Eight dead in Cyprus ferry disaster

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0:40Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service studios in London. I'm Sean Lay. It's very good to have your company this hour. And we begin with an unfolding story on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, A ferry with around 270 passengers on board has sunk off the northern coast. The incident happened Sunday lunchtime, local time. Footage online shows people standing on the sap capsized catamaran as a helicopter hovers and begins to lift them off. Mustafa Koch is the captain of a boat which also went to the rescue. So the most people, it was still on top of the boat, roughly about 80, 90 people, the boat.

1:23and I carry about 65 people with my personal boat. They scared, they were panicked and explained to them that we are already here to save you. Well, most of those aboard were indeed rescued safely. By late evening Sunday local time, eight people had been confirmed dead, 17 remained missing. Meanwhile, the eight crew members, including the captain, are in custody. Tormai Touyan, a journalist, has been following the story of Fyeni Duzan, the biggest newspaper in northern Cyprus, a self-declared entity which broke with the rest of the island in 1974. Tumai told me what passengers were saying about what had happened.

2:04Since yesterday we are experiencing bad weather conditions including a heavy storm. So what the survivors are telling to the broadcasters, to the press, that as soon as they get into the heavy storm, all of them ask the captain to go back because it doesn't look safe. But the captain said, no, I'm moving on. I'm not returning back. According to those on board, powerful waves struck the front of the vessel, causing it to break apart. And then it began taking on water. and then it started to lean on to the left side and then it capsized. Right. So I'm in a very serious situation. The authorities managed to get quite a lot of people off the boat successfully.

3:01We now hear obviously there are still people missing and we know that some people have died. You've spoken to some experts who know about this kind of ferry. Can you tell us what they had to say? Yes, they're saying that these kinds of boats could not have withstood in such weather conditions because they are made of fiberglass. The fiberglass apparently is more suitable for summery conditions. Yes, we are in summer, but as I said, for the two days, it's not like summer. so this boat shouldn't be on the sea. Now as well as obviously carrying out a rescue operation and what could end up being a recovery operation for bodies the authorities have also taken action against the crew.

3:56Exactly. Eight people including the captain has been arrested and probably tomorrow they will stand before the judge. We still don't know what charges are going to put forward for them. What about the ongoing rescue operation? It's now, as we talk here, it's now late into the evening. Are they still trying to find survivors? Yes, search and rescue efforts are ongoing from air and sea. As the president said, search operations will continue throughout the night without interruption using night vision-equipped vessels, helicopters and UAVs. Almost all of us are watching, reading about the issue because it is not something that happens very much in this island.

4:51That's Yeniduzin reporter Turmay Turyan. Well, Kudret Ozosai is leader of the Opposition People's Party in northern Cyprus and a former deputy prime minister and foreign minister. He told me what he'd seen watching from the shore. I looked from the hills of Kairina and I realised that something is going wrong. There were some small boats released from that ship and it was always that there was a kind of a maritime disaster there. So you could see what would be lifeboats with people on them? Yes, lifeboats, but it was not easy to see the people on them because of the distance. This has been quite a dramatic afternoon and evening for people in northern Cyprus.

5:36How big a shock is this? Basically, from the declaration of independence of TRNC, I haven't seen any such disaster. This is unbelievable. And it caused a shock in the society. And today, the government declared three days of national mooring for those who lost their lives. It's going to be a very worrying night for the families and friends waiting anxiously for news. I've seen plenty of people crying and trying to find out whether their relatives are alive or whether their relatives are transferred to different hospitals. They were visiting different hospitals to find out their relatives. It is unbelievable.

6:21The Coast Guard and the other rescue services seem to have moved very fast because they were able to get the vast majority of people out of there and out of there alive. Yeah, they were very quick. Unfortunately, according to the recorded videos, whereas the passengers shared in social media, I followed them closely. And it was obvious that both yesterday, on Saturday and today, there were terrible weather conditions announced before even. But despite passengers' complaints, Captain insisted to move on. After some minutes of the travel, the passengers started to call the officials, the crew, not to sail, not to navigate under those conditions.

7:10But unfortunately, for some time, like 10, 15 minutes, they continued. So it is obvious that something was wrong about the decision of the captain and the crew. Probably because of that, they are in custody now and the investigation is ongoing. Yes, and we should obviously stress that, as you say, it is a live investigation. Nobody has been charged with anything. It's possible nobody will be charged with anything. We just don't know. But I suppose it will also raise questions, given that the weather conditions were bad yesterday, I suppose it also raises questions about whether these catamarans should have been sailing at all today.

