UK begins trials of Ebola vaccine as outbreak in DRC intensifies

19:06Aid Worker:You play a quite important role in fentanyl production. Does it trouble you to know tens of thousands of people are dying from it every year? Yes, of course.

19:16Ebola Vaccine Scientist:In fact, a relative of mine recently moved to the US and died from an overdose. And that's when my conscience was shaken. But work is work, and we don't know another way to make a living.

19:35Ebola Vaccine Scientist:The band is playing a knuckle corrido, a ballad about the city of Kuliakán descending into hell due to cartel violence.

19:42Aid Worker:Given what I saw in Kuliakán, it's clear the system is built to survive the fall of any one person. And while demand largely from the U.S. remains high, the flow of fentanyl will continue. Zhang Zhidong has pleaded not guilty and remains in federal custody in the U.S. We approached Zhang Zhidong's lawyer, but as the case is pending, he declined to comment. His replacement, as the cartel members made clear, is already in Mexico. Sean Yuan, without investigation, you can hear more on the documentary The Chinese Fentanyl King wherever you get your BBC podcasts. A British man whose wife and 12 friends and neighbours are feared to have been killed in wildfires in Spain has told the BBC He became separated from them as the flames raced towards his home.

20:28Aid Worker:Malcolm Timbrell, who's 70, and his wife Annette Kilgore lived in the village of Baydar. Mr Timbrell's been talking to our Europe correspondent Nick Beek, who began by asking him to describe where they were.

20:39Ebola Vaccine Scientist:This is because of the devastation the wildfires have caused. We are now about three, three and a half kilometres down a single track, no, through road, on a slightly scorched chair outside my completely burnt-out property. It's just unreal. It's an absolutely wonderful part of Spain, but we've always known there is this possibility. But this time we all got caught out, and I think even the system for letting us know got caught out. and we being nine friends and neighbours could not get out and we were all trapped. We went as far as we could in our cars and just hoped we would be safe. That wasn't the case and eight people and one cat lost their lives.

21:42Ebola Vaccine Scientist:I don't know how but I survived.

21:49Ebola Vaccine Scientist:and basically that's my story.

21:53Aid Worker:Do you have any recollections or is it a complete...

21:56Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Yeah, oh, it's like a sci-fi film constantly going round in my head, but it's not real. It's something I went to the pictures to see. It is not real and it has not sank in yet and it won't be until the police are in a position to confirm names of my friends and wife, even though we weren't married, death. The vivid memories of what happened that late afternoon are just so clear and I don't know how I survived. Basically, of six cars, four of them instantly combusted and as each one started to go, I moved back one car and for some reason of fate, the last two cars, although very, very badly singed and paint-bubbled and burnt, survived and I survived inside the last one with a cat.

23:10Ebola Vaccine Scientist:and the police got me out.

23:13Aid Worker:Where was your wife at this point? Was she in the same car as you?

23:16Ebola Vaccine Scientist:No. My wife and our other seven friends and neighbours against me screaming at them not to decided the only safe way was to walk out in front of the firewall. I've subsequently heard that that firewall was moving at 20 kilometres an hour plus. They had no chance. And it wasn't until a good 24 hours later that they were able to get anywhere near that part of the Kempo and then finally did discover a number of bodies, which they haven't confirmed yet who they are, but we all know.

24:05Aid Worker:You know all of them?

24:06Ebola Vaccine Scientist:I know all of them.

24:09Aid Worker:And that was Malcolm Timberl talking to the BBC's Nick Beek. You can hear or read rather more about Malcolm's story on the BBC News website.

24:20Ebola Vaccine Scientist:How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As the United States marks its 250-year anniversary, we've been exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world. And today on the show, we answer your questions about this moment and what to expect in the years to come. From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.50. Listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:06Ebola Vaccine Scientist:world's super rich. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now and search for Good Bad Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Is the American dream still possible? I'm Asma Khalid, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. One of the most successful exports the United States has ever sold the world is the American dream, that tantalizing promise of a better, freer, richer life. But is it still attainable?

