11/04/2017 Outside Source

I'm Ros Atkins, this is Outside Source. The US Secretary of State

has arrived in Moscow. He's got work to do because America's allies

failed to agree how to pressure Russia on theisha of Syria. Rex

Tillerson spoke earlier. I hope that what the Russian government

concludes is that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable

partner in President Assad. Someone as despicable as Hitler

would didn't sink to using chemical weapons. Toshiba is in big trouble.

Their survival is in question. Three explosions has hit a team bus

window, Marc Bartra has been injured. This is ahead a Champions

League game against Monaco which has been postponed. All the details on

that. And as usual, as you're watching Outside Source, we're

online as well. E-mail us, or get me on social media. Use the hashtag BBC

OS. This time yesterday, I was talking

to you about how the G 7 wanted to pressure Russia on its relationship

with the Syrian government. We can scrap that. Canada, France, Germany,

Italy, Japan, the UK and the US couldn't agree on how to do it. Now

that was happening in Italy. We're now going to have to move to Moscow,

because that is where the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson,

has already arrived. Here are the pictures from earlier. Perhaps it

was inevitable that this part of Syrian crisis would always boil down

to Russia and America alone. Certainly that's how it will be

tomorrow. Mr Tillerson will meet his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. Here is

the Secretary of State speaking before he got on the flight. I hope

that what the Russian government concludes is that they have aligned

themselves with an unreliable partner in President Assad. They

have signed, the chemical weapons themselves, the Russian government

assigned that accord. Now Assad has made the Russians look not so good.

The meetings in Moscow. As Rex Tillerson is making clear, the focus

will be what happened in a Syrian town. We've talked about this many

times in the last week. At least 89 people were killed in that chemical

attack, which has been widely reported. The West blames the Syrian

government for that attack. Here's an update on the US Defense

Secretary, coming from Reuters, who has said, there is no doubt the

Syrian government is responsible for that gas attack. The Syrian

government flatly denies this. Here is Vladimir Putin talking earlier.

TRANSLATION: We have information from various sources that similar

provocations, I can't call them any differently, are being prepared in

other parts of Syria too. Including the southern suburbs of Damascus,

where they're preparing to release some sort of substance again.

Let's turn to the analysis of our BBC Russia correspondent. This is

the usual tactics used by Mr Putin in such circumstances. He never

steps back under pressure and always just strikes back with some counter

arguments. That is exactly what he did. It's very interesting that

harsh language used by Mr Putin is contrasted by language used by

Russian ministry of foreign affairs. The statement they issued recently

says that they are full of hope and they're hoping that these

negotiations will open a new page in bilateral relations and that the

relations will become better. Also there are rumours that there mite

antibiotic meeting between Mr Putin and Tillerson tomorrow, even though

it's not confirmed by Putin's spokesman. But the fact that it's

not declined at the moment tells us a lot. Definitely both Washington

and especially Moscow are eager to talk and are eager to reach

agreement on Syria. Because Russia has put a lot to that story and puts

a lot of stakes, it hopes, that Syria, its position in Syria will

help to reach it some new heights on international arena.

There's a lot of pressure going into this meeting on Mr Tillerson. Here's

a British blogger, Edward Hardy saying Tillerson's meeting will be a

big test, if he fails to make ground, it will show that Trump

hired a businessman, not a diplomat. Rex Tillerson headed Exxon Mobil for

many years. This would be a tough test for any diplomat. There's a

serious man across the table. Sergey Lavrov is a seasoned diplomat. Rex

Tillerson not so much. Well that's quieght right. He hasn't

been a diplomat for long. He has a long track record of working in

Russia and working at the highest levels there. He knows this country

and he knows the people at the top of it. We shall have to see how he

does tomorrow. Let's get the analysis of the BBC's State

Department correspondent. She's travelling with Rex Tillerson.. Rex

Tillerson has quite a difficult task now that he has arrived. He has been

saying very clearly that the Russians have backed the wrong side

in the war and he wants them to think about re-aligning themselves,

moving away from Bashar al-Assad and joining together with the Americans

to try and come up with a political solution to Syria's Civil War. He's

also going to want to ask them about what happened with this chemical

weapons attack, why there still were chemical weapons there when there

was agreement to eliminate them. He will press the Russians to make sure

any further chemical weapons that exist are gotten rid of. Difficult

things to discuss with a defiant tone from Moscow. Having said that,

the Russian Foreign Ministry did release a statement today in which

it outlined its concerns but also said it did not want confrontation,

it wanted constructive cooperation with the Americans. So it is wanting

to hear Mr Tillerson out, especially when it comes to what sort of

bilateral relations Russia is going to have with the United States.