7:49Well, it was estimated that the weather conditions were going to be fine after one o 'clock during the day. But just before the completion of those abnormal circumstances, they started sailing in the sea somehow. As you said, no one knows who were responsible and why. And we will see by the end of the investigation. We are not accusing anyone. But there are some information from the International Maritime Organization that there were some problems about this vessel. Some time ago, it had another problem. It was not used for a long period. And after that, it was repaired and then started to be used.

8:34and I don't know whether that was also fine. We will be able to know by the end of this investigation. Unfortunately, the result is there and we have lost our people and it's a terrible day. That is Kudret Uzassai, who is leader of the opposition in northern Cyprus on Sunday's ferry disaster. T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, Three, two, one, ignition and lift off. Go Falcon Heavy and go Roman Space Telescope. The launch into space Sunday morning of the Roman Space Telescope, NASA's largest, should provide bigger, clearer images of celestial bodies than has ever been possible before. Named after Nancy Grace Roman, the first astronomer at the administration, NASA is hoping Roman will also help solve some mysteries.

9:30Well, Johnny, as now to talk about that is Dr. Megan Argo, an astrophysicist from the University of Lancashire in the UK. Megan Argo, thanks so much for talking to us on News Hour. Why are astronomers and physicists getting so excited about today's launch? Yeah, this is a really interesting telescope. So we've been used to seeing fantastic images from the Hubble Space Telescope for the last 30 odd years. Since its launch in 1990, it's been one of the real workhorse instruments of astronomy and has produced some absolutely spectacular imagery. This telescope has a mirror that's exactly the same size.

10:06In fact, it is pretty much the same design, just a much more modern version of it. So it's a lot lighter, but it's a lot more sensitive and it has much, much bigger detectors. So whereas the Hubble Space Telescope can give you a very small patch of sky in lots and lots of detail, Now, the view with this telescope is 100 times larger and with better sensitivity. So you can see further into the universe, if you like, further back in time over a larger field of view. And that's really, really powerful and lets you do much more in the way of survey science and observing large patches of sky, which gives you access to a lot more physics than you can do with small patches of sky that Hubble gives us.

10:45Does it raise the possibility of being able to identify more kind of bodies in the solar system? In the solar system, possibly. Its main science goals are further away than the solar system. Yeah, so it's two instruments that it has. It's got this wide field camera, this wide field imaging and spectroscopy capability where it splits the light into different colours, giving us access to the chemistry of objects in space. and it also has a coronagraph which enables you to actually block out the light from a star that you think hosts a planet so that you can actually directly image the planet itself the star is so much brighter than the planet if you don't block out the light from the star it's really difficult to see that planet um if people were listening were lucky enough to see an eclipse recently when a solar eclipse happens that's basically a coronagraph experiment the moon blocks out the light from the sun for a few minutes and enables us to see the stars during daytime that we don't normally see.

11:41It's a similar kind of idea, but we do it artificially, blocking out the light of a distant star. There's been a lot of chatter among physicists that this might allow them to know more about dark energy and dark matter. Those are huge concepts in themselves. Can you help us a little bit with that? Yeah, so dark matter is interesting because we can see lots of evidence that galaxies have more mass in them, they have more material in them than we can actually see. So we can measure the light coming from a galaxy and we can use that to understand how many stars there are and we can estimate how much gas there is and all the other things that we know about that are physical but if you then weigh a galaxy by watching how fast the material moves in its outer orbits you get a much much bigger number so there's missing mass there there's invisible mass that we don't yet understand and by surveying large numbers of galaxies we can hopefully get a much better understanding of that invisible matter dark energy is even more bizarre if that wasn't bizarre enough dark energy is is almost like a negative pressure it's the universe seems to be expanding faster than we think it should and hubble told us that didn't it yeah exactly it was observations of exploding stars in the distant universe that told us that and a lot of that came from hubble but there are still a lot of unanswered questions there is did is that expansion rate changing over the history of the universe how fast is it going and what is the future of the universe and we don't know the answers to those questions and this dark energy makes up such a large proportion of what we think the universe consists of.

13:10The fact that we don't have a clue what it's made of is one of physics's big unanswered questions at the moment. Megan Argo, thank you so much for doing your best to answer some of those. We will look forward to seeing the results. That's Megan Argo, an astrophysicist from the University of Lancashire in the UK talking about the new Nancy Roman Telescope.

