Spain's prime minister under pressure over migrant crisis

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0:41Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. It was at the end of July that tens of thousands of migrants poured across Africa's only land border with the European Union, crossing from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. You may remember the remarkable, chaotic pictures. More than 140 people died as they swam or tried to swim around the barriers. Although most of the migrants returned to Morocco, thousands stayed and a sense of political crisis appears only to be growing for the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

1:20Today he made an appearance in Parliament to answer questions about how it could have happened, who might have been behind it, and how his government has handled the whole affair. Mr Sanchez addressed the accusation, led by the opposition, that Morocco had orchestrated the influx. No one has provided the Spanish government with any solid evidence that this mass influx into the Spanish city of Ceuta was planned or carried out by the Moroccan authorities. But the Prime Minister did indicate that Morocco itself did have questions to answer. From day one, our talk shows and social media were flooded with voices pointing the finger at Morocco.

2:04And I accept that. It is clear that Morocco is our southern border and that it plays a key role in managing migration flows into our country. And incidentally, over the course of this month, We have heard two of their ministers make unacceptable statements about Ceuta and Melilla. Nonetheless, it is the Spanish government which is under pressure, not just about its shortcomings to this point, but also about how it's going to handle thousands of asylum applications and look after the many hundreds of migrant children who have now arrived in Ceuta. Domenic Ruiz de Vesa is a recent member of the European Parliament with Spain's governing Socialist Party.

2:44What does he make of the government's performance? I think it is clear to anyone that the level of anticipation of this crisis has not been good or sufficient, that the government or the administration, border management and so on, was not sufficiently warned and prepared for what happened. And once it happened, it seems there has been a serious underestimation of the remaining challenge. One thing is to say, OK, 80 ,000 people entered, which is massive for a city of basically the same population in a very limited geographic space. And then 70 ,000 within a day come back. It could look like the problem is solved.

3:27But OK, 10 ,000 people are still remaining, including minors that cannot be automatically sent back, including possibly asylum claimants that have to be looked at and their cases processed. Well, 10 ,000 people is still too much for a city of this population and dimension. Clearly, this was underestimated as a humanitarian challenge. So can I ask you who you think is at fault for that? Well, the Ministry of the Interior, obviously. Right. And it's significant that you're saying that because obviously you're a member of the governing party, the Socialist Party. You were a representative for them in the European Parliament until a couple of years ago.

4:11So, I mean, you're saying, look, we need to be honest about this and realise that for whatever reason, we have failed to meet the moment. That doesn't mean that efforts have not been undertaken and that the challenge is very difficult to handle in the first place. So I don't want to underestimate the seriousness of the challenge and the sincerity of the efforts. But it is clear that we have fallen short on both counts. In terms of who was behind all this, I mean, the prime minister has made all sorts of claims about Russia and Israel being behind a campaign to drive people across the border. there have been comments from the police that suggest that they think that Morocco was perhaps behind it and that's certainly what opposition politicians feel what are your thoughts on that?

5:05Well according to the evidence we have on the role of Russia and Israel by the government's own admission it looks like the role will have been secondary in the sense that it referred not to the instigation of the events, of the massive crossing, but amplification in social media of the crisis itself in order to portray it in the most negative fashion possible, obviously, to undermine the Spanish reputation and so on. But it has not been at least clearly or explicitly indicated, including by the government, the Spanish government, that they are accusing these two countries of being in the instigation phase of the events.

5:51And this is a very important difference. And we have more available evidence from different sources. The New York Times reporting on testimonies of migrants that said, yes, we were guided, even encouraged by Moroccan Guard. We have Spanish police reports that indicate that level of involvement. So probably the two possibilities are compatible, that there has been involvement by the Moroccan authorities, and that there has been a disinformation campaign by countries hostile to the current government in Spain or to the country to amplify the negative reporting of the events themselves. What you make of the support that you've had elsewhere from within the European Union, the European Commission, so the officials which help run the European Union have said that they're considering the request for help that Spain has made.

6:48They're saying we still have some important open questions that need to be answered by the Spanish authorities before we can commit to providing any support. Do you think that's that's fair enough? Or are you worried that there isn't enough support being granted by the European Union? Not really. In a situation like that, you cannot have a bureaucratic approach. So this is an emergency. The help from Frontex and from the EU has to arrive as soon as possible. And that was Domenic Ruiz de Vesa, a recent member of the European Parliament with Spain's governing socialist party.