25:34Aid Worker:I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well.

25:38Ebola Vaccine Scientist:For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:46Aid Worker:You're listening to NewsHour.

25:58Aid Worker:Welcome back to NewsHour. This time yesterday here on the programme, and we were just beginning to get reports out of Thailand of a fire in a bar in the capital. The news got a lot worse. At least 28 people are now known to have died, and dozens more have been injured when flames ripped across the restaurant and bar where a band was playing on stage. Many of the victims were found in the kitchens and toilets at the back of the venue as they tried to escape smoke and flames at the front. There are concerns that blocked entrances could have impeded escape. At the scene for us today, the BBC's correspondent in Bangkok, Jonathan Head.

26:33Aid Worker:What did he see when he visited the site?

26:35Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Well, it was very eerie because, of course, it's very quiet now. It was just a stream of officials and forensic investigators going in and out of the very same entrance, which a few hours before had been this dreadful scene of people screaming, coming out with their clothes on fire, and this almost incredible roaring jet of fire as the fire kind of exited. It was quite extraordinary to see. It was like a flamethrower coming out of the entrance. Today, of course, it's taped off. There's a terrible sort of acrid smell there of burnt plastic. They've piled up some of the furniture and some rather hideously melted musical instruments outside.

27:15Ebola Vaccine Scientist:And it's now just a scene of an investigation. A lot of the windows were broken. And I think deliberately, one eyewitness said that she tried to break the windows to see if she could help her friend inside get out. but the windows are very narrow there. It's a big, large, rectangular concrete building with very few windows because it's essentially a night venue, a mixed sort of restaurant, bar, music venue.

27:38Aid Worker:So how far was this just a terrible aberration? What's Jonathan's view of the fire safety record in Thailand?

27:45Ebola Vaccine Scientist:It's not good, but it's not good in so many areas of life. I mean, this is a country which currently, this year, is applying to become a member of the OECD group of advanced economies. economies. Thailand is a vastly more sophisticated and wealthier country than it was 20, 30 years ago. But safety culture has not kept up. I mean, this year I've already covered a terrible accident where a train crashed into a bus in the middle of the city at a level crossing. Another accident where a railway under construction collapsed onto a train. And the problem is that at every stage, officials do look at the regulations.

28:18Ebola Vaccine Scientist:There are issues with the regulations. There are issues that the governor of Bangkok is looking at relating to this pub, saying it shouldn't be categorised the way it is, that it's called a restaurant, it's perhaps not subject to the more stringent fire regulations. But when you look at how fast that fire spread, there were firefighters there within five minutes. They got the fire under control in just over half an hour. And yet all that death and destruction happened within perhaps 10, 20 minutes. You know something was catastrophically wrong with the way the place was built. Fires should not spread like that, that quickly.

28:50Ebola Vaccine Scientist:The investigation will ascertain what that problem was. But what we've never seen in the past is significant public pressure to call those responsible to account, to change the way enforcement goes on. You know, bars in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand routinely pay bribes to the police just to operate. You can kind of guess they may also pay bribes to the inspectors. This pub was inspected just back in April and pronounced to be safe.

29:15Aid Worker:That's Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head, who is based in Bangkok.

29:28Aid Worker:This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London from the BBC World Service with me, Tim Franks. And the question we're going to try to answer now is whether a week-long rise in violence and angry rhetoric presages the return to a much fuller conflict between the US and Iran, or whether it will be a flaming of tensions which then somehow dies down again into the previous uneasy peace and talk of negotiations. At the moment, it looks like the former, a gallop towards war. President Trump this morning, Washington Time, announced that he was ordering the US Navy to reinstate its blockade of Iran and that the US will now expect to be reimbursed at the rate of 20 % on all cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz under some sort of US security guarantee.