13:37Coming up here on NewsHour, a month after tens of thousands of migrants forced their way into Ceuta, tensions remain high in the Spanish exclave on the coast of North Africa. We hear from a police union official there. The public is agitated. People feel tired and are demanding solutions, but these are complex problems that don't have easy answers. We are calling for calm so that state security forces and agencies can handle public order and security. Citizens cannot take the law into their own hands. Our headlines, Nepal is preparing mass burial sites for people killed in Wednesday's floods as the number of confirmed dead approaches 800, with thousands more missing.

14:14Meanwhile, details have emerged of how swift action by a headteacher saved hundreds of his pupils' lives. And eight people have been confirmed dead after a passenger ferry with almost 270 people on board capsized off northern Cyprus. 17 are missing.

14:37I'm Sean Lay in the BBC World Service studios in London. This is NewsHall. In Iceland, a consultative referendum that could have restarted possible future membership talks with the European Union has been lost, according to RUV, the national broadcaster. When it broke the story, those gathered at a no-campaign event showed their approval.

15:04Antonio Costa, the President of the European Council, which represents the 27 governments of member countries in the European Union, said the EU fully respects the democratic choice made by Icelanders. The North Atlantic nation, with a population of fewer than half a million, broke off membership talks with the EU more than a decade ago. Its current government had wanted Icelanders' permission to reopen those discussions. Iceland already has access to the free market, and its people can travel freely throughout EU member countries, although they have no say in the making of the rules. Later I spoke to Thorhilda Davidsdottir-Sörbeck.

15:40She is vice-chair of the pro-European Icelandic Youth Campaign Group. On the line from the capital Reykjavik, she told me how she felt about the result. It's obviously super unfortunate and a regrettable decision. I think I'm happy still that the voice was given to Icelanders and we were able to vote. At the same time, we can kind of look back at the campaigns and kind of question the democratic performance that they had. I mean, there were obviously a lot of interests, I think self-interests led to like millions of Icelandic cronies, hundreds of millions actually being poured into this no campaign and ultimately swayed voters, especially young voters, at the last meters.

16:26It's very interesting, though, that kind of generationally, people might have thought the young would be more interested in the European Union. Why do you think in Iceland that that hasn't been the case? What is going on? And also, why did the government even think this was the right time to go back after a decade in which it hasn't been talking to the EU about possibly joining? Yeah, I mean, about the young people, the earlier opinion polls, they showed actually that young people were more likely to vote yes. So it was around 60 percent yes. It was just at the last metres of the campaign where it was kind of swayed.

17:04I think it had a lot to do with heavy social media campaigning as well as advertising campaigning that just in some way appealed to young people to vote no. With your second question, I think, I mean, Iceland is just in such a special place in the world. We're such a small island with no military. I mean, the whole world is changing around us. It's becoming more uncertain every day. So people are feeling more vulnerable? Yeah, I think so. And I think we definitely take it for granted. And I think we're going to be looking at this decision, at this no decision, at the end of the day, at some point in the future, whether it's in a couple of years or less or more.

17:46I think we're going to be looking at it and regretting our no decision. So you don't think this will close it down as an issue for a generation? I don't think it can. I mean, the European Union, it's such an important partner for Iceland. I mean, it's around 70 % of our trade. And I think if anything changes within the EEA agreement, I mean, I think it's still going strong. That's the European Economic Free Trade Area that you're part of. Exactly. If anything changes regarding that, for example, if Norway decides to join the European Union, I mean, they're already looking at it. Then, I mean, I think Iceland will be in a position where they have basically no option but to join the European Union.

18:28That is a very disappointed supporter of talks with the EU, Thorhilde, David's daughter, Söderbeck, talking about that referendum in Iceland that was held on Saturday and the results were announced earlier today.

18:57That's Simon Abcarrion as the French statesman Charles de Gaulle and Simon Russell Beale as Winston Churchill in the new film De Gaulle Resistance. It's the story of the fight back De Gaulle led from exile in London after France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940. That fight back began in a studio in the building next door to the one I'm broadcasting from today with speeches like this.

19:37The real Charles de Gaulle speaking on the BBC World Service in June 1940, a man who, according to Antonin Baudry, the director of the new film, was largely alone. Well, I think that people, at least in France, but I think mainly everywhere, don't realize how much the situation was desperate for the goal and for France. It was after a collapse, and France, that was the first army in Europe, was defeated in three weeks. So there was nothing left. And you get this man alone, who pretends to fight but has no army, who pretends that France will never capitulate but has just capitulated, who pretends to convince the French that they will keep fighting but is unknown in France, who pretends to convince the British to help him but doesn't speak English.

