15/08/2017 Outside Source

start of a resurgence of summer? Or have more in the next hour. Hello,

and Philippa Thomas, this is outside source. In Sierra Leone at least 400

people have died in mudslides and massive flooding. The president says

urgent support is needed and there are fears that the number of dead

could rise. Trying to sort the helicopters and, more have been

brought in, this is a disaster. It's absolutely unprecedented. Also on

the show more White has intrigued as reports circulated that one of the

President's top advisers might be on his way out but it's not all bad

news for the US president, Kim Jong and says he will hold fire on the

North Korea's proposal to shoot missiles on the US territory of Guam

and some give the Trump administration credit. I think a lot

of it has to do not only with the strong statements made by our

president but also statements made by secretary Rex to listen and James

Mattis. Setting off into uncharted waters, we will talk to the team on

board. And to get in touch at any time the hashtag is BBC OS.

Welcome to Outside Source. In Sierra Leone, in the capital, Freetown, at

least 400 people have been killed by mudslides and massive flooding. The

situation is so dire that a mass burial of victims is planned to free

up space in mortuary. This is part of Sugarloaf mountain which

collapsed following heavy rain early on Monday. It involved summoning

arms. The president says the country needs urgent support now. Umaru

Fofana is in Freetown and sent this report. On the day after, the

emergency services are still overstretched. Inside the central

mortuary of the main hospital, piles of bodies. They are lying on the

floor in the open because there is no more space. Almost 100 bodies

were brought in on Tuesday morning, bringing the total to nearly 400,

some of them without limbs. The head of the mortuary says they are

overstretched and that is not all as they were trying to sort the copters

out, more have been brought in from different parts of the city. Even

the rescue effort is challenged, people are believed to still be

alive underneath this soil but even if they are it will be a miracle to

find them breathing. The government and developing partners have now set

up a response Centre registering those left behind by the disaster,

yet relief supplies are slow in coming. But the testimonies from

those badly hit by this disaster are in no short supply.

TRANSLATION: I first saw the body of my sister and called on

people to help me and we laid her on the floor.

Then I started hearing other people nearby crying.

Monday's mudslide and flash floods have shaken this country.

Even for a country that has known a bloody civil war and

a destabilising Ebola outbreak, this is unbearable.

Umaru is one of those asking if this tragedy could have been prevented.

This is from his latest Facebook blog about how he felt having to

report this. This quote caught my eye. Yes, the floods and mudslides

were caused by nature but they could have been avoided or at least

mitigated. If we had the environment, the environment will

fight back. Earlier, the BBC spoke to Ramatu Jalloh, who is with Save

the Children in Freetown. She said more about the situation the

rescuers were in. I think it's a great challenge, it up and totally

beyond expectations and in terms of the gravity of this situation for

Freetown and Sierra Leone right now it was beyond our expectations. In

terms of preparedness the government has put certain systems in place to

deal with the situation but as I say it was beyond what we were

expecting. We were expecting floods and I think plans were in place to

deal with floods and possibly the scenarios that would emerge from a

flood situation but never a disaster as large as this. It is, I think,

beyond what we ever sought when it comes to flooding. I think no one

really expected a mudslide particularly in the area where it

occurred. And just seeing the gravity of the site with a mudslide

took place, it's an absolute shock. At the moment we are estimating

thousands of families displaced, it is estimated at about 3000 families

displaced, half of which are children, some are placed in

community centres and schools and we hope the weather holds because some

families at home to try to clean up the sledge and dream of stagnant

water to make their homes have it all. A lot of these families have

lost everything, so the situation is desperate -- to make their homes

habitable. We are trying to respond to the emergency as soon as possible

and of course the Health Secretary is looking at cholera preparedness

and other sectors are looking at psychosocial and other support for

families and children but right now, to be honest, we all in a really

shocked situation, all trying to get on top this.

The fallout over Donald Trump's response to violence during a far

right rally at the weekend has continued and the blowtorch is now

on this man, chief White House strategist,

A number of media outlets in the US have reported Mr Bannon -

the former editor of right-wing website Breitbart -

Donald Trump is giving a press conference, let's go there now. I

brought it, I brought it, I brought it. As I said, and remember, the

Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this

egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. It has no place in

America. And then I went on from there, now here's the thing, excuse

me, take it nice and easy. Here's the thing. When I make a statement

like to be correct. I want the facts. This event just happened. A

lot of the events didn't even happen yet, as we were speaking. This event

just happened. Before I make a statement I need the facts. So I

don't want to rush into a statement. So making the statement when I made

it was excellent. In fact the young woman, who I here's a fantastic

young woman and was on NBC, her mother wrote me and said, through, I

guess Twitter, social media, the nicest things. I very much

appreciated that. I hear that she was fine, actually an incredible

young woman. Her mother on Twitter thanked me for what I said. And

honestly, if the press were not fake and if it was honest, the press

would have said what I said was very nice. But unlike you... Excuse me,

unlike the media, before I make a statement like to know the facts.

