:00:04. > :00:07.hour: Reports from South Korea of a man made magnitude 4.9 earthquake
:00:07. > :00:11.may be the first sign that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un,
:00:11. > :00:15.has carried out his promised further nuclear tests. The US and
:00:16. > :00:19.its allies have warned of significant allies if the North
:00:19. > :00:22.went ahead. Pope Benedict has announced he will step down at the
:00:22. > :00:29.end of the month becoming the first head of the Catholic Church to
:00:29. > :00:33.and he says he no longer has the strength of mind and body to fulfil
:00:33. > :00:37.his duties. There's speculation the next Pope maybe from Latin America.
:00:37. > :00:41.The Netherlands is the next country to investigate whether horsemeat is
:00:41. > :00:45.being sold as beef. Dutch authorities have ordered an
:00:45. > :00:54.investigation. The Food Safety Authority uncovered a possible link
:00:54. > :00:58.to the European supply chain for frozen ready meals.
:00:58. > :01:02.In more NHS hospital trusts in England are to be investigated over
:01:02. > :01:05.concerns about higher than expected death rates in the past two years.
:01:05. > :01:11.This is in response to a damning report in failures at Stafford
:01:11. > :01:14.hospital, where hundreds died from poor care. Investigations into five
:01:14. > :01:18.other hospitals were announced last week. Two men have been charged in
:01:18. > :01:22.connection with the death of a police woman whose patrol car was
:01:22. > :01:26.struck by a stolen vehicle in Londonderry. Constable Philippa
:01:26. > :01:29.Reynolds was killed when her unmarked car collided with another
:01:30. > :01:39.on Saturday morning. Shane Frane and Conor Clarence were remanded in
:01:39. > :01:44.custody until next month. Now on BBC News it's time for HARDtalk.
:01:44. > :01:48.The government of Guatemala or has promised to tackle the high murder
:01:48. > :01:52.rate of a country living under the threat of gangs, organised crime
:01:52. > :01:56.and drug traffickers. Some have expressed fears it could become a
:01:56. > :02:00.narco state, with state institutions that are weak or
:02:00. > :02:05.corrupted by criminal activity. When President Ballina took office
:02:05. > :02:10.just over a year ago he said the war on drugs has failed, and it's
:02:10. > :02:14.time to consider decriminalising them. My guest today on HARDtalk is
:02:14. > :02:24.the newly-appointed Foreign Minister of Guatemala, Fernando
:02:24. > :02:36.
:02:36. > :02:40.For Fernando Carrera, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you very much for
:02:40. > :02:44.your invitation. How can a president of a country that has
:02:44. > :02:50.suffered tremendously from drugs now says he wants to see a be
:02:50. > :02:53.regulated drugs market. What we have said so far is not exactly a
:02:53. > :03:01.proposal of how to solve the drugs problem in the world. We have said
:03:01. > :03:07.we should move beyond the war on drugs. And also the prohibition
:03:07. > :03:11.side of it. What we have said is that we should start a global talk
:03:11. > :03:17.on how to change the policy approach to this. The war on drugs
:03:17. > :03:22.has failed, that's very obvious, because the objectives that we have
:03:22. > :03:27.tried to reach over the last 50 years have not been reached. Why do
:03:27. > :03:31.you say that? Statistics, as simple as that. We have very high drug
:03:31. > :03:39.consumption in the world. We have very high levels of the illicit
:03:39. > :03:46.trade. And money laundering and weapons have increased. Few would
:03:46. > :03:50.disagree that the war on drugs has not delivered. But does that mean
:03:50. > :03:54.that the war on drugs is taking the wrong approach? Maybe the policies
:03:55. > :03:59.are right but they have not been implemented probably. That may be
:03:59. > :04:03.the case for 30 years maybe, but not for 50 years. The whole
:04:03. > :04:09.approach of having the idea of the prohibition of drugs, some say Paul
:04:09. > :04:14.Groves, that is the wrong idea. US embassy in Guatemala issued a
:04:14. > :04:18.statement i statement iy last year when the debate started. They said,
:04:18. > :04:22.the case of Colombia shows that strong multilateral commitment to
:04:22. > :04:29.combat narco trafficking and transnational criminal activity can
:04:29. > :04:32.succeed. Violent deaths in Colombia fell by half between 2002 and 2011.
