06/09/2017 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Karen generally, this is Outside Source. Hurricane Irma hit

the Caribbean and heads north towards Florida. The category five

storm has already passed over the Leeward Islands and the eye of the

storm is over Puerto Rico. The track hazard forecasted to

directly impact the Florida Keys on Sunday as a devastating major

hurricane. The Florida Keys should be prepared to start feeling the

effects as early as Friday night and early Saturday.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has spoken for the first

time but the exodus of Rohini and Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has called for diplomacy

to resolve tensions with North Korea, saying sanctions can do the

job alone. And we will look at the murder of a

prominent Indian journalist, a critic of the BJP party.

Welcome to the programme. In the last couple of hours we have

received confirmation that two people have been killed in Hurricane

Irma, that was given by the French overseas Minister saying we are

talking about two deadened in two seriously injured for now, obviously

the situation can change very quickly. The category five hurricane

has destroyed buildings and caused major flooding as trucks and caused

major flooding is attracts another group of islands in the Caribbean,

packing winds of up to 300 kph. The eye of the storm is sitting close to

Puerto Rico at the moment, with the Dominican Republic and Haiti next in

line. It is passed over the Leeward Islands, which includes Antigua and

Barbuda and St Maarten. It is not known how much destruction has been

there already. This is from the island of St

Maarten, the French interior minister said the island has

sustained Whites read -- widespread flooding and many buildings have

been destroyed. Another scene from the islands, we should be able to

see it. Absolute chaos, yachts in tatters, giving an indication of how

bad the flooding is. We can expect to learn more about the full extent

in the coming hours. Just look at what they are dealing with, this is

the picture from mass of what looks like from the International Space

Station, it was taken as Burma made landfall in the Caribbean, it is

huge -- it was taken as Irma made landfall. The Caribbean expects Irma

to hit at some point on Saturday or Sunday, these lines of vehicles

lining up at petrol stations as the hurricane approaches. Forced

evacuations of people living in Florida have begun.

I have spoken to James fares, a British citizen living in St Kitts.

Things have started to improve. (INAUDIBLE)

Between five and seven a local time this morning.

The wind started off at around midnight and ramped up gradually

until five. And then the sun came up and you could see the full force of

the storm across the bay where I live.

Know you're getting a pretty complete picture of the kind of

damage it has caused? Yes. Luckily the area I live in, the majority of

the houses are hurricane proof. There are trees down, vegetation etc

but there does not seem to be any obvious structural damage in the

area that I live in, thankfully. You are part of the hurricane

preparative steam for the Ross University veterinary clinic where

you work? Are part of the international vet school that I work

at, that is correct, we have been planning for some time. Everything

seems to be going according to plan and to my knowledge everybody is

safe. You could see something you thought was lightning through your

curtains, but it was the live electricity cables snapping and

dancing around in the wind? Yes. It was about 4:30am, five, we thought

there were lightning strikes but when we looked out we could see the

snapped electrical cables in the distance dancing around. We are

looking at the pictures now, James. As you can imagine, it was pretty

scary. Thankfully it was not in an area where a lot of people live. Now

we can see it in daylight, everybody seems to be safe in that area. When

you heard about the magnitude of Irma, what was the reaction, giving

you were in its path? We knew there was a big storm coming since the

beginning of last week, there has been an awful lot of preparation

across the island, people have been storing lots of water, canned food,

biscuits, these sorts of things. We have been well prepared. What are

people able to do now? What sort of state have things been left in? At

the moment the current advisers to stay indoors. We are experiencing

high winds and rain, things are starting to slowly ease off now. We

are all sitting it out and waiting for the all clear.

