14/02/2017 Newsnight

We know the North Korean regime is a danger to its own people,

but is it now out of control, and a danger

The apparent murder of this man - Kim Jong Un's half brother -

at an airport in Malaysia, has got everybody wondering exactly

what is going on at the heart of the brutal North Korean regime.

Our former ambassador there will help us to make sense

of what's happening in the enigmatic nation.

The National Security Advisor - Michael Flynn - is fired for lying

This was an act of trust, and that was ultimately what led to the

president asking for and accepting the resignation of General Flynn.

about Donald Trump and the way he runs his White House?

Also tonight - The NHS crisis is not abating:

The situation at the moment is the worst I've seen it since I started

working as a doctor 17 years ago. The real difference now is that I'm

unable to see light at the end of the tunnel.

We take an in depth look inside this Birmingham hospital

where the patients stack up in the corridors...

It is heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. The reality is, you

cannot get them into an assessment area quick enough because at the

moment we do not have beds to put people who are waiting for them in.

Hello, you may not have heard of Kim Jong Nam,

but you might have heard about him - the North Korean playboy heir,

whose career took a dive after a botched trip

A half brother and sometime rival to the man who was

eventually picked to rule - Kim Jong Un.

Well, Kim Jong Nam is dead - in strange circumstances

He was in his 40s, living in exile and his sudden departure opens

the way to numerous theories as to what might be happening.

North Korea is a brutal dynastic oligarchy -

a country of 25 million people held in the most repressive

The strange goings on inside are always intriguing.

But at a time like this, with a new US President

being tested, events may also be consequential.

Newsnight's John Sweeney has reported from North Korea and has

Here he is on what we know and don't know about the death.

Only a paranoid tyrant would want Kim Jong-Nam dead. But it was his

bad luck that his younger half brother, the ruler of North Korea,

tested high for tyranny and paranoia. The apparent assassination

of Kim Jong-Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport raises questions, how and

why? First, how did Kim Jong-Nam die? Based in Macau in China, he was

returning from a trip to Malaysia on Monday, he was attacked and fell

fatally ill at Kuala Lumpur airport. As for a murder weapon, there are

conflicting reports. An unconfirmed source said that two women were

behind the attack, stabbing him with poise and needles. But a Malaysian

police officer told Reuters news agency that he felt someone grab or

hold his face from behind. He felt dizzy and asked for help. Police in

Kuala Lumpur are said that the murder weapon was a cloth laced with

poison. According to sources in Washington, the prime suspects are

North Korean agents. So, why was he killed? The best text and elastic

murders on the Korean regime was called Macbeth. Kim

Jong-un's hunger to rule will lead him to kill anyone who stands

between him and his rule on power. So far, he is believed to have

executed 340 officials. But Kim Jong-Nam, as a boy here with his

dad, hardly cut a threatening figure. He fell out of favour in

2001 when he was busted by Japanese authorities for entering the country

on a fake passport, using the Chinese alias for Fat There. He told

interrogators that he wanted to visit Disneyland. He went on to

visit Macau as a plump playboy but a shrewd critic of his younger brother

's regime. Without reforms, he said that the country's economy would go

bankrupt. But reforms are fraught with danger of systemic collapse.

What would be the effectively killing inside of North Korea? This

is the most high-profile assassination ever conducted by the

Kim regime and will signal the elites of North Korea that there are

really no limits. Nobody is safe, everyone is vulnerable and if this

was an assassination, it is very likely that it will be followed by

massive purges. Welcome to the real North Korea. I

went to North Korea undercover in 2013. A few months later I

interviewed Donald Trump, who, chatting before the interview

pauper, seemed fascinated by the kingdom -- interview proper. How

will this relationship between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump layout? If,

faced by a set of circumstances that is likely to result in the fall of

the Kim regime, nuclear weapons will be used. The regime will have no

qualms about using nuclear weapons against their South Korean brethren

and others. Dealing with North Korea's murderous to Rooney will

require patience, diplomacy and sure political skill -- tyranny.

Something that President Trump so far has shown little sign of.

With me here in London is the former British

Ambassador to North Korea - John Everard.