20:33And you've got this man in Churchill's office and the rational thing would have been to not support him. And that's what Churchill's cabinet advises. so what strikes me is how much irrational Churchill's decision is in other words how much emotional Churchill's decision is to support him and so that's the first thing that really interests me and the other one is how much he regrets it right after so the the core of the relationship is emotional because it's beginning somehow. One other theme that comes out very strikingly from your film is the importance of Africa, at least the psychological importance of the battles in Africa, of regaining territory in Africa for the kind of self-belief of those who were supporting de Gaulle and for de Gaulle himself.

21:36it's absolutely true i think that france would never have recovered without africa without felix seboe the first governor rallying him from chad without these armies that raised from africa to support him i think he would never have recovered i think this and globally i think People don't remember or don't know how much Africa was a key in this war. And for Churchill too, I mean, if he lost North Africa, he would have lost the war. One of the other things that you do in the film is to weave the story of the young French who resisted, the young French who said no to Vichy. And you make, I think, the point that it pretty much was only the young, at least in the early days after the fall of France, who continue to believe in France.

22:31This is really true. If you look at the people tell about this moment, everybody, you know, after the occupation of France, everybody was silent and scared and didn't know what to do. Even the people who wanted to resist or do something, they were all talking about do something, we have to do something. Fair quelque chose. But no one knew what. and suddenly you've got this spontaneous demonstration of high school students. And I think it's very impressive that the first signal that was sent to the world that there were French people who didn't accept Nazi occupation, were not the army or the elite or it was high school students.

23:15Antoine Baudry, director of De Gaulle Resistance, out now. The second part of his film, which covers De Gaulle's triumph and return to Paris in 1944, will be released next month. This is News Out.

23:54the show as super positive for his country, soft power through cinema. But is TV tourism good for a city? For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:10Welcome back to NewsHour, to Washington DC now where a pig called Synergy is making the situation a bit less bleak for people who are homeless around one of its major transport hubs. Riley Farrell from the BBC's Happy Pod has been to meet her. I'm in Washington DC's Union Station, a historic travel hub just a jaunt from the US Capitol. Under vaulted ceilings decorated with gold leaf, travellers bustle towards trains and buses. Locals and out-of-towners shuffle across the white granite floor. It's business as usual, except... Hi, this is Synergy. Who? Synergy? Synergy? Yeah, she works with you at the Unhoused Grouping Association.

24:54Meet Synergy, a 2-kilogram pig. Her toenails are painted red, and she's turning heads. But she offers more than entertainment. Synergy is training to become a therapy animal. She also works as a wellness ambassador for people experiencing homelessness. She's part of a crisis intervention non-profit called the H3 Project. Hi. Hi. Oh my goodness. That's a synergy. She works with the unhoused. Train stations like Union Station often attract people who are experiencing homelessness. They are public places that offer shelter from extreme weather and access to restrooms. It's also where Dr. Amy Angel spends most of her time.

25:33She works with the unhoused here at Union Station. We'll be walking along and like two people, you know, thug type. We'll suddenly just like, they would never stop and talk. We'll suddenly, oh my God, is that big? Next to like two people who don't speak English. Next to the homeless. A group that would never otherwise like entertain together, have a conversation, all within the same thing. And that's what's amazing. She just breaks down those barriers. She founded the H3 Project. The name stands for Home, Health, and Happiness. And as we make our way through the station, Synergy is about to make a new friend.

26:05It's a baby. Have you seen her yet? I have never seen her. Hi, how are you? I mean, this is Synergy. For Amy, moments like that are exactly why Synergy is here. Synergy was first just a concept because I had heard how smart pigs are. So I was just looking for an idea that would help to have a different approach, to have something to open up that conversation. Someone maybe that's resistant to case management, have that outside-of-the-box type of thing that might engage them with us. In the past year, H3 says it has provided 93 housing matches and 217 Narcan administrations for overdose reversal.

26:45What motivates me is those small things, those small wins. I mean, obviously, I want the big wins. I want the person getting employed. I want the person who finally was able to get his high school diploma at age 34. I want everyone in housing. I want those big wins, but I also have to take time and really celebrate those small wins, those small victories. And that's what really even Synergy brings in, because those small victories of introducing Synergy to someone, and they previously were unwilling to work with us to get their documents. But because of her being there, they're willing. And that's a win to me.

27:24Amy Angel ending that report by Riley Farrell. Happy pod, happy pig.

27:40You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service with me, Sean Lay. A month ago today, at least 72 ,000 people crossed in Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the coast of North Africa. The vast majority left soon after, but several thousand remain.