family.

Five children killed,

only 17-year-old Yaya

and a brother left.

Back in government-held Marib,

these men will always live

with the cost of this conflict.

So often, it's the youngest

to lose the most.

These little boys are being fitted

with prosthetics at this

Saudi funded clinic.

11-year-old Abdullah mistook

a landmine for a toy.

Nine-year-old Ali Youssef

wants to be a goalkeeper

when he grows up, believing this

won't hold him back.

Yemen's conflict has

had a crippling effect

on all its people.

The youngest growing up

knowing nothing but war.

Lyse Doucet, BBC News, Yemen.

The suspended chief executive... He

was sickly reported in a report

broadcast by Channel 4 News in

Britain. Meanwhile US senators are

calling on Facebook to explain how

millions of its users data was mined

by Cambridge Analytica. For more I

spoke a short time ago to our North

America editor. John, what does

deny's report by Channel 4 News

really reveal about the role of

Cambridge Analytica and the Trump

campaign?

You're left with two

choices. Either they are full of hot

air and wind and bravado and making

stuff up among which is not a good

place to be, or they are telling the

truth about their role in the

presidential election campaign of

Donald Trump. In which case I think

potentially they have got a whole

heap of trouble. Now they claim the

whole digital campaign, attack ads,

Crooked Hillary was there they were

saying. The handcuffs. They say they

were the masterminds of all of that.

But also potentially they work were

donating between the term campaign

and some of the so-called superplex,

the supposedly independent bodies

that are meant to have nothing to do

with the campaign. It would be a

bleach domain breach of the

electoral law as there was a

bleeding between the two. That is

the suggestion they have made and

I'm sure Congress will want to look

at that as a side I'm what's a

Donald Trump would not like to

accept that cameras analytical work

responsible. I'm sure Donald Trump

would say I'm response will for my

election victory.

Indeed. There are

many questions from US Senators

today about how exactly Facebook

allowed Cambridge Analytica to get

data on so many millions of Facebook

users.

Yes. Supposedly Facebook are

meant to be meeting congressional

leaders tomorrow. But not Mark

Zuckerberg. I think the thing that

has changed now as it sorry been

written to Facebook saying we want

Zuckerberg here now, as soon as

possible. Facebook have issued a

statement tonight saying look, we're

still horrified that someone could

have accessed our information in

this way and it. I think Facebook

have got some really difficult

questions to answer. Not just to

Congress, but to Wall Street as

well. Where the share prices of

about what Facebook is doing to

protect people's data. And it looks

like there are big, giant holes and

what they have got in place.

Peggy

so much for joining us. You're

watching BBC World News America.

Still to come on tonight's

programme. The long road to recovery

importer Rico. Six months after

Hurricane Maria hit. Residents are

still suffering from the devastation

left behind.

The Brazilian city of Sao Paulo

is one of the most congested

cities in the world.

With more than eight million cars,

travelling just the shortest

distance can take hours.

Daily commutes can be an ordeal.

Traffic jams have been

known to exceed 100km.

But there's a new taxi service

designed to cut the congestion,

and it's making use

of the city's private helicopters.

Our South America correspondent

Katy Watson has more.

These are usually the preserve of

the megarich. A Sao Paulo was to

shake up the city government back.

Richard is giving it a shot. Only

going a few kilometres from the

domestic airport to his office but

it is a journey that on that date

could take over an hour. Order the

topple on your mobile app, and then

head to your nearest helipad. Easy.

The option of taking a fight, taking

a helicopter from a helipad right

next to your office and in five

minutes be in the airport, or let's

say in 15 minutes be in the

international airport. It is just a

huge advantage and it saves a lot of

time. And you can spend more time

here at home with their family or in

the office and productive meetings.

So that is actually valuable.