:04:32. > :04:37.With similar political will, other governments can have the same
:04:37. > :04:43.success. Colombia has taken the right steps, and it's bringing
:04:43. > :04:47.results. But not bringing results in reducing drug trafficking.
:04:47. > :04:55.it has brought down violent deaths. The war on drugs is not to reduce,
:04:55. > :05:00.sides, it is to reduce drug consumption. -- homicides. But so
:05:01. > :05:04.much criminal activity is a related to drug abuse. There is a link
:05:04. > :05:09.between drugs and criminal activity and the detrimental effect it has
:05:09. > :05:16.on the country. Colombia is being held up as an example of how to
:05:16. > :05:20.tackle its. That's what I am saying. What is the end? -- tackle it. If
:05:20. > :05:27.it is the reduction of murders we are doing exactly what we want to
:05:27. > :05:33.do in the last three years, we have gone from 40 in 1000 to less than
:05:33. > :05:38.28 this year. We will continue to reduce homicides as the same trend
:05:38. > :05:43.as Colombia has followed -- in the. But what are we trying to do with
:05:43. > :05:48.the war on drugs? Reduce, sides? No. We want to reduce drug consumption
:05:48. > :05:51.all over the world and that's not happening. I will pursue this a bit
:05:51. > :05:56.more because your view here, and the view of the government, is out
:05:57. > :06:00.of step with the region. The new president of Mexico, Enrique
:06:00. > :06:04.Pennetta, said last year, "It is clear that after several years of
:06:04. > :06:09.the fight against drug trafficking we do have more drug consumption
:06:09. > :06:19.and trafficking. But is the state's task to go back to the rule of law
:06:19. > :06:20.
:06:20. > :06:25.and enforce rules strictly in our One week ago he was... What
:06:25. > :06:28.happened clearly in Santiago, when he was there, five countries in
:06:29. > :06:34.Latin America said they had to discuss drug policy. It is not
:06:34. > :06:39.because it is working, it is because it is failing. It is. But
:06:39. > :06:45.everybody agrees it is failing. Your president at Davos took the
:06:45. > :06:49.stage with the financier, and they both said, things are not working
:06:50. > :06:53.will stop but they don't know how to tackle the problem. They say yes
:06:53. > :06:57.it is not working but they don't know what to-do. A lot of people
:06:57. > :07:01.say, the Americans in particular, that you have got to enforce your
:07:02. > :07:07.laws more strictly. It is a failure of enforcement, not the actual
:07:07. > :07:11.policy. Actually it is not a question of enforcement that we
:07:11. > :07:17.need to follow. The legal system has to be strengthened. That is
:07:17. > :07:21.something we need to work too. I don't think the question of the war
:07:21. > :07:25.on drugs or not the war on drugs should lead us to a different
:07:25. > :07:29.approach. We need to strengthen the legal system. That is part of the
:07:29. > :07:33.general problem. We will talk about that in a moment. We're talking
:07:34. > :07:39.about decriminalising the use of drugs. That's essentially what
:07:39. > :07:43.you're President is saying he wants. We won the deregulation of the
:07:43. > :07:47.drugs markets, that's the whole thing. -- we want. There are two
:07:47. > :07:55.approaches here. The current approach says everything should be
:07:55. > :08:01.prohibited. We should continue prohibiting all drugs. The only way
:08:01. > :08:07.we can tackle the problem is through the legal system, that is
:08:07. > :08:12.the current approach. Let's put it this way, it is a problem of
:08:12. > :08:16.criminal justice. What we're saying, as many others are, it is not a
:08:16. > :08:19.problem of criminal justice. It is a health problem. You need to
:08:19. > :08:23.tackle it with health policies rather than criminal justice
:08:23. > :08:26.activities. What's more important than anything is we're not saying
:08:26. > :08:31.we need to free the market and allow everything to be distributed
:08:31. > :08:36.and consumed, we say we need to regulate the market. There are
:08:36. > :08:40.things we can do to regulate the market which will help us to reduce
:08:40. > :08:46.drug consumption, and reduce violence, and also reduced the size
:08:46. > :08:49.of the illegal markets -- reduce. Few people would disagree with the
:08:49. > :08:55.fact that you can carry out preventativ preventativp
:08:56. > :08:59.drug use and approach it as a health problem. The United States
:08:59. > :09:03.in 2010 put in something like $10 billion into its programme to try
:09:03. > :09:06.to stop people using drugs. It has done this kind of thing over the
:09:06. > :09:11.years and over the last three decades, the use of drugs has gone
:09:11. > :09:15.down by over a third. That's not particularly controversial but what
:09:15. > :09:20.is, and difficult for people to accept, is you say decriminalise
:09:20. > :09:25.the use of drugs. In Portugal, which has done this in 2000, and
:09:25. > :09:29.they say if people are carrying a few grams of cannabis for their own
:09:29. > :09:34.use, we're not going to penalise them. They will say, that's okay.