A good evening to you. We are assuming that Kim Jong-un did this,

is that the writers option? We don't know, all we know he is one or two

women killed this man at the airport, was at Kim Jong-un or

another part of the North current drought. Was it an old lover? Kim

Jong-Nam had a confiscated sex life, maybe one day we will find out? --

complicated. Was he a rival to his younger half brother? Some say that

the Chinese may be thought the other one is going mad, let's put this one

in? There were different thoughts about how North Korea could change.

There were different thoughts, Kim Jong-Nam was a member of The Royal

Foundation, older than Kim Jong Un, which, in Korean terms, would have

put him in the line for succession. He had that strange trip to Tokyo,

trying to go to Disneyland. If it was Kim Jong Un, perhaps he thought

resistance to his rule might have less around a member of the Royal

family and, like Macbeth, the best way to deal with a situation was to

take him out. So killing him would be a sign of an ability rather than

strength? He has what looks like absolute power but maybe he is

feeling insecure rather than secure? Well, yes. Any regime, where the

Royal family feels they need to kill members of its own is insecure and

unstable. Is it a flailing regime which is now a danger to the rest of

the world? A sick dog running around? Is it something that is a

problem for everybody? It is, it is not a flailing regime, in many ways,

Kim Jong Un has reaffirmed control. But, it is a regime that has talked

itself into believing that the only way that it can stay in business is

by developing ever more terrifying weapons of mass destruction and, as

we were saying just now, chances are if they crunch came, they would

press the trigger. You think, faced with a choice of the regime failing

or pushing a button, they would push the button? It's not what I think

but what they say. They have set out not quite a nuclear doctrine but

circumstances where they would use nuclear weapons in detail. They made

it clear that they are thinking about nuclear first strike, not just

deterrence. Is it a coincidence that rather a lot has happened in

President Trump's first month in office? We had a missile test while

he was with the Japanese Prime Minister, you could hardly have had

a more opportune moment for Kim Jong-un to say, look what I am doing

with a ballistic missile test. Plus, this. It seems too much is going on

for the first month -- in the first month for it to be a coincidence? I

think the missile test was no coincidence, as the two sat down to

dinner together, someone worked it out to the minute. Moreover, they

demonstrated the kind of missile that would be very difficult to take

out on a launch pad which they thought presumably is what President

Trump was trying to do in his remark about the end

-- about the threat that would never happen. I think that the

assassination of Kim Jong-Nam was genuinely a coincidence and that the

timing was determined by what they call operational needs. That

normally he has good security around him. They had to get him at a time

when he was in a third country, vulnerable at an airport and that

was their window of opportunity. Briefly, how does the North Korean

regime meant? It has too, doesn't it? It is ridiculous. -- end. How

will it end? Nobody knows, maybe it will collapse internally, maybe it

will eventually be taken over by the self or North Korea will simply

drift into the Chinese orbit. -- the south. And North Korea will

effectively become a battle state of China. John Everard, thank you.

Is the NHS in England under unbearable pressure?

It's been a prominent question this winter as A

waiting time targets have been spectacularly missed.

So what's it like trying to run one of the largest single site

We'll talk to the woman running the huge Queen Elizabeth Hospital

But first - we can give you a most extraordinary view

inside that hospital - both as patients come into A

and as they are discharged from the hospital, or not.

Nick Blakemore was given access to Queen Elizabeth's and spent

So, we are just talking two beds on five and four? Right, I think what

you need to do... Are the others on ward rounds, still? I think that

Karen and you need to target those ward rounds to say, look, it is

Monday night, we will be faced with no capacity if we do not discharge.

That would mean we are really struggling.

In the words of Lionel Richie, this could be all night long! I would say

it is acceptable levels at the moment. We do not have the capacity

in the hospital. You don't have any capacity? Is that acceptable? How

things are at the moment, it is considered acceptable. We have a

long queue in the corridor, this is considered acceptable at the moment.

Not for me. I do not think corridor medicine should be acceptable in any

developed country. I woke up and had a chest pain and it got bad, I

pressed my button... Your emergency button? And I ended up in here. We

arrived here at about 7:20am this morning. We have had fantastic care

all morning. Doctors and nurses, blood tests, and she is now waiting

to be admitted to a clinical dependency unit. But we are just

waiting for a bed now. So obviously we've ended up in the corridor...