It has just been there and it is now tracking, it is expected to take

this path in the coming days. It will pass north of Haiti on the

Dominican Republic on Thursday, then continue towards the Bahamas, Cuba

and Florida. Florida Governor Rick Scott has held a news conference,

this is a little of what he said. Hurricane Irma remains a dangerous

life-threatening category five storm with winds of 185 mph. It is a big

storm. I just spoke to President Trump, he offered the full resources

of the federal government. This storm is massive, the storm surges

are predicted to go on for miles. In some instances it can cut the

homes and go very far beyond. It is travelling at about 16 mph, the

track has its forecast to directly impact the Florida Keys on Sunday,

is a devastating major hurricane. The Florida Keys should be prepared

to start feeling the effects of the storm as early as Friday night and

early Saturday. Storm surge and extreme winds are the biggest

concern right now. Lots more on the BBC website. Let's

turn to Myanmar, we have been talking a lot about the mass exodus

of Rohini Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh blast the years. No

Myanmar's de facto leader has spoken about for the first time. Her office

posted this on Facebook, it is about if "She had with the Turkish

president and here are some key codes. Aung San Suu Kyi said, quote,

there was a huge iceberg of misinformation about the crisis

which aimed to create a lot of problems between different

communities and with the aim of promoting the interest of

terrorists. She took up the theme of terrorism after meeting the Indian

Prime Minister today. This has flashing images in it, this clip.

I would like to thank India particularly for the strong stand it

has taken with regard to the terrorist threat that came to our

country a couple of weeks ago. We believe that together we can work to

make sure terrorism is not allowed to take root on our soil or the soil

of any further countries. Jonathan Head has written an article

about the spread of fake photographs of the crisis. There is definitely a

problem but are just not change the fact that the grid does not change

the fact that 123,000 Rohingyas have fled in the last two weeks to

Bangladesh and Aung San Suu Kyi did not seem to acknowledge this, it has

provoked criticism. Sanjoy Majumder Census report from the border.

That represents this report. These boats are carrying Rohingya refugees

fleeing persecution in Myanmar. I am told there are several other

boatloads waiting off the coast of Bangladesh. This is one fresh lot of

refugees who have just arrived. They have come off this boat and they are

carrying their household belongings, things they have managed to grab as

they ran. Several have told me their villages were attacked, they were

burned. Some people here have gunshot wounds, others have other

injuries. There are extremely tired and exhausted. It is a dangerous

voyage and it has taken several days to come here. From here they will

move onto one of the many refugee camps that have been set up for

these arrivals. There are more coming in every hour.

Sanjoy Majumder on the border. As you mentioned, many of those he is

talking to say they are fleeing persecution in Rakhane state. The

government tells a different story. Jonathan Head has been to Rakhane

and sends this report. This is the town near the band were

dashed border that has been the epicentre of the violence that has

erupted -- near the Bangladesh border. We are on a long and arduous

journey on a government tour. The government does not normally allowed

journalists or foreigners into this region without special permission

because wants to challenge the narrative that the rest of the world

is hearing that tens of thousands of refugees have lead to Bangladesh.

They have taken is to various sites, showing examples of destruction and

let us talk to people. They all sticking to the same story, which is

the Muslim militants who have infiltrated Rohingya communities,

they do not use the word Rohingya, it is pretty much banned in this

part of the world, they say the Muslim communities where infiltrated

by these militants and the militants burn down the villagers, you can see

the remains of perhaps four or five houses, apparently lived in by

Muslim inhabitants now being looked after in the Buddhist temple.

Everyone we are speaking to, we are doing seen in the company of heavily

armed police and government officials. We have heard some

dissenting views that have spoken quietly to people, but the

Government wants to get across the message that it is not their fault,

the security forces have denied any pieces at all, those allegations of

rape and shooting, they say that the hundreds of villages that have been

burned down, every part of it is the responsibility of the militants are

nothing to do with the Government. I think you will be very hard for

people to believe that, but that is the light we are hearing. The area

feels very fearful, the shops are shut, there is heavy security. There

is a sense that the violence that has run over the Cerri on the border

with Bangladesh is not over yet. This is prominent Indian journalist

Gauri Lankesh. On Tuesday she was murdered on the doorstep of her home

in the southern Indian city of Buddle at all. She was a critic of

the governing BJP party and its ideology of Hindu nationalist

politics. That show you the pictures of press groups and activists in

India are protesting over the killing. They have called it a

brutal assault on the freedom of the press. India has recently seen a

rise in nationalist sentiment, with journalists increasingly targeted

for showing opposing dues. BBC Hindi is following this story from Delhi.

