12/01/2017 World News Today


12/01/2017

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This is BBC World News Today with me, Geeta Guru-Murthy.

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The headlines: Relations between Donald Trump

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and America's spies under severe strain.

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to the intelligence services gives strong backing

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and condemns what he calls Russia's "aggressive action".

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It's pretty clear about what took place, among Russian involvement and

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efforts to hack information and have an impact on American democracy.

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of allegations against Mr Trump who reportedly compiled the dossier

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has disappeared from his home near London.

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Also coming up, Moscow describes a deployment of thousands

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of American troops and tanks in Poland

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as a threat to their national security.

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Not so much a robot - more an "electronic person".

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Europe draws up rules for how humans might get along with

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their growing band of android cousins.

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A week tomorrow, Donald Trump will become

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President of the United States.

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The febrile countdown to January 20th has seen increasing alarm

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and speculation about the exact nature

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of Mr Trump's relationship with Russia.

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But some of those he has picked for the top jobs

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in his administration have been sounding

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much more traditionally hawkish.

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They continue to regard Russia with a high degree of suspicion.

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A week before inauguration day this usually an air of expectancy.

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The stage is being set for Donald Trump to take the oath of office.

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But the mood is much more feverish and electric.

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As allegation swirl that Russia has compromising information

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about the President-elect that could make him

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Today Trump's choice as CIA Director agreed

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the Kremlin tried to interfere with the election.

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It is pretty clear about Russian involvement in efforts to hack

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information and to have an impact on American democracy.

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I'm clear eyed about what that intelligence report says.

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And I have every expectation that as we continue to develop

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the facts that I will relay those to the president and the team around

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him and to you all so we can have a robust discussion

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As to the latest allegations in the dossier...

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I will pursue the facts wherever they take us.

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And the incoming Defense Secretary took aim at Vladimir Putin,

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I'm all for engagement, than his new boss.

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but we have to recognise reality in what Russia is up to.

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There is a decreasing number of areas where we can engage

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And an increasing number of areas where we are going to have to

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confront Russia. Yesterday the President-elect

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rejected the unverified allegations You're fake news.

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Go ahead. After speaking last night

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to America's director of National Intelligence,

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James Clapper, Intelligence chiefs have made no

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judgments on the claim. Team Trump is defiant,

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saying the allegations are not true. What struck me most in Mr Clapper's

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public statement that I'm sure your viewers can access,

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is Mr Clapper reemphasising that the intelligence

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community gave no credibility Washington is a city used

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to intrigue and alleged scandal, but not

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on the eve of an inauguration. Barbara Plett usher is in

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Washington. What's coming out in the last 24 hours. These new appointees

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to the Cabinet, are they genuine about Russia in terms of their

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history on the subject, traditional Republican and hawkish, but if there

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was a struggle between Donald Trump and his appointees, who wins? Does

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the power still reside in the White House? Yes, they have a history of

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believing that Russia is one of the key dangers, national security

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threats to the United States. General Mattis elaborated on those

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views in his speech, that he thought Vladimir Putin was trying to build

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up a circle of unstable states around Russia, that he was trying to

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attack all week in Nato and that Nato needed to be strongly supported

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because of that. It was also said that Russia is a real threat. He

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then said today in his speech that it was quite aggressive and needed

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to be counted. Those positions are held, they are well known and Mr

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Trump knew that when he appointed them. What that means in the

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Cabinet, we don't really know. The president will make the main

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decisions on policy relations with Russia but he has placed in his

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Cabinet people who have quite different views two years. He has a

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National Security Adviser who is very pro-Russian. We understand Mr

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Trump likes to operate like this in the business world, he likes to have

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different competing views around him and he will go with what he feels he

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wants to. But this is government and national security, and these are

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views strongly held and held by larger constituencies, by

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Republicans but many Democrats have these views of Russia as well, so it

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is not clear how this will play out. These testimonies are reassuring the

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senators who are listening to them. We have the background of the

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British spy, former spy, that was involved in this. If these

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allegations were true, would any of them affect Donald Trump's ability

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to govern? Are they legal or against the American Constitution? How much

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do they matter? It is difficult to say. I think the allegation that

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concerns people on Capitol Hill is the one that operatives from his

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campaign had contacts with the Russians about the cyber attacks on

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Hillary Clinton 's and the Democrats' operation. That raises

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all sorts of difficulties. That is something that could be quite

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damaging. But I don't know. It's quite unprecedented, really, that

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this sort of development, right before an inauguration and the

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scepticism of the intelligence agencies expressed so far, they say

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that they don't know whether this information is reliable. They are

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not coming forward and saying what the details would be of these would

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be proved to be correct. But certainly, the sort of atmosphere

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and the allegations themselves do strengthen a perception around Mr

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Trump which has been worrying for many people here.