:09:34. > :09:38.But you know what has happened in Portugal? The use has gone up.
:09:38. > :09:45.went up for the first three years and then it went down and then it
:09:45. > :09:49.went up. It was a whole trend. me just say... When we allow
:09:49. > :09:57.alcohol to be consumed in the US, in the first few years there was
:09:57. > :10:02.and how our -- an increase. scientist at Stanford University in
:10:02. > :10:06.the US has gone on and done a study in Portugal. He says when you
:10:06. > :10:11.decriminalise the use goes up potentially dramatically. You see a
:10:11. > :10:20.doubling of cocaine and heroin use. It's inevitable more people will
:10:20. > :10:27.get hurt. That's a very clear example. The whole problem is that
:10:27. > :10:32.the war on drugs makes us treat the drugs in the same way. It is not
:10:32. > :10:37.all drugs in Portugal decriminalised. The possession of
:10:37. > :10:42.cocaine is still illegal. We're talking about cannabis, which is
:10:42. > :10:48.very specific. The use is what I described, it went down and up and
:10:48. > :10:54.now it is going up again. That is what happened in the US when they
:10:54. > :10:58.legalised in the Thirties and Forties. What we have to study is
:10:58. > :11:02.the type of consumption that we are dealing with. With cocaine, maybe
:11:02. > :11:07.it's a different story. We need to look at the effects on human health
:11:07. > :11:11.and also the effects on the human condition in general. If it
:11:11. > :11:16.produces more criminal activity or less criminal activity. For example
:11:16. > :11:21.for cannabis users, there's very little criminal activity related.
:11:21. > :11:25.But for cocaine users, there's a higher level of that. Not just
:11:25. > :11:31.cocaine but also some derivations from cocaine that could be damaging
:11:31. > :11:35.for people's health. The President has said categorically since he
:11:35. > :11:39.became President 14 months ago that he wants to see a de Regulation,
:11:39. > :11:43.whatever you want to call it, not exactly legalisation and so on. But
:11:43. > :11:47.it sounds like he's making these statements without very clear
:11:47. > :11:51.evidence or a very clear study of what's going on. It sounds like he
:11:51. > :11:54.has made up his mind. He's not initiating a debate but he is
:11:54. > :11:59.saying this is what he thinks should happen because the war on
:11:59. > :12:03.Drax has failed. What do you think of this? -- drugs. There are
:12:03. > :12:07.studies that are saying what we have done so far is not working and
:12:07. > :12:11.that we should look at other options. But he is saying de
:12:11. > :12:18.regulation? The word we are using is the de regulation of trucks
:12:18. > :12:24.markets. -- drugs markets. That is what has been said, that is what
:12:24. > :12:32.was said in Santiago and also Kata Hayne year last year. Are also at
:12:32. > :12:40.the General Assembly. Is that not a bit ambiguous? It is not the
:12:40. > :12:45.regulation or prohibition, it is something in between. Either
:12:45. > :12:51.prohibitionists or the free trade approach people should win. We want
:12:51. > :12:54.regulation, it is a Third Way, combining both things. Some things
:12:54. > :12:59.will be allowed and some things will be decriminalised. What will
:13:00. > :13:04.be allowed? I will give you an example, cannabis. It should almost
:13:04. > :13:11.completely be deregulated. People say it is a gateway to heavier
:13:11. > :13:18.drugs. That is another discussion. The evidence is out there. That's
:13:18. > :13:22.what we have. The gateway for heavier drugs in most countries is
:13:22. > :13:27.not cannabis, it is alcohol actually. Are we going to prohibit
:13:27. > :13:33.alcohol? Are you saying Guatemala wants to see cannabis bought and
:13:33. > :13:38.sold freely and regulated? There's a regulation for that. As we have a
:13:38. > :13:44.regulation for tobacco or alcohol. You have regulated marijuana Fields,
:13:44. > :13:47.is that basically it? The production. The legal production of
:13:47. > :13:52.marijuana and regulated distribution and trade is the same
:13:52. > :13:58.as with alcohol. We don't prohibit sugar-cane, okay? But we produce
:13:58. > :14:04.our Carl and run out of it and we don't prohibit potatoes. -- alcohol.