There has been a lot of uproar ever since the news broke. It has been

the top trend on Twitter, on all social media platforms. Gauri

Lankesh was a very prominent journalist who worked in top News

publications in India in the early part of her career and was now

running an independent weekly newspaper in a southern state. She

was a known critic of right-wing radical fundamentalism. She is known

for writing very openly against the establishment and was very, very

vocal in social media and also trawled heavily on social media in

the past, and this is what has caused a lot of outrage. Senior

journalists have staged protests, not only in Bangla door and Delhi

but in many prominent Indian cities people have taken note marchers

Daesh not only in Bangalore and Delhi. Candlelight vigils are

planned. Still to come, thousands are taking

to the streets in the West African nation of Togo, calling for the

president to step down. Theresa May has said her Government

is committed to controlling immigration because of the impact it

can have on public services in the poorer sections of society. She did

not comment directly on the draft document which appeared in the

Guardian newspaper today which suggested ministers could impose a

limit on the number of low skilled migrants coming from the EU.

Overall, immigration has been good for the UK, but what people want to

see is control of that immigration. That is, I think, what people wanted

to see as a result of coming out of the European Union. I think we are

already able to exercise controls in relation to those who come into this

country from outside the countries within the European Union, and we

continue to believe is a Government that it is important to have net

migration at sustainable levels, we believe that to be tens of

thousands, because of the impact it has particularly on those that the

lower end of the income scale into pressing their wages.

-- in depressing their wages. You're watching outside source, live

from the BBC Newsroom. Our top story, Hurricane Irma heads the

Caribbean, the category five storm is currently over Puerto Rico and

heading north towards Florida. Other stories being reported on

around the BBC right now, UN human rights investigators have concluded

that the Syrian air force carried out a chemical weapons attack on a

rebel held town in April. At least 83 people died when a bomb filled

with nerve agent sarin was dropped on a town. That is on BBC Arabic.

Tests have shown that a woman in Spain who claim to be the daughter

of the surrealist artist Salvador Dali is not related to him.

Salvador Dali's body was exhumed in July for forensic testing to settle

the case. Tkachev! Tkachev! This is the rather

dramatic attempt by an Irishman to catch a bat which has flown into his

kitchen. It was filmed in County Kerry by this man's son. You can see

him chasing the bat around with a bath towel. It is rather

unsuccessful at first, but you might be pleased to know that the bat was

eventually captured, it was released back into the wild unharmed. An

interesting night in that kitchen! These pictures show the height of

the migrant crisis in Europe. Since 2014 around 1.7 million migrants

have tried to make new homes in the EU. The numbers peaked in 2015, in

September that year, EU leaders agreed to spread a total of 160,000

migrants in clear need of international protection among

member states over two years, but some countries were against the

plan. Hungary and Slovakia took the fight to the European Court of

Justice, today the court rejected the challenge. The Hungarians are

furious. Here is Nick Thorpe in Budapest.

The Hungarian Government's reaction to the court verdict was angry and

immediate. The Foreign Minister described the EU verdict is

appalling, irresponsible and politically motivated. European law

and values had been raped, he said. The European Commissioner for

migration replied that the only political element lay not in the

verdict but in the stance of certain governments, as he put it. What the

Hungarian government is now clearly expects to happen is that the

European Commission will sue Hungary, Poland and the Czech

Republic for refusing to accept a single asylum seeker under the

mandatory quotas. Such a court case could take between six months and

two years. Having lost the legal argument, Hungary hopes it can still

influence the political argument over the future of European asylum

policy. Nick Thorpe, BBC News, Budapest.

Business news and lawmakers in the US have approved a bill that would

allow the likes of Ford, Google at Uber to test thousands more self

driving vehicles on the roads. It gives car-makers and tech giant

certain exemptions from federal rules.

Let's go to the US and speak to Michelle Fleury in New York. Will

this mean you will suddenly be seeing a lot more autonomous

vehicles on American roads? That is certainly the hope for the

likes of General Motors, Ford, another company owned by Google and

others developing self driving cars. The situation at the moment, it is

very hard, in some states it is forbidden to test these cars on

public roads, in other areas you are very least needy human being, a real

person, sitting in the car ready to take over the controls in case there

are any problems. The argument the car-makers have put forward to

lawmakers is that to develop this technology they need to be able to

test it more and more without having to jump through quite so many hoops.