And we don't know how long we will be here now. How do you feel about

that? Well, it is a bit alarming, that you are in the corridor where

there is current through fair and everything going on which isn't good

for someone who is 90 this year. How do you feel? I'm a bit sorry my

chest, but I'm fine. Can you have a look at that patient over there? She

feels wheezy. She's been assessed in the last five minutes. I will let

you discuss that. I will let my nursing charge no, her saturations

are technically within normal limits. How long have you been

waiting in the corridors? Just five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes?

OK. What have you been told? She won't be long. The patient is

complaining of shortness of breath, my colleague assessed terrorism

-- my colleague assessed her, and technically her saturations are OK.

She may feel wheezy but because her saturations are normal, I cannot do

anything else or provide medication in the corridor, especially because

she is in a wheelchair without an oxygen tank.

For the time being, she will have to wait until she is assessed again by

a doctor. Are you

two clear about why you are here today? We talked about equipment you

need at home, and by understand is clearing a space at home is the

first thing that needs to happen? Is that right? Yes, I am trying to

move, dismantle, a table and chairs for six people. The doctors have

said that you medically fit to not be here. They reckon that you well

enough to be at home. When we spoke last week, said that you were going

to speak to your neighbour about clearing the space. They haven't

been in. They haven't been there. When I've been there, they haven't

been. The difficulty that we have here is that we are using an Acute

Hospital bed, OK? And we need to be making sure that the discharge is

moved on as quickly as possible. I'm sure that you are aware and have

seen in the national news and media hospitals are at breaking point. The

beds are a precious resource and we need to be... We have to be seen to

be making sure that we are, you know, moving people along. It seems

there has been a long delay of two weeks now, so the only alternative

that I can see would be making contact with CCG, that we can use as

an alternative place for you to wait, a nursing home.

I have seen nursing homes. My mum died and one. There is no easy

answer. There is no easy answer. Thank you for making the time to

meet with us. No problem. You're welcome. The hospital had got to the

point where we were struggling to find beds for people coming in

through the doors and it is very much about looking at ways that were

needed to make beds available so that we could ease the pressure that

the hospital was going through. I have got a brain tumour. I kept on

collapsing at home. He kept on collapsing and we kept on having to

pick him up. From there, it has got worse. He was admitted by the

hospital, because he collapsed while he was here. I want to go home. I am

fed up of being here. You are bored here, aren't you? It is upsetting

me. It's all right. This told me I've only got two months to live.

That is the problem. It cannot be corrected and he only has two months

to live. We have been told two months. It could go longer. Couldn't

it? It could. We don't know. That is why you want to go home. So that he

can go home and just chill out in front of the telly. With my sun. In

Andy's case, I think if honour was possibly struggling with his

diagnosis, he has deteriorated quite quickly over a short period of time

and my understanding is that they do have a ten-year-old sun also living

at home and clearly Yvonne was struggling with the vast change in

handy. You are having a laugh, aren't you? You have to. Thank you.