:14:04. > :14:08.You put cannabis on the same level as our car? Yes, the damage is the
:14:09. > :14:14.same. -- as alcohol. But some studies say that it has more of an
:14:14. > :14:20.impact? I have read enough about these studies! But the professor I
:14:20. > :14:25.spoke about said this. If the US embassy in Guatemala, contributing
:14:25. > :14:29.to the debate you started in your country, said suppose what if the
:14:29. > :14:32.trafficking and use of illegal drugs were decriminalised tomorrow
:14:32. > :14:35.in Central America. They say transnational criminal
:14:35. > :14:41.organisations and gangs would continue to engage in illicit
:14:41. > :14:44.activity, including people trafficking, arms, extortion,
:14:44. > :14:49.kidnapping, theft of international property and money laundering.
:14:49. > :14:55.Crime could increase as drugs cartels shift their forms to other
:14:55. > :15:01.forms of illicit activities -- focus. That is what we are doing.
:15:01. > :15:07.Criminal activities have increased. Illicit drug traffickers are not
:15:08. > :15:12.going to become saints overnight? Your position and what is being
:15:12. > :15:15.said about the US embassy is what is happening now. The result is
:15:15. > :15:20.already there. I don't know why changing the approach would work.
:15:20. > :15:24.They say it would increase crime. What is the point in opening this
:15:25. > :15:28.debate when you know the US is opposed to this kind of move? Joe
:15:28. > :15:32.Biden, the vice-president said in March last year, "A debate is
:15:32. > :15:37.legitimate but you realise there's more problems with legalisation and
:15:37. > :15:47.with none legalisation". I know that's not what you're saying but
:15:47. > :15:59.
:15:59. > :16:05.President Obama after these moves from Joe Biden was saying that we
:16:05. > :16:10.need to be cautious of this. He went to five countries and heard
:16:10. > :16:16.him say that you have to discuss these policies. Listening to that,
:16:16. > :16:21.President Obama said that we should agree on the studies. What are the
:16:21. > :16:28.options we have? We're going to have a general assembly of the
:16:28. > :16:33.organisation in Guatemala. We are recommendations. The debate has
:16:33. > :16:38.already started. Do you think, for one President said that the US
:16:38. > :16:42.might change his mind. As Obama enters his second term, he could
:16:42. > :16:52.change his mind. There will be a process towards regulation. Is that
:16:52. > :16:53.
:16:53. > :17:03.what to think? We should discuss options. But the West specifically?
:17:03. > :17:04.
:17:04. > :17:12.Colorado, Washington State just legalised not just medical
:17:12. > :17:17.consumption. A but also personal use? And enjoyment. They have
:17:17. > :17:22.legalised that in the West. Some states. Two states. That is already
:17:22. > :17:26.a major step. But when President Obama still said in April last year,
:17:26. > :17:30.if we have a large-scale dominating drug trade in countries and they
:17:30. > :17:36.are allowed to operate legally, it could be just as corrupting if not
:17:36. > :17:39.more corrupting than the status quo. America does not seem to be moving
:17:39. > :17:46.towards regulation. There are signs we are receiving from the White
:17:46. > :17:53.House. There has been an evolution. They were thinking that we were
:17:53. > :17:58.trying to say, let us legalise everything. We have never said that.