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The former British intelligence officer who is named as the source

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of the latest allegations against Mr Trump

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Christopher Steele produced a dossier last year which included

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the allegations that Mr Trump had been caught

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in compromising financial and sexual activities.

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The allegations are unproven and the CIA says

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it has made no judgment about their credibility.

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Here's our security correspondent Gordon Corera

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The murky world of intelligence-gathering in Moscow.

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A secret dossier of allegations about Trump and Russia.

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All written by a former member of MI6.

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This is Christopher Steele,

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used to a low profile but now at the centre of controversy.

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He is supposed to have told neighbours to look after

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his cats and he is said to be lying low, fearing for his safety.

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What do we know about Christopher Steele?

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In the nineties he worked for MI6 in Moscow.

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He founded a private intelligence company called Orbis.

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Last year he was commissioned by Trump's

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opponents to look into Russian connections.

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He came up with 35 pages of allegations.

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There is no sign of Chris Steele. He is a man with contacts in Moscow.

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But so far there has been no confirmation that the

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extraordinary allegations he dug up there are definitely true.

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Thanks to his past as a spy, Steele is unlikely to have

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been able to travel to Moscow himself

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and will have relied on intermediaries

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Moscow's a difficult place to work in.

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The ruckses have a habit, of secrecy and deception.

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The other complicating factor is money.

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If you're going to give somebody money to tell you

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something, there is a strong possibility they will tell you

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Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent

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who fled to London, investigated powerful

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figures in Moscow and was killed

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It is alleged, on the orders of the Kremlin. His widow told me that such

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allegations carry risks. I believe it is dangerous,

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particularly after the death of my husband, because when you just

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approach specific information, particularly when this

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information very close might be in this line and you just

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easily might be killed. The Russian dossier

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was not written But American spies have briefed

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its outlines to man it is about, Its author never expected

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to be in the spotlight. But in the atmosphere

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of American politics secrets are no longer

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The attitude of the President-elect to the Nato alliance will be watched

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around the world. Especially if he departs from current US policy.

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Thousands of American troops, tanks, and armoured vehicles

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in the biggest such operation Nato's eastern frontier

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by the US since the end of the Cold War.

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These American military reinforcements in Europe are part

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of President Barack Obama's response to reassure Nato allies

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who are concerned about a more aggressive Russia.

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Within the next few days, our soldiers will be showcasing their

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lethal abilities as they begin to train on the bygone ranges. To

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arrive at this point so swiftly as proof that, when we work as a team,

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not only within the ranks of our tireless US Army but also as allied

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nations, a team of teams, no challenges to to overcome, no

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distance is too far to cross when the need arises.

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Russia has called the presence of American tanks and troops

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in Poland as a threat to national security.

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The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson described

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TRANSLATION: It is always the goal of these efforts of hasty deployment

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of military assets in Europe is an attempt of the outgoing Obama

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Administration to complicate as much as possible the bilateral relations

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and make the new American administration a hostage of

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continuous to put it mildly unfriendly policy towards Russia.

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Now a look at some of the day's other news.

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Shares in the Italian-American car-maker, Fiat Chrysler,

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fell by over 15% after the US authorities said

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They said Fiat Chrysler used software that allowed

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excess diesel emissions in over 100,000 vehicles.

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The company's boss has denied the allegations,

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The first aircraft Iran has bought directly from a western manufacturer

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The arrival of the Airbus plane is being seen as symbolic

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of Iran's emergence from decades of economic

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isolation, after economic sanctions were lifted.

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There's been a call in the British Parliament

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for a suspension of the sale of UK-made weapons to Saudi Arabia.

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The chairman of the Committees on Arms Export Controls said

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the sales should stop until the UN can investigate alleged breaches

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of humanitarian law by Saudi forces in the war in Yemen.

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from Donald Trump's press conference yesterday.

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It was his first in several months,

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and the first since he became president-elect.

