29/03/2017 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Ros Atkins, this is Outside Source.

This is an historic moment from which there can

Britain is leaving the European Union.

Formal notice came in the form of this letter - and now, two years

It will be a different relationship, but I think it can have the same

benefits in terms of that free access to trade.

Our goal is clear. To minimise the cost for the EU citizens, businesses

and member states. We'll bring you reaction

from Westminster, Brussels, We will be live in Washington. The

chairs of a US Senate investigating Russian interference in the US

election will speak to the President's son-in-law.

And don't forget you can get in touch using the #BBCOS.

The UK has been a member of the European Union for 44 years. These

worthy moments that it started to leave. This is the UK's

representative to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, arriving in Brussels this

morning. In the briefcase that he is holding is a letter from Theresa May

requesting the formal process of Brexit to begin. You can see the

letter being handed over to Donald Tusk, the president of the European

Council. He tweeted he had taken receipt to it. He also tweeted not

long afterward, we already miss you. He also addressed the press at the

European Council. So here it is. Six pages. The

notification from Prime Minister Theresa May triggering Article 50.

And formal starting of the negotiations of the United Kingdom's

withdrawal from the European Union. There is no reason to pretend that

this is a happy day. Neither in Brussels nor in London. After all,

most Europeans, including must have the British voters, wish that we

would stay together, not drift apart.

Thank you and goodbye. This is an image that those of you watching on

the BBC News Channel in the UK may have seen on the front of your

newspapers today. Theresa May signing the letter in London

yesterday before it was taken to Brussels. Here is the beginning of

it. Before today we weren't sure what form this letter would take.

Some people thought it may be a single line. It runs to several

pages. The Prime Minister makes a on several issues clear. -- approach on

several issues. She goes on to say that the UK leaves without an

agreement, and that is not the best option. Our corporation in the fight

against crime and terrorism would be weakened, and we must work hard to

avoid that outcome. The Prime Minister also sat down with the

BBC's Andrew Neil. What we will be working for is a

Contra -- comprehensive free-trade agreement. We would like to see

free-trade, tariff free across borders, so we can continue that

trade. It will be a different relationship. It will be a different

relationship because it will be a relationship based on membership of

the single market and based on accepting all the other that voters

rejected. What it will be is saying that we want that new partnership

with the EU. We still want to work with you and cooperate with you. And

actually, getting a trade agreement just about the UK. It's not just

about our businesses. It is about businesses in other countries being

able to trade with us. I think it is in the interest of both sides to

agree a really good deal. Philip Webster, the former political

editor of the Times, says the threat of security cooperation is a gamble.

It could backfire because surely you can't bargain in this territory.

European leaders have made it clear trade talks will only come after the

Brexit deal is worked out. TRANSLATION: We know there are tied

commitments between Britain and the European Union, and of course

Germany, as a result of 44 years of membership. In the negotiations it

must first be clarified how we go about dismantling these commitments.

And also about how we deal with the many rights and duties tied up with

membership until now. It is only if we sort that out that we next, and I

hope soon, talk about our future relationship.

Let's bring in Christian Fraser of the BBC, who has been covering this

story all day. We weren't sure how much detail we would get but we got

a lot of detail in that letter informing us about how Theresa May

would approach Brexit? We did, yeah. It was longer than we anticipated.

What we got from it, and a lot of people have commented about this,

was a warmer, more conciliatory tone then we heard from the Prime

Minister last year when she was talking to her own party at the

Conservative Party conference, and in the Lancaster House speech. There

was a lot of talk about working together, the give and take there

would have to be. There was a spirit of compromise. Spare a thought for

the Prime Minister. The handing over of the letter remarkably simple but

from here in it is devilishly difficult. Not only is she fighting

on a level in the European Union she is fighting to keep the Scottish

Nationalists at bay here in the UK. Some in Northern Ireland want a

referendum. And she is also fighting to keep her own party onside because

there is that Eurosceptic wing who will not be in the same spirit of

compromise that she is. Explain the pressure she is feeling from the

Eurosceptic wing. What does it want that she may not be able to give it

due notably the divorce settlement figure being bandied around and

about 50, 60 billion euros. You have also pulled out another part, that

for the Europeans they want to talk about the divorce settlement first

and to get that sorted so the UK stands behind its commitments. The

UK wants to talk in parallel with those divorce talks about the future

relationship. You can see it from the British point of view. What they

will say is, there is no deal until everything is agreed. The Europeans

will say, unless you agree to this figure we put on the table, we will

not talk about the future shape. There are all sorts of tricky issues

that they have to overcome before they even get into the meat of the

detail, which will of course take much longer than 18 months to two

years, you would anticipate. We are going to pick up on the

point? Is making enough few moments. There is much to be done before it

the UK leaves the EU. Michel Barnier is the EU chief negotiator. Here he

is telling us his Brexit team is ready. We also know the European

Commission has already published a timeline, that if things -- mapping

out how the two years will go, leading to the point of Brexit.

Let's do a BBC reality check on whether that two-year schedule looks

realistic. Chris Morris is in Malta, where an EU gathering has been

taking place. I asked him to Castan high on how fixed all of these

moments in the next two years are. In many ways, not at all fixed.