:17:58. > :18:03.We are not saying that. They have opened their ears to another
:18:03. > :18:08.approach. That is trying to find a common balance. Would they want to
:18:08. > :18:13.describe and what President Obama said very clearly is that we have
:18:13. > :18:18.strict evidence that some of the options are not possible. We're
:18:18. > :18:23.open to listen to that. The reason that Guatemala is very keen to take
:18:23. > :18:27.the lead in this debate is sadly because your country has really
:18:27. > :18:36.suffered from the drug trade. A not just our country, but the whole of
:18:36. > :18:43.Latin America. But as Mexico and Colombia have tightened up their
:18:43. > :18:48.act and as we see gangs moving from Mexico to Guatemala, Guatemala has
:18:48. > :18:52.become a major transit point. Particularly for cocaine smuggling.
:18:52. > :19:00.Something like 400 tons of cocaine transported from Guatemala every
:19:00. > :19:04.year. I am saying it does not come to Guatemala from nowhere. It comes
:19:05. > :19:11.from Colomb from Colomb all the way around Central America up
:19:11. > :19:16.to Mexico into the United States. When it crosses the Rio Grande
:19:16. > :19:20.border, it is not illicit drugs. It is just drugs. That is a funny
:19:20. > :19:27.thing. We have illicit trade coming all the way from Peru to Mexico.
:19:27. > :19:32.Once he gets into the US, there are no gangs are organised crime. It is
:19:32. > :19:36.something that we question. We have an entire trade problem that stops
:19:36. > :19:43.and the West. It starts in modern countries and it moves into the
:19:43. > :19:53.south. We're caught in the middle. You are caught in the middle, but
:19:53. > :20:02.Guatemala is a paradise for criminal activity. We have captured
:20:02. > :20:05.people. I'll give the evidence. President says that drug
:20:05. > :20:09.traffickers have been able to penetrate institutions in this
:20:09. > :20:13.country by employing the resources and money. We're talking about
:20:13. > :20:20.security forces, prosecutors and judges. This is your own President
:20:20. > :20:24.saying there has been this infiltration. We are moving. This
:20:24. > :20:29.is the photograph of where we are today. In the past three years we
:20:29. > :20:33.have been able to achieve certain things. We have been able to reform
:20:33. > :20:37.the police so that we have was corruption in the system. We have
:20:37. > :20:44.tried to strengthen the Attorney- General's Office so that
:20:44. > :20:49.prosecution becomes protected from corruption. The third person that
:20:49. > :20:55.is working on this is the Ministry of government -- Minister of
:20:55. > :20:59.Interior Security. He is using all of his power. We are getting
:20:59. > :21:06.control of certain things. Four of the major drug cartel leaders have
:21:06. > :21:11.been put in prison. We are really strengthening the system. The scale
:21:11. > :21:19.of the problem is enormous. 40% of your territory is in the hands of
:21:19. > :21:24.the criminal gangs. We have what we call corridors. They do not control
:21:24. > :21:31.large territories. They control certain corridors. That is where
:21:31. > :21:35.they have drugs or illegal roads. That is what they used to traffic.
:21:35. > :21:44.We are a transit place. We do not produce or consume drugs. We are a
:21:44. > :21:49.transit place. It looks like there is chaos. There is no chaos. I am
:21:49. > :21:54.not saying there is chaos. But for example if you look at the words of
:21:54. > :21:58.someone from the book institute from the vice-president of Costa
:21:58. > :22:03.Rica, you would know that he wrote that Guatemala is in between a rock
:22:03. > :22:07.and a hard place. He only wrote this in September 2011. He said he
:22:07. > :22:14.was time to shed the pretext that Guatemala's institutions will be
:22:14. > :22:18.able to prevent the country from becoming a narcotics state. That is
:22:18. > :22:24.a discussion I have had. The question is how we protect the
:22:24. > :22:30.legal system and the democratic system from corruption and illicit
:22:30. > :22:34.drugs. That comes from political campaigns on the one hand. Not only
:22:34. > :22:43.at the national level, but at the local level. Countries where there
:22:43. > :22:48.is trafficking or potential trafficking. Local authorities.
:22:48. > :22:58.Also the question about what you are describing. And that culture of
:22:58. > :22:58.
:22:58. > :23:03.impunity. 90% of crimes are not punished in Guatemala. It is from a
:23:03. > :23:08.low base. I have been to Guatemala. You can go into cafe and you will
:23:08. > :23:12.see an armed guard. Private security guards outnumber the state
:23:12. > :23:17.police by seven to one. You have got bus drivers in their hundreds
:23:18. > :23:23.been killed because they have to pay extortionists. You have got a
:23:23. > :23:30.huge problem on your hands there. We are trying to diminish the size
:23:30. > :23:35.of the challenge. Where are you moving to? In the past three years
:23:35. > :23:41.we have been applying things. presidency is that she wants 10,000
:23:41. > :23:47.more police and 2,500 more military troops. Have you got those already?