7:32We've had warnings that the arriving natural weather phenomenon known as El Nino could be particularly strong. Today, though, the UN has given us a sense of just how strong and certainly how long. The World Meteorological Organization has said that it could last until at least February and be the most forceful for 70 years. El Nino causes surface temperatures to rise in the Pacific Ocean, increasing the risk of droughts and floods in different parts of the world. And the effect, it seems, is already being felt, with this El Nino being blamed for exacerbating massive wildfires in Indonesia, so big that they've produced a toxic haze which is spreading across borders.

8:15Here's our Indonesia correspondent Lisa Tambunan in Jakarta. Fires are occurring on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan. There are thousands of hot spots are emitting a lot of fire and haze. The air quality has become extremely hazardous to human health. Over there, readings can reach up to 600 and sometimes at several points during the day, even over 800. And air quality above 100 is already unhealthy. And this is also affecting flights due to very low visibility. It's also affecting daily activities for schools. where students are now resorting to online classes. And because of this toxic haze, there have been a rising number of respiratory infections with the health ministry reporting over 50 ,000 cases between July and August.

9:10And over 12 ,000 of these cases are of children under the age of five. Lisa Tambanan, correspondent in Jakarta. Wilfran Mufumu Okia is chief of climate prediction at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva. The fact that this El Nino is going to be seen as so big and so protracted, is that in part because of the way in which it's exacerbating the already existing effects of man-made climate change? There is no direct relationship between El Nino and climate change. but what is sure is that El Niño is now happening in a warming world and the event we have forecasted will be standing in the high end of our historical perspective so we've never seen something that big in terms of the magnitude and therefore we need to be prepared for the impact.

10:05Well you talk about be prepared, it's going to be tough though isn't it for those regions that are going to be hit by perhaps particularly intense droughts or particularly intense floods? I mean, what sorts of things should governments or maybe even individuals be thinking about? I suspect government will try to work collectively with different parts of the government, I mean national med services on one side, sector to try to better assess what will be the likely impact of El Nino on a given sector, or on the community. So I think there will be more a kind of coordination within a government, within a country, to make sure the intelligence is provided to anticipate the impact.

10:53Yeah. Well, I mean, I suppose you can anticipate, and indeed you've already, as part of your prediction services, I mean, you've said these are the regions that could be affected in these sorts of ways. They're obviously fairly wide swathed, So it's difficult to see too far in too much detail into the future. But again, I guess the question is, you know, if you're a relatively poor country in East Africa and you're told that, you know, steal yourself what could be ruinous floods, what they can do at this stage? Yes, I think that boils down to the need of having early warning system, in a sense, because, again, we need to be cautious here.

11:38El Nino is not a forecast of storm. It changes the odds, the probability of the climate condition, but the detail will be defined or clarified by the National Med Services who have more insight into what is happening on the ground. So we are providing a global picture, but the detail will need to be refined by the special authority in a country. Right. But just to be clear about this, in terms of the scale you're saying, the figures you've been looking at are more extreme than anybody pretty much has seen who's around today? Yes, what we are saying is that if we were to look back through the observation, we have dated back to the 1950s.

12:26And if we trust our forecast, our forecast will stand out compared to the past El Nino event, whether they were strong or very strong. It would be something new. Now, the magnitude of the event doesn't imply the severity of the impact because it depends on maybe the vulnerability of the country, of the location, maybe the time of the year. There are many other factors. But again, it provides some lead time to act because we don't need to wait until the impact occurs to react. So I think we are providing that information to the community. And that was Wilfran Mufumu Okia, Chief of Climate Protection at the World Meteorological Organization, the UN agency based in Geneva, on the latest data on the natural weather phenomenon known as El Niño, showing it could be the strongest for more than 70 years and last until at least February next year.

13:26You're listening to NewsHour.

13:38And coming up on the programme, one of the survivors of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in apartheid South Africa, on the hunt for justice more than 60 years old. We heard gunshots coming from behind us. We hid inside the stall, peeping to see what was happening outside. People were lying on the ground. When we looked out again, we saw that some were trying to get up, but the police were just shooting at them. That report from South Africa coming up in just a moment. Our main headlines this hour from the BBC newsroom. The UN Weather Agency has warned that the current El Nino could have a huge impact on communities and economies around the world.

