21/03/2014 Newsnight

There may have been new clues but after two weeks still no answers to

what happened to flight MH370. The search efforts of more than 20

countries have been in vain. Is it beginning to dawn on us that such a

vast unexplored wilderness may never give up its secrets. We will put

that to oceanographer, the grandson of Jaques Custo. The Internet was

built after a nuclear war, why does the Turkish Prime Minister think he

can ban Twitter? This protestor is not impressed. And mapping our

genes, might lead to medical miracle, but could the power of this

new science also provide dangerous temptations. It is now possible to

take a blood sample from a pregnant mum, it could be in theory used for

all the genetics of the foetus, will the child have head hair, blue eyes,

those sorts of things. Good evening. Exactly two weeks ago the Boeing 777

left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, but days of a desperate search have

revealed only a few traces from tracking devices and aerial photo

that is may or may not reveal parts of the broken up plane floating in

the water. Neither they nor any other pieces of evidence can now be

found. The hunt is what's been described as

a Goth-wrenching business, in one of the most inaccessible areas on

earth. Leaving not just frustration for the rescue crews, but anger and

fear for the families of those who had been on board.

We're airport in Kuala Lumpur where the flight took off exactly two

weeks ago. What happened today? When we spoke yesterday there was a real

sense of optimisim, a real sense we could be seeing some sort of

breakthrough, since then we have had five search aircraft go down to this

area of the southern Indian Ocean where satellites had identified

debris which may or may not come from this plane. They all turned

having found absolutely nothing, despite the fact the weather

conditions and visibility were absolutely perfect yesterday. So as

soon as that happens you saw the atmosphere, you saw the language

being used change here in Kuala Lumpur. We went back to where we

were maybe two or three days ago. The Australian ministers and

Government immediately started talking about how this debris could

be something connected to a container ship, it is not

necessarily anything to do with the flight itself. In the building

behind me the Malaysian Defence Minister using language like "in

this for the long haul". This immediate sense of optimisim, this

kneejerk optimisim we saw after identifying the debris replaced with

maybe a sense of realisim over the last 12 hours. The hopes must have

turned again to complete despair for the families? Certainly for the

families. I think the main thing for the families is the frustration at

this changing story. So about a week ago the Malaysian Prime Minister

behind me gave a key speech where he gave the distinct impression this

was some sort of deliberate act, perhaps pilot suicide, perhaps some

sort of form of hijacking, a terrorist incident. Now that

narrative has really changed throughout the week, we're now back

to a situation where people think this could be some sort of accident.

A cockpit fire, something like that. The fact this story, this narrative

keeps changing is the main reason the families feel so confused and

frustrated at the moment. And briefly, any sense of what happens

nex This search operation today is entering what the Government are

calling a new phase, they will have naval vessels there for the first

time. The Australian Navy will arrive three or four Chinese

warships will arrive later. They will bring with them some new

advanced search capabilities that aren't available from the air. The

next 12-24 hours could be crucial. Make no mistake, everyone will say

this will be a huge task, this might not be something that can be found

in the next week even. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. As

Jim was suggesting the oceans are probably the last real wilderness on

earth. The hunt for MH370, fruitless to this point, is a pretty humbling

reminder about how much we don't know about the sea. In the very week

that scientists reveal startling revelation about the origins of the

universe. In the second we will talk to the grandson of one of the most

famous marine adventurers of all time, an ocean explorer himself.

What faces those still hunting for the plane? Investigators now suspect

that Malaysia airlines flight MH370 had enough fuel to continue flying

four hours to the other sinnedian ocean. -- southern Indian Ocean. So

the search is now in an area of 14,000 square miles. It is roughly

1,500 miles off the coast of south-west Australia. That's the

equivalent of London to Athens. Even the Australian Navy has no radar

coverage there. Satellite images had revealed some possible debris. But

after a second day of searching nothing has been found. That could

be because the southern Indian Ocean is one of the most remote places on

earth. And the seas there, some of the deepest, the average depth being

nearly 12,000 feet. Less than 5% of the oceans on earth have been

explored, and no-one has any real idea what lies beneath the waves. It

is an enormous and unexplored wilderness. At its lowest point the

sea bed is nearly 36,000 feet below the surface. A depth greater even

than the height of Mount Everest. We're joined by our guest from New

York. Thank you very much for being with us this evening. It seems that

the authorities have almost been surprised by how difficult this is?