:23:47. > :23:54.The work started this year. We thought we had a number of police
:23:54. > :23:59.that was close to 25,000. It was less. Once we started to clean up
:23:59. > :24:07.the police, the number of police went down. That is where we started
:24:07. > :24:12.to get trips. We know the solution is not to give the military. The
:24:12. > :24:17.solution in the long-term is to strengthen the police. We are
:24:17. > :24:24.increasing the number. We have already founded a police academy
:24:24. > :24:29.that did not exist. They have basic training for police. Now we are
:24:29. > :24:32.trying to develop the police academy for the higher ranks. The
:24:32. > :24:38.way are you going to get the money to do all of this? Guatemala has
:24:38. > :24:43.not been a proper functioning state. Only 11% of your GDP comes from
:24:43. > :24:48.taxation. You have a population of about 15 million, 53% living in
:24:48. > :24:51.poverty. Large parts of the country have no investment. The state is
:24:51. > :24:55.not functioning polling. Is a country turning a po
:24:55. > :25:02.you're going to start collecting money and have proper investment?
:25:02. > :25:08.By all means, that is what we did last year. The tax reform will
:25:08. > :25:14.increase. It will increase the capacity 1.5% of GDP. That will
:25:14. > :25:20.allow us to expand security functions. Are you turning a point?
:25:20. > :25:25.This is what we are moving towards. A few weeks ago there was an
:25:25. > :25:35.article that expressed that we are moving towards a different approach.
:25:35. > :25:48.
:25:48. > :25:53.A different scenario. Thank you for Later this week it will be getting
:25:53. > :25:57.brighter. Later this week it will be milder. We are not there yet.
:25:57. > :26:01.Between now and then, some of us will deal with more snow. Not so
:26:01. > :26:04.much in the day ahead. It is pretty quiet. Plenty of dry winter,
:26:04. > :26:09.despite the cloud. From the cloud across southern areas, parts of
:26:09. > :26:12.Wales and Northern Ireland, still a few light sleet and snow flurries.
:26:12. > :26:19.There are some wintry showers to the north-east of the United
:26:19. > :26:22.Kingdom. The Midlands is likely to be cold and grey to start the day.
:26:22. > :26:25.Across north-east England and eastern Scotland, right across the
:26:25. > :26:32.coast, some sleet and showers. Probably coldest across the
:26:32. > :26:40.Highlands. The best of the brightness in western Scotland. A
:26:40. > :26:43.good deal of cloud. Across parts of Wales into parts of south-west
:26:43. > :26:50.England and southern England generally, where the cloud is
:26:50. > :26:54.thickest you may encounter some of those sleet and snow flurries. It
:26:54. > :26:58.is a cold feel. The cold enhanced is a cold feel. The cold enhanced
:26:58. > :27:05.by that cloud cover. Particularly where you have got some lying snow
:27:05. > :27:09.from the start of the week. That is how it is to begin the day. As we
:27:09. > :27:12.go on through the day, there is no dramatic change. The best of the
:27:12. > :27:15.sunshine will come through in western Scotland. Most will keep a
:27:15. > :27:22.good deal of cloud. Some of these wintery showers towards the north-
:27:22. > :27:26.east. With all that could across us, it does not do anything for the
:27:26. > :27:34.temperature. Tuesday evening, there may be some more generous breaks in
:27:34. > :27:42.the cloud. We will get some cold weather. Temperatures in towns and
:27:42. > :27:46.cities close to freezing. Plenty of cold air in place as Wednesday
:27:46. > :27:52.begins. Another weather system comes in from the Atlantic. Running
:27:52. > :28:01.into the cold air, we could see some snow. Snow building up as far
:28:01. > :28:05.south as the Midlands later in the day. The most significant snow will
:28:06. > :28:08.be in Scotland. Significant snow drifting on the strong winds in
:28:08. > :28:12.Scotland. Eventually that wet weather will get in. It does