Who is waiting for a medical bed so I can pull them from CD you? My role

is to take overall management of the hospital. Maintain safety of all the

patients. Give me a list. Making sure that a and E flows correctly

and they are not bottlenecked waiting for beds. We are amazed that

back in with the patients out. Let me phone and find out what is going

on with this stroke bed. When this hospital was built it was based on

150 people attending A and we are around about that in a 24-hour

period and most people we are seeing sometimes up to 400 people. The

mathematics does not work out. We have -73 beds. There are 17 people

waiting in A for a medical bed. There is one for renal. It has been

way off at the moment. That is not a good position for us to be at this

time. Right now, we are struggling in the middle of winter with delayed

transfers. They are taking 105 beds today. These are patients that

should be looked after in a care home? In some cases, in their own

home with a package of care and we are waiting for social workers who

are very stretched to come and put arrangements in place for those

patients. This ward was set up seven years ago and is for people who are

what we call delayed transfers of care. These are people who are

trapped in the hospital because there is not sufficient care in the

community. Hello! Hallow, Beryl. The situation at the moment is the worst

I have seen it since I qualified and start working as a doctor 17 years

ago. The real difference now is that I am unable to see light at the end

of the tunnel. You have been in hospital, it has been a long time,

you were in and then you are home for about 24 hours and then you came

back in. They brought her here. When she took ill. She is quite well. You

were not ill when you came in, it was the day after, the trauma of

being at home... There is a pain in my knee now. Rheumatism. I will see

if there is something more we can do about it. Beryl and Les have been

married for over 65 years and they are currently separated because

there is no capacity within the social care system to provide a bed

where Beryl can be looked after nearer to her home or even to

provide a level of support at home that would enable Beryl to keep

living in her own house with her husband. It will be nice to know,

actually, what is intended. What has been happening? Well, at the moment,

you're not sure whether there will be a nice place for Beryl to go to.

You tried home, didn't you, and it didn't work and that is how you

ended up back here and that is why you have been looking at care homes.

I wish I could care for her at home. I really do. It would be wonderful.

Hallow. Is it violate? My name is Claire and I am one of the site

managers here. We have got you a bed on 304, the doctors here want you to

go up to the specialist ward. Tonight, we will be moving you up

there. That's all right. Is that all right? I know someone else has just

said that. She was admitted to A with chest pains and symptoms that

looked like a stroke and although the stroke symptoms have resolved,

she has been left with some cardiology symptoms and that is why

the medics down here want to have a specialist bed which is in

cardiology and we have managed to achieve that for her tonight. I have

been looked after fine. I am waiting to go to a nice word now. When I

found you earlier, you were in the corridor. This is better. Yes. They

are a movie me again now. So, it will be nice. Howley people have we

got in the corridor? Six. Six in the corridor and two en route.

I have been doing A for about three years and when I first

started, there was no one on the corridor at all and everyone was

moved into a cubicle straightaway. It is different now. What do you

think about that? It is a shame. It is absolutely heartbreaking. Because

you want to get them into an assessment area and get them

assessed quickly. No one here wants to see people waiting on trolleys

but the reality is you cannot get them into an assessment area quickly

enough because at the moment they do not have the beds to put the people

who are waiting on beds in. It has changed, we did not have this, it is

a reflection on the volume of people arriving. Is this our medical alert?

Nick Blakemore there at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

I'm joined now by Dame Julie Moore who started out as a graduate nurse,

and who has been Chief Executive of the Trust which runs

Thank you for coming in. Thank you for the access. No one envies you

the job. Do you think this winter was exceptionally bad? There was not

a flu crisis or do we just expect that this is what it is like now?

The pressures have been rising for the past three years but in

Birmingham, this past winter has been particularly bad because we saw

significant pressures and social care and the closure of our

community discharge beds. There were about 300 beds in Birmingham and 100

were closed in the autumn and that has been the single biggest impact

on our ability to discharge patients and free up the beds. Others coming

back at some point? On Friday I had a discussion with NHS England about

trying to recommission those beds. That might take time to get the

staff to do that. Do you ever get frustrated working, is it too

monolithic, is it too fragmented? Do I get frustrated, every single day.

It is way too fragmented. This is not a A problem, this is a health

system problem and the staff do a great job and often, we have had a

lot of bad press, but every single professional group, every

occupational group in the hospital has risen to try and cope with the

additional patients coming through the doors. I am so proud of them for

what they have done. But we are not responsible for social care, that is

the local authority. I talked to a lady in A this morning who said I

rang my GP and could not get an

appointment for three weeks, I have come here and I know I should not.

You're stuck between inadequate GP service, inadequate social care, you

are the bit where people can turn up and you have to see them on demand,

with a weight. Ye have people coming through the door. We are the one

part that never closes. There is a simple question, am I being stupid?

