27/07/2017 World News Today

The suffering in Yemen only intensifies.

War, hunger and now disease are ravaging Yemen.

The worst cholera outbreak in history is the latest crisis

Many in Yemen are dying needlessly because they can't get basic care.

After two years of war half the health facilities

The palace intrigue at the White House goes public.

The President's top aides are feuding over who's the source

of those damaging leaks. And a new full length film

This father-son drama is performed completely in Yiddish.

For two years a fierce civil war has been raging in Yemen

The Government backed by a Saudi-led Coalition controls

the country's south while Houthi rebels supported by Iran control

Continued fighting has left the already impoverished nation

on the brink of famine and now cholera has swept

through the country - with nearly 2000 deaths

The BBC's Orla Guerin has gained rare access to the country

and a warning her report contains distressing images throughout.

We cross the Red Sea to reach Yemen, past the sunken

We cross the Red Sea to reach Yemen, past the sunken

This was the only way to the port city of Aden.

The Saudi-led coalition, bombing the country, flew us in.

This is the kind of suffering they don't want the world to see.

He is one of many children wasting away across the country.

Since the war, malnutrition rates have soared.

Hunger is menacing this nation, from the very old...

Like Hussain, who fights for every breath.

The United Nations says an entire generation is being starved

In a ward nearby, another threat, a desperate rush

to save Abdullah Mohammed Salem, who came in with no pulse.

They tried to squeeze fluid and life back into his veins,

one victim of an epidemic ravaging Yemen, cholera, and it's the worst

There is now a perfect breeding ground for the disease,

as sanitation services have broken down.

Abdullah's son, Ahmed, has a message for those in power who,

Mosquitoes and flies are everywhere causing illness.

We are demanding that everyone who claims to be our leader should

Instead, they are dying of cholera at the rate of about one every hour.

Another outcome of a brutal conflict.

This hospital alone receives about 100 new cholera cases every day.

Those who get help recover quickly, within hours.

But many in Yemen are dying needlessly, because they can't get

After more than two years of war, half of the health facilities

Like much else in the Arab world's poorest nation,

an ancient civilisation with new battle scars.

The presidential guard mans the checkpoints in Aden.

But the Yemeni President is seldom seen.

He was forced to flee by Houthi rebels,

that's when his allies, the Saudis stepped in.

Their bombing campaign has not restored his authority.

But it has destroyed hospitals, schools and homes,

Their house was hit by two air strikes as the coalition targeted

Senaad tells us, that two years on, the extended family are among

Some of the family still live right here in the ruins,

with no help, they say, other than from God.

But civilians here have been under fire from both sides.

We met this woman and her children waiting for food aid.

10-year-old Imad used to love football, before

TRANSLATION: I brought the kids into the house.

They were in the living room when they were hit.

Since then, she says that Imad and her other children have

never been the same, they have deep psychological wounds

Most of all it is Yemen's children, like ten-month-old Ahmed

The conflict has reached a stalemate.

International diplomacy has failed and nowhere in the world

And joining me now is former US Ambassador to Yemen, Stephen Seche.

We saw there in the report, famine spreading, diplomacy has failed, you

are just back from meetings with officials from Yemen and Saudi

Arabia. What I walk away with a feeling of frustration. There is an

awareness that the situation is going in the wrong direction. There

is no clear way out. Only a political settlement is seen as

there really can get rid of this mess and the political mill --

political will, seems not to be there. Did you detect concern

amongst the officials of Yemen and Saudi Arabia about this humanitarian

catastrophe unfolding? Yes, everybody is aware of it, but nobody

comes up with a plan. That there needs to be assistance or a solution

to allow the free flow of assistance into the inner part of Yemen where

the population is at the greatest risk. Those Pacific material steps

were not articulated to us. Did you get the sense that both sides are

ready to going this out or are they open to a new Department initiative?

I did not detect enthusiasm for a new diplomatic initiative but I

would be happy to see month. A third party administrative element would

be a way to get two warring parties separated, hopefully that will find

traction, but I do not think there is a party that is willing to give

up what they claim as territorial gains. What role could the drug

administration play, the US has backed Saudi Arabia, could it change

that? We need to change that. Our interest and that of Saudi Arabia do

not always converge, we need to say, what is our national interest, that

may enable us to find daylight between our support for Saudi Arabia

which is legitimate, what they went in to do is to distort a legitimate

Government, fine, but the way they are doing it is not going to achieve

that end. What do you feel is at stake here at this or just carries

on as bitters, even beyond the humanitarian catastrophe? The idea

of a destabilised Yemen, geographically, around the red Sea

and the Indian Ocean, where so many energy supplies full, perhaps the

resident Asus population looking to launch attacks, all of that spells

disaster. -- resident Isis population.

Firefighters say the blazes which have caused mass evacuations

in southern France are under control but they warn that

Around 10,000 holidaymakers and residents have been forced

to leave their homes and campsites around the town of

It's from there that Duncan Kennedy reports.