Well Laura it may be surprising to some folks, but to my family and

other ocean explorers, it is not, the oceans are an extraordinarily

large complex environment. We are talking about three. Four billion

cubic kilometres of space. As you mentioned earlier, the depths are

almost 13,000 feet in that area, on average. And of course the

topography is very complex with valleys and mountains and all the

currents and torbity at the surface. You have explored the seas in this

area where the search is taking place, tell us what it is really

like. What are they up against? Well, it is you know, you are

basically up against the 28 million square miles of space and of course

the depth. Very, very strong currents, you have got upwellings

and downdrafts and of course the weather patterns in the general area

are always unpredictable and you have got, of course, the distance

factor from land which is a monumental task to be able to county

councillor when you are looking for something that is so unbelievably

small. And we're also putting sub position on top of they are --

supposition on top of theory in an environment that is just unknown. It

is unknown as you suggest. Are seas the last wilderness then? We have

explored less than 5% of our ocean in all of modern day ocean

exploration. That leaves a lot to be discovered. And unfortunately it is

being countered by decades of underfunding and budget cuts

throughout the world. When we look at images of the vast areas

unexplored, this wilderness which we don't really understand yet, should

we just accept that it is beyond us really to ever know what is going

on? Absolutely not. I think with enough time, resources and

perseverance we can learn a lot more about the oceans. We spend a

hundred-times more in space exploration than we do in our very

own ocean system which is the life support we all depend on. In cases

like this on more tragic topics unfortunately we just don't have

enough tools and resources to be able to do a thorough search in

places like this. Why is that though do you think, as you suggest we

spend billions more on space exploration it is a very different

appeal for people what do you think that is about? Stars make us dream.

We love oceans to go for vacations, tropical destinations, that sort

thing. But when we talk about exploration and adventure, many

people look up instead of down. That said, there are plenty of adventures

below that blue carpet. Unfortunately there are also some

discoveries we need to make for tragic cases such as this. In your

experience, your long experience of exploring the seas do you think that

we should still have hope in this particular case? The human spirit is

a valiant one and we owe it to of course the families and friends of

those loved ones that have disappeared, whether that plane

ended up landing on land or in the ocean to find out what that

conclusion is. And in any event with enough time, with enough resources

with enough people power and of course enough funding and

perseverance we would be able to find a man made object in the

oceans. That said, it has been camouflaged by all the parameters I

mentioned before, and the fact that we dump over one million pounds of

plastics and other debris in our oceans every hour. That just

confuses things like radar and sonar.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us and good luck with your

next adventure under the seas, thank you.

Now, the NHS is already having trouble persuading us that sharing

our basic medical records is tolerable in the pursuit of the

greater good. Imagine then the rumpus if technology allowed the

medical profession to track and potentionally share your complete

genetic map? Understanding and monitoring the genome could create

huge leaps towards infinitely more effective personalised medicine as

it is known. Do we want to live in a world where doctors know way before

we can what might happen next to our bodies? Here is the former senior

policy adviser to David Cameron. Our genome is what makes us all unique.

It is our complete genetic code. Every single protein, every cell in

our body is programmed by our genes. It took billions of pounds to map

the first human genome, soon we will map anyone's genome for just a few

hundred. This is the Holy Grail of modern medicine, an era of

individual, personalised treatments, based on your genetic code. The

possibility of not just treatment but cures for some of our deadliest

diseases. That such a leap forward may come at a price. The history of

medicine is one of blanket treatment for disease across whole

populations. An aproper now seen as inefficient and ineffective. The

advent of quick, cheap, genetic sequencing, will mean the treatment

of disease will be targeted to individuals. One of the first

examples of personalised medicine is for a cancer called chronic myeloid

leukaemia that develops in people with a specific genetic defect. The

drug was created to treat the defect. That was a disease that

killed 100% of people who had the disease. With the introduction of

the drug genetically targeted it went almost immediately to 95% of

people with that disease got complete remissions. That is the

kind of results you can get from targeting the therapies, and

understanding and underping the mechanism of disease and changing

the whole way we do medicine. Some predict that soon we will all be

encouraged to have our genome sequenced. It may be possible one

way for doctors to start treating us even before we begin to feel ill.