Could you build a wing, could you build your own care home, it would

be much cheaper than the acute beds in which you're keeping people and

keep them there? I would love to do that. There is no capital to build

anything at the moment. What we have done at the moment at the Queen

Elizabeth Hospital is we have opened every possible bed. There were 200

beds more than it should have in the new building and we opened up the

older building we were supposed to vacate and for a time we ran several

wards in there for people who really required the kind of rehab care. The

problem now is, we cannot get staff, there is not enough staff for it and

we do not get funded to provide that care and there was more money in the

past, there is far less money available now, we do not get the

funding to do it, we have not got the capital although we are

converting wards. It is much more expensive to keep people in your

hospital. This is a fragmentation problem. It is expensive for you to

keep people in acute beds and it would be cheaper if the people

responsible for social care took the responsibility but instead of giving

them the money to do that, we are wasting money on acute beds for

people who do not need or want an acute bed. Actually it is sometimes

harmful to do that. It is too fragmented. I would love to be able

to take the health pathway. It breaks my heart to see an elderly

couple being separated because this society cannot provide a facility to

allow America bill to be together. That is not correct or write at all

and we should not put up with it. Could you do it if they give you the

money? Yes. That is interesting. Your budget this year, are you going

to hit it? The answer is no, isn't it? You do not want to tell the

Department of Health now, but that's basically it. Because of the

pressures we have seen coming through, when we admit more patience

through the emergency department, if we had them over and above a certain

level, 12 or 13, more patients are admitted, we only get paid 70% of

Tara. The government gets a discount. It also means we have

cancelled elective activity which we are not getting paid for any more

and to hit those targets we have to find another way of doing that work.

We have not worked through the budgetary pressures. My

understanding is that you have a sustainability and transformation

plan to improve everything by 2020 and that plan is that Birmingham

hospitals find another ?300 million worth of cuts. Let's face it, demand

carries on going up, there is not much reason to think that things

will change apart from these care beds coming back, you are already

busting the budget and you have to find 300 million more between you

and other Birmingham hospitals by 2020. It is ridiculous. When you say

it like that... Since I have been in management, a very long time,

because I am really old, we have been saying we are provide more care

outside hospitals and we have not. We need to get real and do that and

really build the kind of facilities. We talked about patients coming in

and a lot of the patients could have had care elsewhere but it is not

available and none of those patients did not need care, they all need

care, but there is no alternative available at the moment and we need

to provide the alternatives. There are other organisations who are

supposed to provide the alternatives and we need to make that real and

enough capacity so that patients have not got A as a last resort.

Our patients dying for bad care because you do not have the right

resources? No, one of the things that staff have done very well is

manage quality of care and safety through that, sometimes we've let

waiting times goes so if they know a patient is save to wait six hours,

we prioritise safety and quality every time over any target. You know

Jeremy Hunt, you are part of a big health system in the Midlands, you

met him today? Yes, he saw an Spectre read three staff at one of

the hospitals, he appreciated the problems -- he saw emergency staff.

Several patients do not have the social workers assigned to do their

assessments, never mind finding careful some people. We were able to

explain a lot of the frustrations that we feel in Birmingham.

Sometimes it is often portrayed as hospitals just need to a grip.

Throughout all this, with all of the patients that we have with delayed

transfers of care, and in December we lost 4000 bed days, we have

managed to reduce the length of stay by making the rest of the hospital

far more efficient and what we do, a great testament to the staff in

everything that they do. We are reducing length of stay and being

very efficient and what we do. But we need to crack this problem. Not

because of the money and the beds as the main driver, because it is not

good care for patients. Dame Julie Moore, thank you.

And Dame Julie Moore will be taking your questions

about the state of hospitals right after we come off air.

That's on the BBC Newsnight Facebook page.

Three and a half weeks into the Trump reign,

and we have a resignation - his National Security Advisor,

General Michael Flynn has gone over a scandal involving possibly illicit

and inappropriate talks with the Russians back in December.

The affair gives us another clue as to the strengths

and vulnerabilities of the administration.

First the strengths: the new president is keen to get

things done and is willing to cut through the stuffy conventions

Well, actually those strengths are also the weaknesses.

Those stuffy conventions that perhaps obstruct

you getting things done, also prevent cock-ups.

This man is the latest of those cock-ups.

Michael Flynn, the National Security Adviser controversial even back

I have called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race.

Because she, she put our nation's security at extremely high risk.

For some, he broke a law himself, jumping the gun and talking

to Russia about sanctions before Trump was President.

It is that he reportedly lied about it to White House officials.

The issue is not whether or not what he discussed, there has been

a complete review of that and there is no issue with that.