14:20And the trailblazing American feminist Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92. We'll be looking back on her life in 15 minutes.

14:38This is the BBC World Service and live from London, you're listening to NewsHour with me, Tim Franks. In South Africa, the Sharpeville Massacre was one of the darkest moments in the long fight against the apartheid government. Dozens were killed when police opened fire on black people protesting against racist past laws, as they were known back in 1960. Now, more than six decades later, survivors and relatives of those killed are challenging an apartheid-era law, which they say has prevented them so far from seeking justice. Pumsa Falani has this report.

15:16Heaps of rubbish are piling up around the township and many young people of university-going age are sitting idle on street corners. It scarcely looks like the home of a historic fight against apartheid laws. We're in Sharffville, south of Johannesburg. It's a township slowly crumbling. Here, on the 21st of March in 1960, at least 69 people were killed by state police while demonstrating against the racist apartheid regime.

15:51Abraham Mufageng was only 20 years old at the time and still bears the scars of that day. A bullet is still lodged in his spine and he has a gentle limp from a gunshot to the leg. The life we were living under apartheid was a life of oppression. If you were from Sharpeville, you could not go outside its vicinity without a pass. We ended up planning to march to the police station in the morning. Then there was some friction between us and the police, and we saw a stone being thrown into the police station. All hell broke loose. That is when they started shooting. He and more than 200 people were injured, and recent estimates by South African researchers say the number of those who died from that incident could be as much as 91.

16:42Another survivor, Lazarus Mkhotsi, now 90 years old, takes me to the cemetery where most of those who died are buried. Their graves form one long row. There's even a 12-year-old. He tells me he needs time to compose himself, his eyes filling with tears. We heard gunshots coming from behind us. We hid inside the stall, peeping to see what was happening outside. People were lying on the ground. When we looked out again, we saw that some were trying to get up, but the police were just shooting at them. Others were using machetes to strike the heads of people who were still moving.

17:26The Indemnity Act 61, passed by the apartheid government in the aftermath of the shooting, protected the police from having any criminal charges or civil claims made against them by victims or their relatives. That law remains in the country's statute books. Now, South Africa's lawyers for human rights, a local NGO, alongside UK-based firm Lee Day, are bringing a court action to have that law repealed. What the community is looking for is basically reparations that could enable their healing. One of the lawyers on the case, Shane Tracy, explains. The community has also expressed that Shapo is a forgotten community.

18:07They feel that South Africa and the government are quick to celebrate what happened on the day and the aftermath of all of that, but nothing real has been done to assist their healing. Part of their court application includes getting a class action certified. If approved, this means that for the first time, dozens of victims could collectively sue the state and possibly even have criminal charges brought against the perpetrators. The government told the BBC it has supported apartheid victims over the years and will continue to do so, but does not oppose survivors and families pursuing legal remedies.

18:47For many in the community of Shafil, the scars of the past remain, and so people here hope that restitution will help heal decades of lingering trauma. Abraham Mukhozi again. It would make us very happy. At the end of the day, apartheid is dead and buried. A win would bring complete healing, not just for us, but for future generations as well. It may be months, even years, before the case is finalised, but for the first time in a long time, many of the survivors say they have something to look forward to. And that was Pumsa Falani reporting from South Africa.

19:36A long, long journey has just come. Well, not quite to its close, but close to its close, as two probes sent to explore the planet Mercury have, within the last hour, detached from the spacecraft, which has carried them from Earth, carried them since liftoff in 2018, almost eight years ago. Professor Susie Imber is Professor of Planetary Science at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. She's been part of the university team that built an instrument on board one of the two spacecraft. And I spoke to her in the last hour just before we knew that the detachment had been successful and asked her what the latest news was.

20:21No, we don't know if it's been successful. So we do know that the command has been sent to the spacecraft and that happened over an hour ago. But it's going to take a bit of time before we get confirmation that everything was successful. OK. I mean, I don't want to sort of add to the tension, but have you got it? I mean, how likely is it? What sort of peril is there at this moment? Well, there's lots of different types of peril, actually. We were talking about this earlier. There's all sorts of things that could go wrong. But the team, the main ESA team, have been training so hard over the last few months trying to figure out what could go wrong and how to work around it in real time.