It's been another 24 hours of fires...

This was Bormes-les-Mimosas, west of St Tropez, and the flames

have been spreading again across the windswept bridges.

That meant another night on the beach for dozens

of holiday-makers, forced out of their campsites.

They included Olivia Hall from Sevenoaks, who's

about to spend her third night in a sleeping bag along

What do you think of sleeping on a beach like this?

Well, I mean for me, I'm 18, it's OK, but for old people,

my grandparents for instance, it's not the easiest

Today we went out with this team of firefighters.

This is the kind of terrain they have to haul up their hosepipes,

They're dousing down dozens of small pockets of fire.

After four days, he said, he's tired but holding up.

And it's not just a firefighting effort from the ground.

There goes another load from one of these aircraft, one of dozens

Little patches of fire keep breaking up, they are the most dangerous

ones, they are the ones that can lead to widespread bushfires

And in wave after wave, the planes kept on coming,

trying to control fires caused by combustible undergrowth

TRANSLATION: When the fires combine with the winds,

It's like a herd of bison storming down the hill,

eating up all the vegetation, animals, and unfortunately people.

When the fires have passed through, this is what they leave.

Green turned to black, life turned to dust.

It is part of the natural cycle here, but the effects

Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, on the Cote d'Azur.

Well, when it comes to political infighting -

the White House is a virtual boxing ring right now.

The new communications director Anthony Scaramucci has been

in the job for less than a week, and he's already throwing punches.

This morning he challenged the White House chief of staff

to come forward and explain he's not a leaker.

And on the policy front - it seems even top generals aren't

clear on what the President's Tweet banning transgender people

The BBC's Anthony Zurcher joins us now.

The competent new communications chief goes on TV and challenges the

chief of staff to a duel about leaking, does this happen with the

support of the President? I think the President knew but he

was getting into when he hired Anthony Scaramucci. Sean Spicer

resigned. He had to know that this was going to ruffle some feathers.

It is to only 60s were Anthony Scaramucci to come in and say, prove

you are not a litre. That is like the old saying, tell me when you

have stopped beating your wife. Compared to the weak's other victim,

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has plenty of defenders, many

defenders for the chief of staff? Not particularly. Speaker of the

host said he was doing a good job and he did not think there was a

problem but Paul Ryan is also from Wisconsin, they are allies. Be on

that, in the White House, nothing really, and nothing from the Hill.

If he has allies they are not rushing to his defence. Yesterday

the President to beat that there would be a ban on transgender people

serving in the US military but what are the actual military people

themselves saying about that? In those tweets, and in the White House

follow-up, they said the reason for the policy was because military

generals asked for it but though we're hearing that the top brass in

the military did not have any advance notice that this was coming

down. It was reported that this may have all been because of internal

fighting in Congress about funding for transgender operations. Maybe

some Republicans didn't want to fund it, asked the White House for help,

and White House said that as no transgender in the military

whatsoever. Policy by to beat, what are Republican lawmakers meeting of

this? A lot of them are very nervous. They do not need this kind

of distraction. The Senate is voting on a health care Bill that is

hanging by a thread. They talk about distractions of the time, this is a

huge distraction, they are seeing one of their own, Jeff Sessions, in

the bull's-eye of Donald Trump, and if a long-standing Ali can be

targeted, no one is safe, people in the administration, in Congress,

they are all looking over their shoulder. -- a long-standing ally.

Violent protests have resulted in more deaths in Venezuela.

Today demonstrators clashed with security forces for the second

day during a 48-hour strike against the government's attempt

More than 100 people have been killed in the last four months.

Yesterday, the US announced sanctions targeting

The BBC's Vladimir Hernandez reports from Caracas.

This group carries out this ritual before every

After almost 100 deaths and thousands of arrests, no wonder

Numerous Venezuelans have taken to the streets to ask

President Maduro to call a fresh election.

Due to severe food and medicine shortages, but also against his

On the frontline of every protest there is a group of young men women

They face the worst of the security forces.

This is what normally ends up happening almost every day.

For more than three months, protests end up in violent clashes,

where young men and young students, boys and girls, can end up injured

Many of the students in the resistance shy away

But a group of them have agreed to meet me at this university.

In my day, we were protesting against rising bus fares.

Today, it is a rather more desperate story.

We have concealed their identities and changed

The way I see it, the Resistance is everybody who is against the regime.

Many people say this is a dictatorship and if you look

at what they are doing, that is what it is, really.

At the moment, they are even trying to change our constitution which is

I think the Resistance is those people who come out to protest

and who are willing to take the lead to confront the police

Many of the students I met come from working-class areas that have

been especially hit hard by the economic collapse.

But the Venezualan government accuses them of staging a coup

TRANSLATION: Some have labelled us terrorists.

I think that all of us youth who make up the Resistance

We are defending our people from the brutal

Venezuela's state attorney has said that the government's actions can be

Others have still been held even after a judge ordered their release.