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He had an exchange with CNN correspondent and would not allow

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him to ask a question. Go ahead, not you, not you, your organisation

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is... Can I just asked the question, so? Go-ahead. Don't be rude. Don't

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be rude. Can you give us a question? You're not getting a question. You

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are fake news. Donald Trump in that press conference yesterday.

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Someone who's covered a few presidencies in his time,

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and seen more than a few press conferences, is the White House

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correspondent for the National Journal, George Condon.

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He joins me now from our Washington studio.

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What did you make of yesterday, first of all Which? That was a great

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start. It is going to be a wonderful relationship. We have a lot of work

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to do. How damaging and incredible is it, really, that Donald Trump is

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taking on established broadcasters, for example? It is not knew that a

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president or President-elect doesn't like his coverage. That goes back to

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George Washington. But there is a personal element to it this time,

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and a lack of institutional knowledge of how the system is

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supposed to work that makes it particularly troubling. In terms of

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the way that covering the White House works, there is a White House

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court, a lobby group, is that going to happen under the Trump leadership

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because that has all -- always been about the close scrutiny of the

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president. We have what the House correspondents Association and

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former than 100 years we have been the group that deals with the White

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House on press relations. Can a president totally ignore us and try

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to crack down? Sure. He's a president. But the presidents who

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have tried that have all, without exception, come to regret it.

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Whether they think that all they need is Twitter and 140 characters

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to communicate American policy, they soon discover that they do need what

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has been called the dishonest establishment. Is it true that there

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has been some unhealthy collaboration? In many countries,

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those at the top of journalism, politics and business, where people

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outside might think that, actually, that system should be smashed apart.

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The people who say that frankly don't have the faintest idea what

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they are talking about. Our system is built on the foundation that you

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question government, you question power, and the people who do that

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questioning day in and day out, 24 hours a day is the press corps that

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follows the president, that knows the policy. That doesn't mean you

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cant have other questioners and other communication devices. Every

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president looked for different ways of doing it. But you still need that

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questioning. You cannot do away with the daily press briefing, for

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example and vigour that you are too powerful to be questioned. That is

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not the American system. -- and figure that you are to par four.

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Killer whales and humans are two of only three species

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Now, a 40-year study of a population of orcas is helping researchers

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understand why any species, including us, might have evolved

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to stop having babies at a certain point in life.

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Here's our science reporter, Victoria Gill.

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These researchers have been documenting

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the lives of killer whales here for four decades.

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Their findings have revealed new insight into something we humans

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share with a mammal so very different from us.

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Orcas and humans are two of only three mammals on the planet

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which stop reproducing part way through our lives.

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This 40 year study of killer whales has already

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shown grandmothers play a crucial role, leading the pod

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Scientists have now used this unique dataset, which has

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recorded births and deaths in every orca family here,

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here, to prove that when

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grandmothers stop having babies of their own, their daughter's

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offspring have a significantly higher chance of survival.

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The benefits of grandmothering are not enough

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to explain why human menopause has evolved.

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It's only when you consider the conflict and

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competition in the family group you can understand

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and explain why menopause has evolved.

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Avoiding this so-called reproductive conflict between

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the generations seems to give the babies the best possible chance.

:19:31.:19:33.

It would be really interesting to see just how

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That is something which could finally

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explain the evolutionary story of human menopause.

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Like us, these highly intelligent, now endangered animals,

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have close family bonds and this long observation of killer whale

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society could change our perspective on our own.

:19:55.:19:58.

The European Parliament has raised the issue

:19:59.:20:03.

of whether to give robots legal status as "electronic persons".

:20:04.:20:09.

Some of them take inspiration and robots should interact.

:20:10.:20:13.

from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.

:20:14.:20:14.

Today's report says that robots could eventually

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become so intelligent, that they could challenge

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humanity's capacity to be in charge of its own destiny.

:20:19.:20:20.

Jennifer Neville is Associate Professor of Computer Science

:20:21.:20:24.

and Statistics at Purdue University and joins me live from Indiana.

:20:25.:20:28.