There will still be plenty of measures that they argue they need

to be given more freedom to try and develop this and spur innovation,

that is the word the lawmakers used as they passed this in one body of

Congress today. How big a boost is this for the car-makers making these

vehicles, this endorsement of what they are doing? Endorsement as

bubbly too strong, it is the idea of innovation, that this is the future,

so it is how do you make sure it is American companies developing this

technology rather than, for example, other firms in other parts of the

world? That is partly the arguments being made. On the other hand,

consumer groups say we had to worry about safety. The opportunities are

clearly that, when I have spoken in the past two or two executives the

future that they point to me is one with a mix of people, in other words

there will always be some who like to drive their own car, they like

the feel of getting behind the wheel. Others may not want to. If

you look at accidents, most are caused by human error so they hope

this will lead to safer roads in the future. Thank you, Michelle Fleury.

EU authorities are investigating claims that the Italian Mafia has

been driving at farmers from subsidised land. It is alleged that

organised crime has been pocketing funds and know some 500 million

euros worth of payments are under investigation. In Sicily that have

long been claims the Mafia is preying on EU subsidies, but locals

are also fighting back. This report from Sicily. Land and property under

attack. Fighting Sicily 's Mafia is a risky business. This car belonged

to Giuseppe. Last year the Mafia try to kill him along this road. He now

lives under permanent armed guards after he tried to stop the Mafia

from illegally claiming public land as their own in order to get at EU

from funds. TRANSLATION: A new law ensures that anybody applying for EU

funds for agriculture has to have anti-Mafia certification. For many

years now the Mafia has used these funds to finance itself. We have

taken that toy away from them, we have not let them play with this any

more, we have broken it. It is not just public land that has been

targeted by the Mafia. Private landowners are not immune to these

problems either. We are in the shadow of Mount Etna, these six

hectares of land belonged to Sebastiano. I have come to meeting

to find at what happened to his house when he refused to hand his

land to the local Mafia groups. Sebastiano's house was burned down

last November. TRANSLATION: The message is clear, they wanted me off

my land and I am sorry to say that many people just give in. Sometimes

it is even what the public authorities recommend we do. His

T-shirt says it all, rural Mafia, a protected species. The owner of this

vineyard has taken matters into his own hands. He has installed security

cameras along his lamp's perimeter. He says he has spent the last few

years stopping local Mafia groups from trespassing and damaging his

find some property. TRANSLATION: We were under physical but also

psychological attack. They said they make the laws around here. They

threatened to kill us. They also beat us up. Stakes like these are a

common sight in the Sicilian countryside. Many say they mark the

lab at the Mafia wants to claim as its own -- land that the Mafia wants

to claim as its own, and a sign of the dark shadow that the Mafia wants

to cast across the island. Let's go to Togo, and anti-government

protests have been taking place across the country. Demonstrators

are calling for the president to resign. Unprecedented scenes in

Togo, especially in recent times. Protesters in cities and towns

across the country take to the streets demanding constitutional

change. Amnesty International says more than 100,000 people marched in

the capital. Many wearing the red, orange and pink colours of

opposition parties. They chanted the word soffritto go. They want the

president to resign and to limit the number of terms a president can

serve to two. TRANSLATION: We suffer too much, we can't even find food.

What country are we? We don't want the president any more, he must go.

TRANSLATION: We're here to demand reforms and the return of the

diaspora vote, and especially to demand the end of a system that has

lasted for 50 years. We must begin to see the end of it.

On Tuesday evening Togo's cabinet approved plans for a bill that would

modify the Constitution, reintroducing presidential term

limits and changing the voting system. But opposition members say

the president is merely buying more time about them. There appear to be

restrictions on Internet communications throughout Togo.

The president has ruled the West African country since his father

died in 2005 after 38 years in power.

His father passed a law in 1992 limiting the president to two

mandates, but then scrap that ten years later.

In total, this family has been in charge of Togo for 50 years.

They have a strong grip on the military and still enjoy support

from broad sections of the Togolese community. When the protest started

last month, crowds of government supporters also took to the streets

in support of the president. But it is yet to be seen if the

Cabinet plasma draft bill modifying the constitution will pacify these

opposition protesters. More from Outside Source in a few

minutes. Thanks for joining me. No great

surprises if I tell you that I will bring you the very latest on

Hurricane Irma, which we have watched with interest over the past

few days as it formed in the heart of the equatorial Atlantic and then