30:15Aid Worker:This was how Donald Trump presented his vision when he called into the morning news programme Fox & Friends.

30:20Ebola Vaccine Scientist:We had a deal. It was a done deal. And then they broke it. They always break it. We've had 10 deals with these people. And so we're just going to hit them very hard. And we're going to keep the Strait. And we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the Strait. Maybe we'll call it the guardian angel of the Strait. And we should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we're going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy. They're on our side.

30:45Aid Worker:For their part, the Iranians have, as you might imagine, entirely rejected this notion for how the Strait of Hormuz should now be managed. Ben Amben Taliblu is senior director of the Iran program at the US think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has long advocated for a very robust approach to Iran. What does he make of the president's announcement?

31:05Ebola Vaccine Scientist:So I think there's a world of difference between the good in that statement, which is the restoration of the blockade and the problematic, which is this question over tariffs or levies, because it seems to be that the president has taken a page from the Iranians when it comes to charging or bypassing or going through the strait.

31:23Aid Worker:Well, indeed. I mean, and it was just last month, I think, when he was in the United Arab Emirates that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said, it's the law, it's an international waterway, no country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. I mean, the president, I guess, does often come out with things which then don't necessarily see the light of day. Do you think this is just him sort of spitballing an idea or do you think actually this could have purchase?

31:54Ebola Vaccine Scientist:I think there's a certain group within the administration where it does have both political and policy purchase. But for the president, as you mentioned, there has been a whole host of other countries in Europe and in Asia where this has been a negotiating tactic more than an element of political reality. And certainly I think in a situation where there's a real resumption or escalation of hostilities, the U.S. response to that rather than to generating a toll or a tariff in this part of the world is going to take precedence.

32:24Aid Worker:Isn't the underlying issue here that the U.S. is trying to solve a problem that didn't exist before the 28th of February, before the start of this war that they launched?

32:32Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Well, I would say that the U.S. response is finally coming around to deal with. The 47-year war the Islamic Republic has launched against its neighbors, against its America, against the international community, and even against the Iranian people. The challenge is how to do it while adhering to the broader political philosophy of the Trump administration, which seems to want a win in the Middle East, but a win on the cheap and a win on the easy. I think there's no such thing when it comes to the region, which requires, I think, the president to potentially recalibrate.

33:00Aid Worker:So I don't know. Well, in other words, I mean, to be blunt, to go in harder. Go in much harder, I think.

33:05Ebola Vaccine Scientist:You know, this is a regime, again, that has proven that there is no way out but through. It doesn't respond to pressure. It responds to massive pressure.

33:11Aid Worker:But does it respond to massive pressure? I mean, because in a sense that, to put it very crudely, that has been the strategy is that, look, you know, if we unleash Operation Epic Fury, if we unleash the might of the U.S. military and the might of the Israeli military, and if we unleash, I think, do they call it Operation Economic Fury? I mean, the idea that if we squeeze them hard enough, they're going to buckle. It hasn't worked up to this point. And the idea that, well, just we need to squeeze them harder. I mean, listen, maybe you're right, but you can understand why there will be people out there who are sceptical that partly about the wisdom, but also just about the efficacy of doing this.

33:51Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Sure, but I would say there's a world of difference between power and smart power. There's no doubt the U.S. has overmatch against the Islamic Republic. The real question is, in what larger strategy is that overmatch wielded? I certainly think that this regime has shown, I wouldn't necessarily say resilience, but endurance and strength.

34:08Aid Worker:Well, and also, I mean, there's an argument that actually they've only become harder line. They become more radicalized.