They don't. They don't. They don't. How about a couple of... Mr Trump,

was that terrorism, that event? You offered to bring the country

together, did you? You take a look, I've created over 1 million jobs

since I've become president. The country's booming, the stock market

is setting records. We have the highest employment numbers we've

ever had in the history of this country, we are doing wreck and

business, we have the highest levels of enthusiasm. The head of all Mart,

a very nice guy, was making a political statement. -- the head of

Walmart. I want to make sure, when I make a statement, that the statement

is correct. And there was no way, there was no way of making a correct

statement that early. I had to see the facts, unlike a lot of

reporters... I didn't know David Duke was there. I wanted to see the

facts. And the facts as they started coming out, were very well stated.

In fact everybody said, his statement was beautiful, if he would

have made it sooner that would have been good. I could not have made its

sooner because I didn't know all of the facts. Frankly people still

don't know all the facts. It is very important, excuse me, it was very

important to me to get the facts out and correctly. Because if I would

have made the first statement and the first statement was made without

knowing much other than what we were seeing. The second statement was

made with knowledge, with great knowledge. There are still things

people don't know. I want to make a statement with knowledge. I want to

know the facts. Two questions, was this terrorism and how are you

feeling about your chief strategist? The driver of the car is a disgrace

to himself, his family and his country. You can call it terrorism.

You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just

call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict, that is what

I'd call it. Because there is a question, is it murder, is it

terrorism and then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the

car is a murderer. And what he did was a horrible, horrible,

inexcusable thing. Tell us how you feel about your chief strategist,

Steve Bannon? I never spoke to Mr Bannon about it. Do you still have

confidence in him. We'll see. I like Steve Bannon, he's a good friend. He

came on board very late, I went through 17 governors and I won all

the primaries. Mr Bannon came in much later than that. I like him, he

is a good man. He is not a racist, I can tell you that. He is a good

person. He gets a very unfair press in that regard. We will see what

happens with Mr Bannon. But he is a good person and I think the press

treats him frankly very unfairly. You have been called on to defend HR

McMaster against attacks. I did that. Do you mean Senator McCain who

voted against is getting good health care? Senator McCain said the

alt-right is behind these attacks and he linked them to the attacks in

Charlottesville. I couldn't tell you, I am sure Senator McCain knows

what he's talking about. Define alt-right to me. Go ahead. Senator

McCain defined them as... What about the three Mac. Alt-left who came

charging at the alt-right, swinging clubs, do they have any problem? I

think they do. As far as I'm concerned that was a horrible,

horrible day. Wait a minute. I'm not finished. I'm not finished, fake

news. That was a horrible day. I will tell you something. I watched

those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it.

You had a group on one side that was mad and you had a group on the other

side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that but I will

say it right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in

without a permit and they were very, very violent. Do you think that what

you call the alt-left is the same as neo-Nazis? All of those people,

excuse me, I have condemned neo-Nazis. I have condemned many

different groups but not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe

me. Not all of them were white supremacists by any stretch. Those

people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of

a statue of the Robert EV. You look at some of the groups and you see,

and you would know it if you are honest reporters which in many cases

you are not, but many of those people were there to protest the

taking down of Robert E Lee. I noticed that Andrew Jackson is

coming down and I wonder if it will be Thomas Jefferson of the week

after. You have to ask yourself where does it stop. They were there

to protest, excuse me, you take a look the night before, they were

there to protest at the taking down of the statue of the Robert E Lee.

Infrastructure question. Did the statue stay up, should it stay up? I

would say that's up to the local town, the community, the local

government where it is located. Are you against the Confederacy? Do you

think things in America have got that? Look, they've been frayed for

a long time, you can ask President Obama because he made speeches about

it. I believe that the fact that I brought in, it will be sin, millions

of jobs, you will see where companies are moving back into our

country, I think that will have a tremendous positive impact on race

relations, we have to car companies that have just announced, we have

one in Wisconsin, we have many companies as a pouring back into the

country. I think it's going to have a huge positive impact on race

relations. You know why, it's jobs. What people want now is jobs, great

jobs with good pay. And when they have that, you watch a race

relations will be. I tell you, we spending a lot of money on the inner

cities. We are fixing the inner cities. We are doing far more than

anyone has done with respect to the inner cities. It is a priority for

me. Are you putting what you are calling the alt-left and white

supremacists on the same model plane. Am not putting anybody on the

moral plane, I am saying you had one group on one side and one group one

another and they came at each other with clubs and was vicious,

horrible, horrible thing to watch. There was a group on this site, you

can call them the left, you have called the left, that came violently

attacking the other group. So you can say what you want but that's the

it is. You said that there was hatred and violence on both sides,

Sir. I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I

think there is blame on both sides. I have no doubt about it and you

don't have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it

accurately, you would say... The neo-Nazis started this thing in

Charlottesville. You had some very bad people in that group but you

also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had

people in that group, excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures

as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the

taking down of, to them, a very important statue, and the renaming

of a park from Robert E Lee to another name. White nationalists?