Given that it is such a short period, you might think negotiations

would be starting tomorrow, after nine months of waiting since the

referendum took place. We are in an EU process, which means it will be

several weeks it is not a couple of months before negotiations begin.

First of all, we have to get the other 27 countries producing a

mandate for the European Commission to negotiate with the UK. They will

be meeting at a summit a month from today, on April 29, to agree that

mandate. That mandate has to be turned into a formal directive,

which means the negotiations may start in late May, I suspect

probably early June. The time is going to be very short, which is why

people are trying to pass a lead into bite sized chunks. One of the

problems is going to be as soon as they start negotiating, they will

have a dispute over what they are negotiating about and when. We heard

the quote from Theresa May who wants to negotiate the divorce deal and

future trade in parallel. The European Commission wants to sort

out the principles first. There will be some big personalities coming to

beer. -- there. One of the biggest is Jean-Claude Juncker. Has he been

talking in Malta? Yes, we had a quick word with him as he came into

a forum about an hour ago. He said, this is an historic day but in terms

of sadness that one of our members is leaving us. He said he himself

was extremely sad but was trying not to say too much about the process.

Not until the draft guidelines on negotiations, ride. I don't think he

wants to complicate things. As we saw with Donald Trump -- Donald

Tusk, he looked genuinely upset. This is not a cause for celebration.

But it is something on which the EU leaders will try to come together

and provide a united front to the United Kingdom. One of the things we

will see players in the next few months is the EU saying every day,

we are as united as ever, and the United Kingdom trying to chip away

at potential differences between member states and institutions. I'm

not sure much success they will have. Now the UK has formally

started the process of living, the other 27 are already looking at life

beyond the UK, how we move on after that.

The BBC reality tech team will be working overtime on Brexit. You can

find them on BBC television and online. In a couple of minutes on

the programme, we will look at reaction from top EU officials, and

also two major member states, France and Germany.

The accident that happened here is of the sort that can cause a

meltdown. The Republic of Ireland has become

the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace. From

today, anybody lighting up in pubs and restaurants will face a hefty

fine. The president was on his way out of

the Washington Hilton Hotel where he was addressing a conference. The

small crowd outside included his assailant.

It has become a symbol of Paris. 100 years ago many resumes wished it had

never been built. The Eiffel Tower's birthday is being marked by the

re-enactment of the first ascent. This is Outside Source live

from the BBC newsroom. Our lead story: Britain has

formally notified the EU Theresa May called it an historic

moment from which there Some of the main stories from BBC

world service. The South African anti-apartheid

activist, Ahmed Kathrada, President Zuma did not attend

the funeral at the family's request. Bob Dylan will accept his

Nobel Prize for Literature He was awarded the honour

in October, but didn't show up We're told he intends

to record a lecture. If that doesn't happen before June,

he'll forfeit the $900,000 that You find this in the most red list.

A missing Indonesian man has been found dead inside the body of a

python. London is a financial hub from any American banks. We look at

their thinking as they look at Brexit and what it might mean. Here

is a report. The UK is about 3000 miles that way.

Some of America's biggest banks are less than a mile over that way. How

is the decision to trickle -- Trigger Article 50, something

happening over there, have an impact on the big banks your? This is not

an existential issue. It is a really big hassle. Banks don't like

hassles. Banks are not saying much, but some like Goldman Sachs behind

me had indicated that jobs will be leaving London. The numbers of

people that are going to leave London will be in the tens of

thousands. That is in a city with millions and millions of people,

many already employed in finance. There is a lot of noise being driven

by the banking sector and by the sector's lobbying groups, trying to

bend rules to their advantage. OK, so that takes care of the

short-term. What about the long-term? Brexit itself doesn't

necessarily trigger a mass exodus of employees out of London. But it will

force banks to look at the cost of doing business and the light over

the time. The big question is, in a post-Brexit Europe, will London

remain a global financial centre? That will ultimately determine

whether or not the American banks stay put.

We're going to talk to some era live in a moment about a different story.

Toshiba has filed for bankruptcy protection from its US -based

nuclear subsidiary, Weston house, because of escalating costs of

nuclear pants -- plans it is building in the US. This is what

happened to Toshiba's shares in Tokyo when these problems were

announced. You can see at diving in December and it has continued since.

A fall of more than 60%. Some era joins me live from New York. Some

people may be surprised to hear Toshiba are making nuclear plants in

America? Yeah, absolutely. This was a purchase made by Toshiba. In

retrospect the executives are probably thinking wasn't the best

idea. There are two issues. First, the on Toshiba. Second, what this

means for the nuclear industry globally. With regards to Toshiba,

this has been a big drag on the financial bottom line, and now there

are even questions about how much financial responsibility Toshiba

will have for Westinghouse and will they even have enough money to cover

the costs? That will take a while to sort out. Right now the company is

in chapter 11, in bankruptcy proceedings. Now comes the time for

the negotiations, trying to figure out which creditors to pay and when.