34:14Ebola Vaccine Scientist:That I don't necessarily see. I mean, there's many who say... Well, some of the language that they're coming out with at the moment. The language has been, I mean, this is a regime that's had vitriolic language from the get-go. And when people say there's a new hardline younger generation, I would say the 10, 15, 20 most important people in the Islamic Republic remain in their 50s, 60s and are graying and their formative experience remains the Iran-Iraq war, including the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba, by the way, who has neither been seen nor heard from. So I would say the real question for the administration is how to manage this short period, both for markets and as well as for media, and in the medium to longer term, to deal with the munitions crisis that America has, which would force America to turn on and turn off a conflict because we expend a lot more to defend against Iranian projectiles, particularly if we're going to be using those limited assets to help get ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

35:02Aid Worker:You are very clear, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies has been very clear for a very long time that, you know, more than anything, it would love to see this Iranian regime go for it to be replaced by something that is better for the Iranian people and perhaps, you know, better as far as certainly the United States of America is concerned. Just in terms of getting to that point, though, you talk about the overmatch, to use your word, between American military power and that of Iran. You know, we've seen this before. There was overmatch with Afghanistan. There was overmatch with Iraq.

35:37Aid Worker:There was overmatch, I mean, not particularly with the US, but with other countries with Libya. Didn't end well.

35:45Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Yes, it did not end well. But there's a world of difference again between Afghanistan and Iran. You know, Iran for the past 100 years has been a political history where the street uprises against the state and really hasn't been able to either find a partner in the West to support that uprising, perhaps, notably with the brief support of the British during the constitutional revolution, where revolutionaries were able to even take refuge in the British embassy grounds in Iran, which was historic and revolutionaries and freedom lovers are indebted to that way in the British. But minus that, it's been one where we focused on the security concerns rather than the political concerns.

36:18Ebola Vaccine Scientist:So, you know, my charge to the administration is develop a political strategy. You know, no one doubts American military efficacy. There's real questions as to the ends and the ways that military efficacy is wielded. So now is the time before the midterms for the administration not to rush back into war, but to figure out what it needs from the Islamic Republic and the capital and the cost that the U.S. is willing to expend to get there. You don't have to respond to every single thing. That puts Washington in a tit-for-tat where the Iranians actually have the advantage, particularly when they're the ones who are allowed to close the round.

36:50Aid Worker:And that was Ben Amben Talablu, Senior Director of the Iran Programme at the U.S. Think Tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Sam Neill, one of New Zealand's best-known actors has died at the age of 78 one of the memorable roles in a career spanning half a century and spanning blockbusters and art movies alike was in the big blockbuster Jurassic Park as the dinosaur archaeologist whose dreams come alive he was a garlanded actor, Sam Neill but he also developed a reputation as a campaigner and as a winemaker at his farm and vineyard on New Zealand's South Island He was also a supporter of the New Zealand Labour Party and its former leader and Prime Minister Helen Clark, who led the country for nine years until 2008, has been sharing her memories with news-ass Sean Lay.

37:39Ebola Vaccine Scientist:For me, as a New Zealander, it was the starring roles that he had in some of our iconic movies. Going back to 1977, he starred in Sleeping Dogs, which was a story about New Zealand under an authoritarian leader. And then 10 years ago, he was in Hunt for the Wilder People, which also attracted a lot of attention. So he was an authentic Kiwi voice on the stage here, but also brought huge pride to New Zealanders for the great achievements offshore. Sleeping Dogs was one of the first New Zealand films to really get a big international audience. He then did what a lot of New Zealand actors end up doing.

38:18Ebola Vaccine Scientist:He goes first of all to Australia, then begins to make a breakthrough in Hollywood. But his links with New Zealand remained very strong, didn't they? Very strong links. He remained associated with our politics and our big causes. One of my greatest memories of Sam will be when he appeared to speak at my campaign launch in the Auckland Town Hall in 2005. He was very moved to come out and support us. It was a difficult election, and he made a fine speech saying he wanted New Zealand to continue to be an inclusive place which didn't marginalise people and was a voice for peace in the world, words to that effect.