Professor Sir John Bell is one of the most important voices in world

genetics. He's also the Government's chief adviser on health research. He

says even at the earliest stages of life our propensity for certain

conditions can be identified. As can many other things that make us

human. P now possible to take a blood sample from a pregnant mum to

reassemble the genome of the foetus. You can use it for screening for

conditions like downsyndrome, it could be in theory used for Alloa

the genetics of the foetus, will they have red hair, blue eyes, those

sorts of things. What you are saying is that genetic selection before a

child is born may well become more likely? ? I think that is

challenging for society to deal with. Society will want to govern

what it views to be an acceptable process of engineering one's

children, shall we say. The ethical dilemmas do not end at genetic

selection. How will it affect your behaviour if you know you are likely

to get cancer or heart disease? Will we have to legislate to stop

employers or insurers from discriminating on that basis? And

what about privacy? Who will have access to our genome? In the genetic

age we will be logged, monitored and analysed, right down to the very

fabric of our DNA. Our genetic strengths and weaknesses mapped out

in digital form. But how ready are we to manage that information? How

ready are we to have all our body's secrets stored on file? The genetic

data we are talking about would be available for people to use to

develop new approaches to diagnosis and therapy. Which I think is in

everybody's interests. The digital is allowing us to do that. There is

an enormous amount of information available that could actually lead

to your identification and people knowing things about you that you

would prefer them not to know about you as a person. I think the risks

to that properly managed are extremely small. The right to

digital privacy will become a key battle ground as our health service

becomes more exact and more data driven. But it is the promise of

targeting resources at a microlevel that will lead to a dramatic change

in the relationship between patient and doctor, the individual and the

state. All that moves this health care system from a health care

system which was wholly appropriate for the 1950s and 1960s, but which

now has to move to another paradigm. And I think that individual

ownership of their health care issues will be driven by the genetic

revolution. The potential benefits of the genetic age are vast. So too

are the ethical issues that lie ahead. If we can set aside our

preconceptions about how our health system should work, we will unlock a

new era of personalised medicine. Our guests are in the studio, we

have the chair of the Nuffield Council on bio-ethics with us as

well as or reporter. This sounds like something of a huge opportunity

but also huge risk. The authorities don't exactly have a great track

record of looking after our data, so why do you expect the public to be

happy for medics and then the state and drug companies to have access to

the most intensely personal data? I think genetic information is really

interesting. In a sense it is of course it is going to unleash great

benefits, personalised medicine, preventive treatments and so on. But

at the same time it is not categorically different to other

types of health information. If someone was to take my blood sample

they would be able to tell whether I have been drinking today, whether

I'm on drugs. But actually that's, you couldn't get that information

from my genome. But the genome is our complete blueprint. It is

everything, it's not just your eye colour or your hair colour it is the

whole map. It is different isn't it? So whether or not you are A positive

or if you have had a glass of wine when you come to the studio? When

the human genome was first sequenced, a lot of people thought

it would immediately yield lots of incredible insights. We did learn a

lot. But what scientists are increasingly of the view is that we

need lots of genomes in a big database to find out linkages and

patterns and that's really why people are talking about a new type

of social contract where people contribute their health information

in order to get back greater insights and new treatments. I think

that is a really interesting settlement for the 21st century.

Should we be that relaxed about a settlement where we give everything.