20:57they've come up with lots of different solutions for lots of different disasters. But to give you a sense of it, we're disconnecting our spacecraft from this transfer module, which itself is a fairly stressful thing. And then our instruments actually, finally, some of them will see first light. And they've been on their journey for eight years. We haven't been able to test some of these systems at all. So we'll have the first opportunity just to see whether everything's working as it should be. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Well, I want to hear about what sorts of things you're hoping to measure and to detect.

21:27But I mean, just in terms of the journey, I was reading 18 loops of the sun, eight and a half billion kilometres. It's the most remarkable journey just to get to this point. It's unimaginable, isn't it? The distances that we've had to travel. And that's really because Mercury is incredibly difficult to get to, much harder to get to Mercury than the outer solar system, actually. And that's because you're sort of falling towards the sun and you want to end up in the same place, moving in the same direction as Mercury. So you can be captured by its very weak gravitational field. And that means that you have to do these laps of the solar system sort of gradually spiralling towards where Mercury is until this moment, really, over the next few months, we detach from this transfer module.

22:11And then gradually we end up in our final orbits around the planet itself. Right. Well, that explains why I was also reading that Mercury, I mean, it seemed odd, given that it wasn't, in relative terms, sort of that far away as some other planets, but why it had been our least explored planet. But given that, what are you, with the instruments that you've been part of creating, what are you hoping to look at? Well, it's partly the journey, but of course, it's also the incredible radiation environment and the thermal stress on your spacecraft as Mercury is incredibly hot. So yeah, those challenges are quite difficult to overcome.

22:48But we've built one of the 11 instruments on board the European Space Agency spacecraft. And our X-ray spectrometer is going to show us what the surface is made of. So for the first time, we'll get incredible resolution data back as to what Mercury is made of itself. And we'll also be looking at Mercury's aurora, which we see in X-rays. So we're hoping to get some data back over the next few months that will allow us to begin both of those scientific investigations. Phenomenally exciting. All the expertise and all the patience beginning its hope to pay off. Susie Imber, Professor of Planetary Science at the University of Leicester.

23:26You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC. See you next time.

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24:32Welcome back to News Hour. In Britain, King Charles has hailed the unprecedented loan of the Bayer Tapestry to the British Museum, calling it the best possible symbol of the close relationship between the UK and France. He was being given a private viewing of the medieval artwork alongside the French president Emmanuel Macron. The tapestry goes on public display next week. From the British Museum, the BBC's culture editor Katie Razzle has this report. And here is the absolute iconic moment of the tapestry where we see Harold standing holding the shaft of an arrow that has pierced him through the right eye.

25:09It is an astonishing sight, nearly 70 metres long and I'm standing looking down over the tapestry with the King and Queen, the President, the Prime Minister and all sorts of other dignitaries standing and being led along it. The lighting is incredibly low, that's to protect this fragile artwork, but there is enough light to see the drama of it, this epic story of Anglo-French relations back in 1066. The arrow is quite faint. The arrow is sort of a very pale yellow colour. As they toured the Bayer Tapestry nearly a thousand years after the death of the English King and the Norman Conquest, the message was that the loan of the work to the UK is a sign of Anglo-French reconciliation, not enmity.

25:59This is the French President Emmanuel Macron. A thousand years ago, this work depicted a crossing that changed history. And today it crosses the channel through a tunnel that we built together, a reminder of what our two countries can achieve when they join forces. If anyone remembers what we did here today, decades or even centuries from now, I would like to believe that they will remember not only the story told by Bayeux Tapistri, but also the tale of two countries which, after centuries of shared history, chose to forge a bond as close as the threads of this thousand-year-old embroidery. A loan to Britain was first requested back in 1931.

26:46Nearly 100 years on, it was pushed through to the opposition of some by the French president, who is believed to have wanted a reset in Anglo-French relations after Brexit. King Charles reminded guests that Windsor Castle was built by William the Conqueror and echoed the warm words about the two countries' shared history, adding a joke about the tapestry's heritage. Commissioned in Normandy, yet most likely to have been embroidered in Canterbury by English craftspeople. The Bayer Tapestry, or the Canterbury Embroidery as it might just have been called, recounts a conflict, yet here it is today, nearly a thousand years later, as a precious symbol of trust, at a time when trust seems sadly to be in short supply between nations.