The issue is whether or not he failed to properly inform

the Vice President or not be honest with him or not remember it.

That's the plain and simple issue and when he lost

trust with the President, that's when the President asked

But the handling of the case raises plenty of questions

For one thing, Trump was told weeks ago about General Flynn and yet

waited until there was a public outcry before sacking him.

A tad indecisive for someone so capable of firing people.

And also why did the President deny he knew anything about the affair

What about the reports that General Flynn had a conversation

The President wants to get things done, but action and orientation can

end up looking perilously close to making it up as you go along.

The picture of Team Trump at dinner at his resort,

responding to a North Korean missile test with the Japanese

Prime Minister in tow, all in front of other diners,

gives a picture of extreme informality.

Was Mr Flynn's off piste conversation with the Russian

ambassador a sign of an unhealthily close relationship?

It was back in December, President Obama imposed extra

sanctions on Russia as a punishment for interference in the US election.

Surprisingly, Mr Putin did not retaliate.

Is it coincidence that it was around then that Michael Flynn

There's lot more you could say - the leaks that are coming out

of Washington that have brought this to public attention,

the fact that Donald Trump appeared to deny any knowledge of the affair,

What are we learning about the White House?

Why did it take him so long to deal with this, he knew that the guy had

lied to the vice president, why didn't he sack him there and then? I

think he had to find out the extent of it. The last week, reporters have

spoken to President Trump and said, have you seen this report? They

sourced another journalist, not a national security adviser, as to

whether he had seen anything official. He would not say I saw it

in the newspapers or media, we do not know everything. We are just

going along with speculations and rumours and points right now as to

what the situation was and you knew what. You say that but we know that

Donald Trump has known for weeks, and on Friday he said he did not

know anything about it. It's an important question about his

presidency, we are used to Trump, we know that he says things and then

contradicts it. As President, do you think you can behave like he did as

a candidate, say things that just are not true? I do not think that is

what President Trump is doing. You had to look at what this is. If we

are going over to the General Flynn situation itself, nothing illegal

was done. He resigned because of the trust issue that may have happened

with Vice President pence and him going out and telling a lie on his

behalf, being told that was the problem. It had nothing to do with

the national-security issues, as stated by the New York Times

yesterday, it was a wiretap. There is a transcript of everything that

was said between General Flynn and the Ambassador of Russia, and it has

been gone over by officials and there was no security risk. It's

about political grandstanding by Democrats who smell blood in the

water, and unfortunately, this shark is actually going to bite them in

the very end. But I cannot help but think that you have not

answered my question, Trump lead that he had lied to the vice

president. Why did he wait until it was a big public for Rory to sack

General Flynn? He was tough, he could have sacked him two weeks ago.

He does not have to listen to the public, why does he have to wait for

the public to make a fuss and then sack General Flynn? It came down to

vice president Pence. The conversation happened between

General Flynn and vice president Pence. It was the trust issue that

vice president Pence needed between him and the security team. We don't

know whether it was him who said that it was time to dismiss General

Flynn. These are conversations behind the scenes. I'm not guessing

you would have been so forgiving if this was the Obama security Pfizer.

Does it tell us, as many as The Papers are saying, that this is just

some of the chaos that plagues the administration, as says The

Washington Post? Yes, I agree that there is more chaos in this

administration than in the past. One of the reasons is that President

Trump kept them from the Obama administration with their jobs.

Until President Trump goes in and takes out those who do not have an

American interest at heart and puts in his own people and gets fully

staffed, thanks to Congress and the Democrats finally confirming

everyone he put through, we will continue to see the chaos

distracting the president from his mission of putting America first and

securing the Borders and allowing families to prosper and thrive for

themselves. Thank you. Time now for Viewsnight -

where we let those with strong Tonight it's the turn of Canadian

journalist Graeme Wood. He's the author of a new book

"The Way of Strangers - It's a provocative piece -

and tomorrow we'll bring you the counter argument made

by the academic Tariq Ramadan. Like it or not, the rise of the

Islamic State is the modern Reformation. It is tempting to view

the rise of the Islamic State narrowly...

Graeme Wood there, and a balancing view will come tomorrow.

Some rain in the next few days but plenty of dry weather as well. We

start the