Do you have concerns about this idea? I don't think we should be

frightened of a new social contract. This is all about how we get the

gains out of the potential and we don't see the downside? This isn't

entirely new as an idea, if you take family history you will find out how

likely someone is to be affected by an inherited condition. It is doing

it no better and doing it slightly more technically. But the key is, is

it worth our while sharing this information with each other to get

the gain that will come from the system. It probably is, as long as

we have the safeguards in place. What safeguards could there be, this

kind of information could lead us to gender selection, it could give

information to employers about potential medical conditions. How do

you safeguard this really precious stuff? I think there are probably

two really important things to think about. One is about how it is stored

and looked after, how you decide what conditions people have to meet

in order to get access to it. But the other is what we do about misuse

of the information. So the n Genetics Commission argued for an

offence of DNA theft. So if you took someone's DNA and tested it you

would be penalised for that. There was also keenness to have rules

against discrimination. It addresses that. How do you get people to trust

that. It is almost every day we hear stories of child benefit data being

lost, or even a supermarket this week lost lots of their employ

years' bank details? There is an incredible place outside Stockport

in man Chesterer, it is the UK Bio Bank, they have 5,000 people's blood

samples and urine samples and health information, all of that the blood

samples are only being used for genetic research. Those 200,000

people voluntarily gave up that information. Voluntarily they did.

For this social contract you are proposing, presumably we have all

got to buy up to that for it to work haven't we? Hundreds of thousands of

people do, but all the evidence is when people have been asked are you

willing to contribute your health information to improve the common

good, people do that. The Wellcome Trust have been doing this with

cancer patients for many years. I think they have got something like a

99% approval rate. Isn't this also really about giving that data, in

order to make scientific advances it has to be given to drug companies.

This is also about potential business and profit. Do you expect

people to feel comfortable about that. Give me your DNA so that huge

companies like Glaxo can make money out of it? We do know that people

are suspicious, but they also make that deal all the time with their

banks, with their supermarkets, it is about is it worth. This is not

about a loyalty card, it is different isn't it? Well your genome

probably is pretty hard to read. And it is personal to me, but most of it

is also common to my family, it is common to all human beings, it is

even common to primates. So actually you have to be pretty skilled at

interpreting this to be able to work out something that will track back

to me. I think we can control the uses of it, much more than you might

imagine. ??FORCEDWHI Thank you very much indeed. I'm assuming you will

happy sign up to it and you can share it if and when it actually

happens. Thanks for coming in. Even 140 little characters can be

hard to ignore. The Turkish Prime Minister certainly failed to turn a

blind eye today after a rush of messages on Twitter mentioning his

links to a corruption investigation. Allegations he denies. But his

rather clumsy attempts to block the Internet service condemned by other

countries backfired. With web users almost immediately finding their way

round it. Social media can be a powerful weapon, but is it strong

enough to resist state censorship, maybe the reality of the internet is

people with decent technical knowledge will eventually have the

last word. Especially our technology editor. Authorisertarian --

authoritarian regimes haven't had an easy relationship with technology.

To trace material back to authors, Cold War Governments took samples

from every typewriter, these days it is not so easy to keep a lid on

criticism. In a rally last night the Turkish prep, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

followed up new laws that allow the blocking of websites with a promise

to destroy social media too. We now have a court order, he said, we will

eradicate Twitter, I don't care what the international community says,

everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republican lick state.

-- Turkish Republic state. Turk go to the polls in 11 days and the

ruling party have been pummelled by corruption scandals that look set to

increase. A lot of videos proving that corruption indeed took place in

turkey Turkey. And it is it is on Twitter and that is where millions

of Turkish internet users converse, the Government might want to block

the Twitter because of this. The Turkish President says the ban is

unacceptable. The fact that he did so on Twitter suggests the ban is

not working. We have already seen since the ban was introduced a big

uptake in the use of Twitter. There are work arounds including the

ability to use and send or send tweets on SMS. There are other

applications and we saw a similar situation in Turkey a few years

back, with it blocked, tube. At the end it was blocked YouTube was the

eighth-most visited site in Turkey. They are not alone, Russian

fireworks tonight to celebrate the annexation of Crimea, last week the

Russian authorities ordered internet service providers there to block

access to several opposition websites, after their critical

coverage of Ukraine offensive. These sites contain incitement to illegal

activity and participation in public events held in violation of the

established order said the rather chilling official notice. Much of

the censorship is ineffective, but there is one big exception. The

Great Firewall of China was basically brought up in order to

break a region of the internet off, the Chinese internet off and give

the Chinese state the capacity to reprogramme it along Chinese lines.