When you talk about the global industry of nuclear energy, it seems

to be waning overall in favour of things like solar power and wind

power, and the fact we saw that energy prices have just fallen so

much, the importance of getting into nuclear has really gone down quite a

bit in the last few years. That is the story in the context of the

nuclear industry. From Toshiba's point of view, help me understand

how these problems in America tie in with the electronics business which

are so many of us have dealings with? It's a subsidiary company. You

have Toshiba, the main company, and lots of companies on different

branches elsewhere. Westinghouse is in fact one of them. Because it is

one of their subsidiary companies, they are on the hook for some of it.

That's really where you are going to see a lot of negotiations happening

between Toshiba executives, Westinghouse executives and other

companies in the United States, just how all of that breaks down. In

fact, there are some people who are worrying whether or not Toshiba has

enough money in the Bank to be able to cover all of these costs

associated with Westinghouse. Thank you. You have covered the two

stories. We will give you a rest at this point! Next, we're about to

talk about Samsun. Its latest smartphone range is coming out. This

was its predecessor. Remember this? It didn't do very well. It was

pulled and ditched after a battery fault caused some devices to catch

fire. The BBC has seen one of the new ones.

I had a hands-on with it earlier. I can tell you that it's not a

different from the other high-end smartphones out there. There are

interesting features. It has taken all of the furniture out of the

front of the phone, so literally most of the front of it now is the

screen. There is a hidden home button. They have got rid of the

branding and the stuff that goes around the top, and they have curved

the edges. When you watch a video, all you feel like -- you feel like

you are the big screen. There are other cosmetic changes. One of the

things that Samsung is really excited about is its new digital

assistants, which it is calling Bixby. What it does that is slightly

different from Syria is it uses the camera as a pair of eyes. You can

activate it with your voice and pointed at something in the room. I

tried a bottle of wine. You pointed out the bottle and say, tell me more

about this. Up comes all of this information about the wine, and much

it costs, the best vintage era etc. That is a neat gadget but whether it

is enough to your people away from using Google assistant that remains

to be seen. I think Samsung would like to say that is their big new

innovation. You haven't got it with you? Unfortunately, not. I haven't

then allowed to bring it here! Samsung has been cautious about the

batteries, as you can imagine. They did have a disaster with the notice

seven. They say they went back to the start, they have all kinds of

new regulations to make it safer. They are not taking any chances. If

anything, I wonder how much the battery is going to hamper the

device. These little things can do so much. They wouldn't tell me what

the battery life is. They are certainly playing it safe.

We talk about Donald Trump everyday. We don't talk about his wife very

much. Melania Trump - she's not

sought out the spotlight since becoming First Lady,

but we've seen her today She presented the awards

at an event honouring It is therefore our duty to continue

shine the light on each miraculous victory achieved by women. All

capable of trying, truly leading the change to fight for those that

cannot fight for themselves. Barbara Plett-Usher

was at the awards ceremony, and told me about how Melania Trump

has stayed out of the spotlight. She is off the charts low profile.

Euro must say she has no profile. She is not living in Washington. She

is still in New York until her son completed school term. Even though

there are reports that the paparazzi has given because she doesn't appear

in public. On those occasions when to you has had official functions,

her face is so inscrutable and she has such a practised smile at people

can't figure out who she is, what's she thinking. There are people who

think she is trapped in a miserable marriage. People who know her say

that's nonsense. See is naturally restrained. She is trying to get her

bearings in this unexpected new role. Where do you face -- place as

first Lady? Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama or publicly engaged.

She is not like the more traditional version like Nancy Reagan or Jackie

Kennedy. She has just hired a communications director. She will be

moving to Washington in a month. Perhaps that will change. At the

moment we don't know much about her. This was a rare public appearance.

Now a science story that concerns this man. He was paralysed from the

neck down after crashing his bike into a truck 80 years ago. Now he

can control his arm and hand through electrical sensors in his brain. His

sensors connected to electrodes on his lower arm and upper arm. These

pictures have been shared by him and the university he has been working

with. It gives you an idea of the technology. He went through four

months of virtual reality training to learn which brain signals

instruct which movements. This technology was pioneered by the Case

Western University in high our. -- Ohio. This can circumvent the

injury. These pictures have been so -- shared by the university, as has

this clip. I learned about this research

through one of the doctors at the VA. My father said, you really want

to do this? I said, yes. Somebody has to do research. If nobody does

research, things don't get done. Now we can tell the world it's possible

to reconnect the brain and make the arm move again. I'm still wild every

time I do something amazing. I ate a pretzel. I drank water. One day they

had some mashed potatoes. Lo and behold, I was able to eat the mashed

potatoes really well. I'm always wanting them to do more. Seeing the

possibility is one of the biggest goals. Yes, I'm in here but it's not

like my life stopped when I got injured. It will help out a lot more

people for years to come. Case Western reserve University

showing those pictures. Speaking of websites, the big story today is the

formal process of the UK leaving the European Union, which has begun with

a letter signed by Theresa May delivered to Donald Tusk, president

of the European Council. I imagine you have many questions about this

process. You are welcome to send them my way. I will do my best to

answer them. If you want to in your own time, there are extensive

articles on the BBC News website and the BBC News app explaining every

aspect of the Brexit process. I will be back in a couple of minutes.