I'd put these issues to a Venezualan high ranking minister who gave

He passed the responsibility back to the attorney general.

TRANSLATION: There have been over 100 people

But out of these, almost 20 are national guardsman

Why has the attorney general not made any comment about this?

I would not hesitate to say that she is responsible

through dereliction of duty for the deaths that have occurred

As the death toll rises, the protests in Caracas are now

increasingly followed by vigils like this one to remember the dead.

For everyone in this city, the focus is now on Sunday.

That is the date for a vote to elect a new assembly tasked

Vladimir Hernandez, BBC News, Caracas.

Let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news.

Amid chaotic scenes, crowds of Palestinians have again

been worshipping at a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem after Israel

removed the last of the new security measures it installed

But as the crowds arrived at the Haram al-Sharif,

or Temple Mount, clashes broke out and Israeli forces fired tear gas.

London Police have told the authorities in charge

of Grenfell Tower that they may face corporate manslaughter charges over

the fire that killed at least 80 people last month.

Police say the local council and housing association had been

told there were reasonable grounds to suspect them of the offence.

The founder of the Amazon website has become the world's richest man.

This was after a rise in value of Amazon shares on Thursday.

Now, there's no quicker way to end Summer fun than getting sick,

but you might want to think twice before finishing that

Some medical professionals in the UK are cautioning against taking

the full course if the treatment is prescribed, saying it

could risk developing a resistance to the drugs.

The danger posed by drug-resistant bacteria is growing.

Curbing the use and misuse of antibiotics is central

But now some scientists believe that long-standing advice to always

finish a course of the drugs may be wrong and could be making

We need to be careful about using antibiotics

because the more we use them, the more the bacteria figure out how

to become resistant to them, the more resistant bacteria

we select for, and the more bacteria in our environment and living

And that means when we get infected with those bacteria,

the antibiotics just won't work any more.

The world-famous discovery of penicillin...

Following Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in the late

1920s, the belief was that not taking enough of the drug could lead

The modern-day official advice is still to complete the course

you have been prescribed, but today's report says

research to back up that advice, exposing a growing

difference of opinion in the scientific community.

This debate matters because the stakes are so very high.

The number of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics

is on the rise, and we are being told that antibiotics themselves

are a precious but diminishing resource that needs to be used

As questions are asked about how best to use antibiotics,

some are concerned patients will be left confused.

People have always to follow the instruction written on the label

about the course of antibiotics because if they stop the antibiotic

before the end of the treatment, they could develop resistance

and so that kind of antibiotic won't work any more in the future.

Everyone agrees more research is needed before

the finish-the-course advice is changed to something like

"stop when you feel better," but the serious concern

about drug-resistant bugs mean long-established practice

This weekend a full length film in Yiddish will be

hitting the big screen - making it one of the first movies

The father-son drama is set in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish

community of New York's Borough Park.

Tom Brook has gone there to meet the actors and those

It has one of the biggest concentrations of

They reject most aspects of secular culture and that includes watching

Yet a portrait of this community has emerged

The film tells the story of one man's struggle,

to maintain custody of his son Rieven played by Ruben Niborski.

The film was co-written and directed by Joshua

Weinstein, a non-Orthodox Jew, working with a cast

Menashe is this big Charlie Chaplinesque of a man.

He's very funny, he's very endearing, but

And they have this chemistry where just by making a

face they can show all the dynamic and emotion between a father and

Nearly all the dialogue in Menashe is in Yiddish.

The film aims to be the genuine article.

These people speak Yiddish in everyday lives.

To have Holywood actors speaking in English

would have felt so phoney that I don't even know what the point of

I gather that you don't speak Yiddish

so wasn't it rather difficult in a way to

direct a film that's in

We wrote the script in English and then we had translators

But Yiddish is such a language that, block by block, neighbourhood by

neighbourhood, family by family speaks it differently, so we had

huge debates about what the correct words were, how to say certain

But this low-budget film faces a challenge.

subtitles audience appetite for a movie in Yiddish is limited.

Also the group that might be most interested in the picture's

content, ultra-Orthodox Jews, will most likely not go to see this

film because cinema-going is not permitted within the community.

thanks ultra-Orthodox Jews may make an exception for this film because

It's kosher because there's no touching.

Even if there's some females in the movie

And there's no negative against religion, belief, or any

Menashe may be one of the few films in Yiddish in

more than 70 years but its presence doesn't signal an imminent revival

in Yiddish cinema, which blossomed mid-1930s.

But it does show that the Yiddish language, while it no

longer enjoys the primacy of decades ago, is most definitely flourishing

in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in

Don't forget, you can get in touch with me and some

of the team on Twitter - I'm @LauraTrevelyan.

Thank you for watching and we hope to see you back here tomorrow.

Well, you do not need me to tell you there were some heavy showers

around today and also some fairly pleasant spells of sunshine,

but with low pressure close by the UK, as we go through the next

few days, that will be the driving force behind further showers

and this weather disturbance will bring some rain to end Friday