That is what they have done. That is the only way that continuous

constant and fundamental control of the internet is the only way in

which it can possibly be done. And only when you are a state such as

China with the resources to employ tens of hundreds of thousands of

censures to continuously control social media, and lots of other

social media sites used in China in order to manually remove messages

which are considered unpalatable. There is then a constant tension, a

battle between those who want to use technology to dissent and protest,

and those who want to shut down debate. It is a battle being fought

every day. With us tonight to discuss Turkey's Twitter ban is an

author with one. Five million followers on Twitter. From the

University of North Carolina, a Professor.

First to you, why did the Turkish Government even try to do this? They

have been completely outplayed? My sense is they would like Twitter to

open offices in Turkey and start responding to court orders and other

Government requests. Facebook and YouTube both have offices in Turkey,

in fact the YouTube ban finally ended when Google agreed to open

offices in Turkey. I see this as a salvo to try to taint Twitter which

until now has been an untamed platform as far as the Government is

concerned. A direct threat to the company then to be subject to our

rules or get out? That's exactly right. Because of YouTube ban Turk

issuesers are very practised at Sir come circumventing it, the Prime

Minister said what's the big deal, he got around it. There are more

tweets coming from Turkey. The difference between the YouTube

banner rah and now, there was no big social media-fuelled threat from

YouTube to the Government. Now there is from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

and all the social media platforms. Aren't you worried that Turkey is

trying to use the tools you might expect from a really authoritarian

Government, like China for example? Yeah, I find it very worrying. Quite

alarming indeed. We weren't expecting this ban. I find it

unacceptable. I think it is violating our universal fundamental

right of freedom of speech. So starting down a road of censorship,

is this what happens now in a very powerful country where dramatic

things are happening, social media is part of the battle ground? Yes,

the social media has become quite politic sized -- politicised and

polarised in Turkey. It has a very large population of young people,

that number is huge, but also I think particularly in the last years

n the most recent years as the media diversity visibly shrank in Turkey,

more and more people started to go on the social media to find

alternative sources of information, sometimes misinformation as well.

The social media has become increasingly politicised in Turkey

over the last years. But in America isn't there always a danger that

social media is overhyped. We have seen other events, particularly in

the Arab countries where it was a big part of protests but it didn't

change much? Well you have to look at what social media is good at and

what social media may not be so good at. It is spectacular for busting

open censorship, it is great for creating a challenge in the public

sphere. What was just said about social media a politicised space,

where censorship is broken and information is passed. Elderly women

were begging their children to teach them how to use Twitter so they

could finally connect and learn and get together. As you point out what

we have also seen is it doesn't necessarily help create the kind of

structures that allow the opposition to strategyise to engage with

politics and electoral politics in particular. This is partly because

this is how people are using it at the moment. So it creates these

grounds in which there is a strong challenge and the Government's 's

can't rule as they did before. People can't use it to create the

grounds with which they can carry forward the impact. So we have a

situation that is really volatile. Governments can't rule the way they

did before, the old methods of control don't work. But the new ways

of challenging haven't completely matured either, there is this

dangerous middle ground where we see around the world Government after

Government shaking and then resorting to massive repression as

we have seen in the case of Egypt and of course that always works.

Thank you. In an element in way a hashtag doesn't create lasting

revolution exactly as was said? Yes, as was said there are two sides,

right, on the one hand these bans clearly don't work, since the ban

went into effect overnight there has been an increase, 138% increase in

Turkish tweets posted, on an average day we have one. Eight million

tweets now it is over two million tweets. There are over 12 million

Twitter users, Turkey-based, it is really big in Turkey. On the other

hand clearly, all people voiced and expressed their rage, resentment and

anger, there isn't a structure, so we don't know which way it will go.

There is a lot of misinformation and slander as well. Thank you very

much. That's almost all. But today Kate Bush announced that she will be

performing live once again, 35 years after her last show at the

Hammersmith Odeon in 1979. It will be at the same venue no less. In

case you can't wait until then, here is a quick reminder of her very

first appearance on Top Of The Pops. Good night.

# Bad dreams # In the night

# Told me I was going to lose the fight

# Heathcliff # It's me a Katy

# I've come home # So cold

# Let me in at your # Window

# Heathcliff # It's me a Katy

# I've