Before Mr Tillerson flew to Moscow, he was in Italy at the gathering of

G 7 foreign ministers. The aim was to get a unified position on Syria.

But as I was saying, it didn't happen. The UK in particular pushed

for more sanctions on Russia. But there was no deal to be had. James

Forsythe says: James Robbins has been speaking to the Foreign

Secretary. Here's some of their discussion.

What we've agreed is that we will put forward a resolution in the UN

Security Council on the chemical weapons attack. We want to see now

the results of the investigation by the OPCW, whose job it is to

establish exactly what happened. There was a very wide measure of

agreement last night that, not just the Syrian generals, but if we could

show complicity by those Russian officers who are helping the Syrian

military operation, then they should also be sanctionable as well. The

Syrians are never going to allow a proper investigation on what they

allow as their sovereign territory. The bigger picture here is that we

are moving now into an environment where I think the Russians have to

make a choice. They basically change the game in Syria a couple of years

ago, when they came in and they saved Assad. It turns out that the

guy that they've saved is a man who has absolutely no compunction about

murdering his own people with weapons that should have been banned

100 years ago. Now a story generating a huge amount of comment

online at the moment. Today's White House briefing with Sean spicer was

remarkable in a number of ways, not least because it's resulted in the

Anne Frank centre calling on Donald Trump to fire him now for engaging

in Holocaust denial. They've released a longer statement on that.

Mr Spicer was responding to questions about the chemical attack

in Syria and he said this. We didn't use chemical weapons in World War

II. You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using

chemical weapons. So you have to, if you're Russia, ask yourself - is

this a country and a regime you want to align yourself with. Clearly

there are a number of issues with that statement. He was then asked to

clarify what he'd said. I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no,

he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is

doing. There was clearly... I understand your point, thank you. I

appreciate that, there was not - he brought them into the Holocaust

centre, I understand that. I'm saying in the way that Assad used

them where he went into towns, dropped them down into the middle of

towns, so the use of it, I appreciate the clarification there,

that was not the intent. Unsurprisingly using the phrase

"Holocaust centre" to describe a concentration camp didn't help

matters. In the immediate aftermath of that: I should say later on Mr

Spicer e-mailed reporters to clarify his remarks. He said in no way was I

trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was

trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using aeroplanes to drop

chemical weapons on population centres. Any attack on innocent

people is reprehensible and inexcusable. That wasn't the end of

the briefing. Mr Spicer was talking about Syria again. He had this to

say about Syria and its government's allies. The only countries that

aren't supporting the US's position are Syria, North Korea, Iran and

Russia. This is not exactly a happy time, cocktail party of people you

want to be associated with. They are failed states with the exception of

Russia. So there we have Sean Spicer describing Iran as a failed state

and by any normal definition a failed state Iran certainly doesn't

qualify for that description. Now let's turn to a story that has

been developing in the last few hours in Germany, because a team bus

carrying Borussia Dortmund to a Champions League quarter final has

been damaged by multiple explosions. This is the bus in question. The

team was scheduled to play Monaco, but the game's been pushed back 24

hours, because of what's happened. We have this tweet from the police

in Dortmund. We can confirm there have been three explosions in the

area of the Borussia Dortmund team bus. One player has been taken to

hospital. That player has been named as the Spanish international Marc

Bartra. His condition, though, isn't considered serious. Let's go to the

BBC Sport Centre. You've been pulling together what you know. Give

us more details of the explosions and where they happened? They

happened just outside the team hotel, a few kilometres from the

ground. It broke about an hour-and-a-half before the game was

due to take place. What you know is there were three explosions. The bus

there, there it is in the background, with the fire engine in

the foreground, you can see the the foreground, you can see the

windows of the bus have actually been slightly blown out there. Marc

Bartra was the man you mentioned, the former Barcelona and Spanish

international who's been with Borussia Dortmund since 206. The

police sending out tweets. Social media went into melt down. That's

the team working away with the German police after the incident.