Was George Washington a slave owner? Will George Washington now loses

status? Excuse me? Are we going to take down the statues to George

Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? Do you like him? Good. We

going to take down the study because he was a major slave owner. Will we

take down his statue? You know what, it's fine. You're changing history,

changing culture and you had people and I'm not talking about the

neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned

totally but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and

white nationalists, OK. And the press has treated them absolutely

unfairly. In the other group also you will have some fine people but

you also had trouble makers and you saw them coming with the black

outfits and the helm ats and the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad

people in the other group as well. You were saying that the press had

treated white nationalists unfairly? I don't understand. There were

people in that rally, I looked at before, if you look, there were

people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert

E Lee. I am sure that in that group there were some bad ones. The

following day it looked like they have some rough bad people. Neo

Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you call them that a lot of people

were there to innocently protest, and legally protest, I don't know if

you know, they had a permit. The other group did not have a permit. I

only tell you this, that our two sites to story. I thought what place

was a horrible moment for our country. Horrible moment. But there

are two sides to the story. Does anyone have a final... You didn't

get health care. What makes you think you didn't get an

infrastructure failure. We came close with health care, John McCain

voted against it at the last minute, you have to ask him why. We came

close to it, we'll end up getting health care, infrastructure is one

thing I think we will have bipartisan support on. I think

Democrats will go along with... Mr President have you spoken to the

family of the victim of the car attack? I thought that the

statement, the mother's statement I thought was beautiful. It was

something that I really appreciated. I thought it was terrific. Under the

kind of stress that she is under and the heartache she is and I thought

putting out that statement to me was really something I want forget.

Thank you all very much. Thank you. Donald Trump, you heard, was in

defensive mode. Obviously angry at the way his reaction to the violence

in Charlottesville has been reported. He said of the violence

that there were both groups that were violent, aside on the left

violently attacked and there is blame on both sides. He said of the

group on the right that they were not all neo-Nazis or white

supremacists. He was questioned repeatedly, are you putting the

alt-right and the left wing protesters on the same plane, given

that one woman died, and she died allegedly at the hands of an

alt-right protester. I think we can go to Washington, and speak to

Anthony Zurcher. He said he could not have made a statement earlier

because he didn't have all the facts. That was puzzling. What we

saw yesterday was a carefully planned, scripted statement of Mr

Trump addressing the situation, but I think we now have a window about

white he acted the way he did on Saturday after the violence in

Charlottesville. He said he wanted to make sure he got the story out

but it was clear that he thinks that there were violent people on both

sides. I think it was pretty clear, even before violence broke out in

Charlottesville, what the nature of those protests were when he talked

about what was going on the night before, he has courted a peaceful

protest. The night before there were white supremacists marching around

Charlottesville, the University of Virginia's campus having chants like

"Blood and soil". So the nature of the protests were clear but as you

said Donald Trump was very defensive. He feels there is another

side to the story and that was why he was reluctant to explicitly

condemn white supremacists on Saturday. Donald Trump made that

point quite powerfully when he talked about two sides to a story

and said, we going to take down statues of George Washington and

Thomas Jefferson because they were slave owners. Will we deny history?

A lot of people in America presumably would think, he's

speaking the truth there. Right, I grew up in the South, I had a civil

war memorial in my hometown of Austin, Texas. Civil War ornaments

are an important cultural touchstone for many white Southerners but they

are also considered by some critics to be condoning treason. Robert E

Lee led an army that fought against the US government army. George

Washington did not do that, Thomas Jefferson did not do that so I think

you will hear critics say that Mr Trump is taking sides in this

particular debate over removing the statues. He did mention that it was

a local decision and should be a local decision. He didn't weigh in

on whether the statue should remain or not although I know there was a

local decision in Charlottesville to remove the Robert E Lee statue, that

is what the people were protesting against. In this case the city of

Charlottesville was taking action that Mr Trump has said after the

fact that he supports. As you say, revealing a news conference. One of

the points to Trump made when asked how will race relations improve, he

said, jobs, I will bring back jobs, jobs are the answer. That is this

focus, isn't it. It is and this is what the event today was supposed to

be about before he turned it over to media questions, he was talking

about infrastructure investments, how he would streamline the ability

to finance massive government projects and how much easier it will

be under his administration to build a skyscraper or build a highway. He

was talking about the jobs, taking credit for the millions of jobs that

have been created in the country since he became president. I think

the bottom line is, all of the conflict, all of the controversies

that have swirled around his administration will all eventually

take a back-seat if the economy is doing well, if people are getting

jobs and feeling better about with the economy is heading. Anthony,

good to have you with us. We will finish this edition with this story.

At least 12 people have been reported killed by a falling tree

during a religious festival on the Portuguese island of Madeira. It

happened in the capital. More than 50 others were injured when the

200-year-old oak tree came down without warning at the gathering.

This is how one of the worshippers described events of the celebration.

We heard a noise. I looked up, my son was by my side. I only saw the

tree falling so I called my son and I ran away. I had a Big Bang. A lot

of people in a panic. A lot of people were down there. And just to

remind you of our breaking news, during this edition Donald Trump

defending his statement about the violence in Virginia at the weekend.

More to come, another edition of the programme is coming right up so

please stay with us. Thank you, we'll take a look at the

European