Thank you for joining us. Goodness knows what it must be like to think

:20:29.:20:40.

of a robot that is much smarter than humans. What are the challenges that

:20:41.:20:47.

people are worried about? To focus on robots is a little narrower at

:20:48.:20:54.

this point. We should be focused on general, autonomous AI systems that

:20:55.:20:58.

are being rolled out in a great aspect of our lives right now, from

:20:59.:21:02.

how we read information online to treatments developed for us when we

:21:03.:21:06.

go to the doctor, and things like that. There are two primary concern

:21:07.:21:12.

is that people are concerned about, fairness and safety. From a fairness

:21:13.:21:18.

perspective, what that means is we want these systems to treat

:21:19.:21:22.

everybody equally and fairly, but the systems themselves learn from

:21:23.:21:33.

data in the world of algorithms and human bias is reflected in that

:21:34.:21:40.

data, so what is on online and on Twitter is not always the truth and

:21:41.:21:43.

reflects individual buyers. If you look at data about arrest and

:21:44.:21:48.

sentencing that owns in judicial systems, that is going to reflect

:21:49.:21:55.

the inherent bias of police officers, judges and lawyers in the

:21:56.:22:00.

system, and so, when the systems are trained on data that has bias in it,

:22:01.:22:04.

it's inevitable that that buyers will show up in the systems later on

:22:05.:22:11.

and to be able to adjust for that's algorithmically, to ensure that the

:22:12.:22:13.

systems make the kind of decisions we would like them to, is a really

:22:14.:22:18.

important concern right now in the research. The ideal of electronic

:22:19.:22:24.

persons, we've heard about people having robots in the home and

:22:25.:22:31.

everything in the home being electronic and feeding data back

:22:32.:22:35.

into bigger systems, so what is it that people are most concerned

:22:36.:22:38.

about? Can you give as practical examples? Is an example, you could

:22:39.:22:48.

think of a personal assistant with AI, not an actual robot but

:22:49.:22:55.

something like Siri or an online system that is gathering information

:22:56.:22:58.

and presenting it to you to read everyday. We have already seen the

:22:59.:23:03.

impact that fake news can have on our political process, so one

:23:04.:23:10.

concern would be if a system is deciding what information to give

:23:11.:23:13.

you in order to help improve your life, the system could also be

:23:14.:23:20.

guiding the information that you see in that system to make you behave in

:23:21.:23:29.

ways that it wants to. So, if the AI system taking over the world could

:23:30.:23:34.

do it much more suddenly just by propaganda... We're out of time.

:23:35.:23:37.

Thank you so much for filling us in. The romantic musical comedy

:23:38.:23:40.

La La Land has already won seven Golden Globe awards

:23:41.:23:43.

and 11 Bafta nominations. Our Arts editor Will Gompertz has

:23:44.:23:45.

spoken to the film's writer # Are you

:23:46.:23:47.

shining just for me? Welcome to La La Land,

:23:48.:23:56.

the Hollywood musical starring Anna Stone and Ryan Gosling

:23:57.:24:01.

which looks like it's going to sing It is a genre of

:24:02.:24:04.

film-making which its 31-year-old director

:24:05.:24:13.

thinks is unfairly derided I don't think musicals

:24:14.:24:15.

are this outdated thing They're also not just a purely

:24:16.:24:18.

fantastical thing that people I think musicals can

:24:19.:24:25.

say a greal deal about real life and human

:24:26.:24:36.

emotions and humanity # Here's to the ones who dream

:24:37.:24:38.

And the need for dreams. From a writer and a director's point

:24:39.:24:47.

of view, what can you do any song

:24:48.:24:55.

that you can't do in a script? I think of a song in a musical

:24:56.:24:59.

as a reflection of It is feelings that can't be

:25:00.:25:02.

described in dialogue It is feelings that

:25:03.:25:19.

need the outlet of a song. We had about a 3-4 month rehearsal

:25:20.:25:26.

period of Prep where everyday Ryan and Emma were in dance lessons,

:25:27.:25:29.

singing lessons, piano lessons. I think it's also kind of fun,

:25:30.:25:34.

if you're going to work with movie stars, put them outside

:25:35.:25:37.

their comfort zone, Damien Chisell is not yet

:25:38.:25:39.

32 but already being lauded and applauded

:25:40.:25:49.

for his talents, he is a young director

:25:50.:25:51.

living La La Land's dream. That's all from the team here for

:25:52.:26:01.

now. Goodbye. Good evening. Lots of very

:26:02.:26:14.

unpleasant weather around, around the country. A wash-out in the south

:26:15.:26:17.

with some of their brain now turning to snow. The risk of ice in many

:26:18.:26:22.

parts of the UK. Further snow showers expected

:26:23.:26:23.

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