This inside the ground, it was relayed to the supporters inned so

the ground for both teams who were there, that the match would be

suspended, postponed and put back to 1645 GMT, 1745 BST on Wednesday. Now

what happened at the ground was the Monaco supporters, in fairness to

them, they were behind the Dortmund team, chanting, Dortmund, Dortmund,

Dortmund. It was remarkably well handled by the German police and

social media. Thank you very much indeed. We will come back to you

later to talk about the other quarter final, that is going ahead,

between Juventus and Barcelona. Last time I looked it was going well for

Juventus. That is covered through the BBC Sport app.

Stay with us here on Outside Source. We turn to Washington state in the

US later to look at the issue of vaccine scepticism and where it may

or may not fit in to the Trump administration's plans.

The parents of an eight-month-old baby boy say they're devastated

after the High Court ruled that doctors can withdraw his life

support. The parents of Charlie Gard broke down in tears as they heard

the decision. He has a rare genetic condition and brain damage. His

parents have raised more than ?1 million to take him to America for

experimental treatment. Their solicitor gave her reaction to the

decision. This court has had to face one of the most fundamental issues

for any court. It has not been easy. Lessons need to be learned about how

medical professionals face decisions such as this, how they act with

sufficient speed, and how they communicate with the families of

desperately ill children, such as Charlie. It is regrettable and

inexplicable that much of the reasoning for their decisions only

came to light after proceedings had been issued. It is too simplistic to

say had matters been handled better Charlie would be well, but

undoubtedly it did not assist. We're live in the BBC Newsroom. Our

lead story concerns Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State is in

Russia and there are a lot of people looking ahead to his meeting with

his counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. It will happen on Tuesday and Russia's

position on Syria will be top of the agenda.

Let's bring you the main stories from BBC World Service. First of

all, BBC Arabic has new details on claims that migrants are being sold

in slave markets in Libya. Toshiba has filed delayed financial reports,

warning that the company's survival is at stake.

An Uzbek man, suspected of carrying out the Stockholm attack last week,

has confessed to a terrorist crime in court. That's from BBC Uzbek.

This is one of the most watched videos on the BBC News app. That is

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip feeding bananas to an elephant here

in the UK. Now President Trump has been meeting

a number of chief executives to talk about his plans for infrastructure.

The CEO of, I apologise, we will speak to Samira in a minute. : He's

trying to gain support for a $1 trillion infrastructure programme,

fixing bridges and modernising airports. He wants to make changes

to the tax system and to look at regulation. He has a range of plans.

We saw Samira briefly. Let's bring you in properly. You made a brief

appearance there. Talk to me about where the CEOs fit into Donald

Trump's plans. For Donald Trump meeting with business leaders is

something that he has done several times. We see these CEOs coming to

the White House often. This is really very comfortable territory

for him. He understands business. He understands business leaders and

speaking to them is something that he is very comfortable doing. Now

what he wants is to see how he can get private, these businesses, these

CEOs to invest in some of the infrastructure spending that he

wants to have happen. President Trump has long said when it comes to

infrastructure spending plans, he wants to see both public money, so

that's government money, and also private companies come in with some

money to try and fix America's roads and bridges. In terms of the

funding, with regards to infrastructure, is he likely to be

able to get that through Congress relatively easily? That is, of

course, the $1 trillion question. With what happened with health care,

it's really set a lot of people back. In fact, if you look at US

markets and how they've been trading in the last day or so, there's a bit

of hesitation, when it comes to Donald Trump and the administration,

in terms of what they can actually get accomplished. You know, even at

the outset of this meeting at the White House, we heard the president

talk again about rolling back the banking regulations. Again,

something that Wall Street really cheered. But how likely is he to be

able to get some of that pushed through? That's where there's a lot

of question and perhaps uncertainty that that confidence that Wall

Street once had may be shifting just a little bit. Thank you. Next,

business, we talk about Shell. It's unveiled details of how it will

decommission four huge oil rigs in the North Sea. To do this, it's got

this ship. It's quite something. It's the pine eeering spirit, the

largest construction vessel ever built. This summer it will lift the

top part of Brent Delta oil rig, which weighs more than 24,000 tons,

then take it to the north of England, where it's going to be

dismantled. Now Toshiba, we've talked about this a number of times.