And

this city, said to have the biggest

fleet of helicopters in the world,

there is plenty of choice. The city

of Sao Paulo has 400 helicopters and

200 helipads. The recent economic

crisis in this country has been

tough on the industry. People have

less money and the demand for

helicopters has fallen. Which is why

using helicopters and more like

taxis is seen but operated as one

way to boost the industry once

again. The aim is to make

helicopters a viable alternative to

road transport. Just over $100, you

can fly to the international

airport. Twice the price of a

regular taxi, but as little of a

tenth of a journey time. For those

with the money, it is tempting. But

they're still the minority. Kate

Zlatan, BBC News in Sao Paulo. --

Katie Robinson.

It has been six months

since Hurricane Maria struck the US

territory of Puerto Rico,

and the island is still

suffering the consequences.

With hundreds of thousands of people

still without power.

In the first of two reports,

the BBC's Aleem Maqbool returned

to Puerto Rico to see how life has

changed and assess the response.

There are sights in Puerto Rico that

make it look like the hurricane

struck just yesterday.

Everyone has a tale of trauma

still fresh in the mind.

"We grabbed what we could

and ran out," she says.

"But everywhere was blocked.

We managed to get up

there and we heard the noise.

The house just came

away and collapsed."

The problem is, in six months,

little has moved on for her.

She and her family run pipes

from a nearby spring to get water

to the abandoned building

where they have been living.

And there is still no power.

So what help have they had

from the American agencies?

"We applied to help but we were told

we weren't entitled to any,"

she says, "we put in an appeal,

but we are still waiting

for an answer."

Puerto Ricans are American citizens.

They can go backwards

and forwards to the US

mainland as they please and,

crucially, they are entitled

to the same disaster response

from Washington as any other

Americans.

You will find very few here

who believe that is what they got.

The family of Raul Jimenez think

he could still be alive if there had

been a more urgent response.

After the storm, the clinic

where he got dialysis

was without electricity.

It meant patients would have

to miss treatments or wait

hours hoping to be seen.

He was in the wheelchair, quiet.

He died.

Died in the line

waiting for treatment?

Died in the line.

Any true count of the number

who were killed by the hurricane

will include people like Raul.

But, until now, the

official figure doesn't.

The government wants to show

some kind of numbers.

But it is not the reality.

They want us to believe

that all is OK.

Under pressure, the government has

ordered a recount of those

killed by Hurricane Maria.

Some estimate the new number

could be nearly 20 times

the original figure and,

all the while, for so many,

the suffering continues.

So much heartbreak after that

hurricane.

The world's last surviving

male northern white

rhino has died in Kenya.

The animal named Sudan was 45

years old and had been

ill for many months.

Now only his daughter

and grandaughter are the only ones

left of the subspecies in the world.

Alastair Leithead has this report.

The gene pool is already small. The

two remaining northern white rhinos

are his daughter and his

granddaughter. The last hope for

this subspecies is an IVF technique

that has never been tried. It would

depend on a circuit southern white

rhino.

There have over the last

three or four years, been attempts

to develop what are referred to as

artificial reproductive techniques,

in particular in vitro fertilisation

to recover this species. It's

massively complex and it is

massively expensive. It has never

been done in rhinos before. So the

chances of it working are probably

fairly remote.

The last of northern

white rhino's seen in the wild were

here in the national park. In a

northern Democratic Republic of

Congo. But that was many years ago.

They were polished as being extinct

in the wild in 2008. An epidemic of

bulging for rhino horn in the 1970s

and 80s wiped out many of these

ancient animals and Central Africa.

And gradually, those in captivity

have died of old age. Sudan had been

sick for some time. That put him

down when it was clear and illness

brought on by old age was causing

him pain. This is where the last two

surviving northern white rhinos

live. And the armed guard 24 hours a

day. Such is the continuing threat

to this endangered species. There

are now just 30,000 rhinos left on

the planet. Sudan was unusual of his

kind because he died of old age. BBC

News, in northern Kenya.

The last of the male white rhinos.

I'm Laura Trevelyan.

Thank you for watching

World News America.