It's delayed its financial results, but they're out, revealing big

losses. In a statement, lest under of us underestimated the situation.

It says: The reports are that it could be in line to make 4. $4.8

billion loss from April to December last year. The reason I'm saying

that with some doubt is these results have not been approved by

Toshiba's auditors. This is what's happening to the share price since

December. Very sharply down. That's when it became clear that its

nuclear business in the US was in deep financial trouble. The BBC's

correspondent in Tokyo has more now. These were the greatest brands in

consumer goods for decades, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi, so how did

we end up here? First of all, the Chinese and the Koreans came along

and they could make these things just as well, but much cheaper.

Secondly, perhaps more important, these Japanese companies lost their

mojo. They forget how to innovate. The country that invented the

walkman did not go on to invent the smartphone. Inside a vast exhibition

hall, more than 3,000 new recruits are being inducted into one of

Japan's big corporations. A lot of these young people can expect to

spend the whole of their career in this one company. It will become

their second home. They'll expect to work hard, long hours and wait their

turn for promotion. It's a model that's worked well for Japan in the

past. But it has real problems. In this ridge it corporate hierarchy

promotion is based on age, not on talent. It's a culture which is

resistant to change and bad at producing new ideas. Toshiba is not

alone. Other famous Japanese names have been through deep crises. Last

year Sharp was sold to a Taiwanese company. Now Toshiba will be broken

up, its best bits sold off to the highest bidder.

As you may have noticed, there are many stories tonight that in some

way connect with the Trump administration. Here's another one.

There are suggestions that Mr Trump could commission a new vaccine

safety committee and that's worrying some doctors. One of the reasons

they're worried is there are suggestions this man Robert Kennedy

junior could be the head of that new body. He's a known vaccine sceptic.

We should be clear, none of this has been confirmed, but these

suggestions are raising the broader issue of vaccine scepticism and how,

for some, it's become very persuasive.

I have a report on this now. We've been to Washington state to Vashon

Island, it has some of the lowest rates of vaccination in the US. Your

attention please... Welcome to Vashon Island, a few miles off the

Seattle coast. It's a small, affluent community that embraces

natural, clean living. These children's parents want the absolute

best for them, like any medication, vaccines can cause mild and in very

rare cases serious side effects. The scientific consensus on them is

clear - they're safe, effective and save lives. These mums are still

unconvinced. We live in a society that values profit over public

health. So we really have to do our own research to find how safe they

are. There was a huge amount of evidence that it was harmful, even

if they weren't ways we could scientifically prove it, it was

talking from one mother to another. Here, like many other parts of the

US, parents can opt out of vaccinating their children for

personal reasons. But the issue has caused deep divides in this tight

knit community. Four-year-old twins are getting right up to date with

their vaccinations today. There's never been any doubt that that's the

right thing to do. It may be painful, but these shots protect

against deadly diseases including peesels, which before Vax --

measles, and whooping cough is a major concern. If we don't immunise

enough of the children in the school, then on a fairly regular

basis the whooping cough epidemic can grow in the school and then the

most dangerous part is those infections can be taken home and a

little baby could be infected. That can be fatal.

This is the man would wants to chair a vaccine safety committee for the

Trump administration. He completely dismisses the scientific consensus

on vaccines. I don't believe government officials and I don't

believe, you know, I have to be sceptical. We all ought to be

sceptical. The president's own scientifically unfounded comments in

the past have also caused alarm. The beautiful child went to have the

vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got

very, very sick, now is autistic. He appealed to emotion. He appealed to

fear. We know that vaccines don't cause autism. We are concerned that

statements like this could deter families from getting vaccines. Back

at the clinic, the girls are getting over their injections. But for their

parents, the greater good for the health of the island is worth their

tears. You can get more on that story

online as well. Let's lock at what's coming up in the next half an hour,

we've got, well, this is the North Pole mare thorn. These guys are

seriously impressive runners. We'll bring you more pictures of those. We

have to turn to this astonishing video, which was bad for United when

it came out. It's getting a lot worse, because of how United has

responded. We'll talk about that as well. That's coming up on Outside

Source. I'll speak to you in a couple of minutes.