38:57Ebola Vaccine Scientist:So he wasn't afraid to get out there and put a stake in the ground for what he believed in. You mentioned his public speaking. A lot of people didn't realise that he'd actually had quite a severe stutter when he was younger and actually dreaded people talking to him. He'd done quite a lot to overcome that himself. He was known as a relatively modest man in a lot of ways, wasn't he? Absolutely modest. And to have the courage to overcome a stutter and go out on the stage, that takes real determination, which Sam had. But he was never one to blow his own trumpet, although he did blow the great success of his wines from two paddocks in central Otago.

39:38Ebola Vaccine Scientist:But also his great affection for that vineyard was what led him to come out on the huge environmental issue, which is still ongoing there, against a very destructive mining proposal, which the government attempted to fast track through a planning process. And they ran up against the immovable rock of Sam Neill in a determined community. And Sam has led the vineyard for fundraisers. He's lent his voice. He's appeared on videos. and he's really gone out on a limb to support the environment that he knows and loves and where his forebears came last century. As you say, his forebears came from there.

40:16Ebola Vaccine Scientist:He was actually born in Northern Ireland and his family moved to New Zealand in the 50s but his links with the country of his earlier ancestry are very strong. He talked a lot about the importance of New Zealand's culture and community and associated himself with this Maori idea of being a custodian for the coming generation. In what ways did he sort of apply that philosophy, would you say? He wanted to leave the environment around him in the state that he founded. So when a major mining proposal is talking of tailings dams with toxic waste, his voice against this was just so powerful and will be very much missed.

40:55Ebola Vaccine Scientist:I think it's been paused at the moment, hasn't it, by the developers. Just one other environmental issue that he cared passionately about, and I think you worked with him on this along with the late Jane Goodall, the primatologist, was the damage that plastics waste is doing, not just in our oceans but on our land to so many species. And he filmed himself on camera eating a plastic bag just to try and underline the potential harm this amount of waste is doing. Yes, Sam did that video, I understand, in collaboration with Greenpeace and apparently it just went viral, particularly when he started eating.

41:30Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Heaven knows what he was eating was a plant-based plastic. But anyway, it certainly made a mark. And eventually Jacinda Ardern's government moved against the single-use plastic. How would you like to remember Sam Neill? I remember Sam as the quintessential Kiwi. We all felt incredible pride to see him on screen and to see him go at age only 78. It's just devastating for New Zealand.

41:54Aid Worker:You're with NewsHour from the BBC. Three months ago, Peter Modja secured a thumping election victory in Hungary, ending Viktor Orban's 16-year grip on power. A grip which had seen many inside and outside the country complain about an increasingly authoritarian rule which had captured not just the executive and the legislature, but the courts and the media and business. Peter Modja promised to sweep all that away. And today, the new government, with its big parliamentary majority, has pushed through an amended constitution in order to remove several figures linked to the past administration. Top of the list is the president, Tomáš Šujok.

42:30Aid Worker:He now has five days to sign the amendment or face impeachment. But there are concerns about the speed at which all this is happening, and not just from Mr Orban's conservative nationalist Fidesz party. David Wieg is Hungary director for the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International. What was it about the bill which worried him?

42:49Ebola Vaccine Scientist:It is really justifiable that changes are needed. Some key figures that were cemented into as late as 2037, they are obstacles to the restoration of rule of law. But while these aims are justified, some methods that were used, that were chosen are pretty problematic because they violate due process.

43:10Aid Worker:Give me an example of how due process is going to be violated in your view.

43:16Ebola Vaccine Scientist:There is an existing procedure, for example, to remove the president of the country. There is an impeachment procedure that, in our view, could have been used and it's an existing procedure. But the governing majority did not choose to use this procedure. But basically, by law, just write one sentence in a constitutional amendment that, in fact, terminates the mandate of the president, who is the current mandate order, without any due process, basically.

43:43Aid Worker:One of the arguments that Peter Modja might make is that, look, you know, we've got a mandate. We made it very clear going into the election that we wanted to sweep the old system away. We got a huge majority, a super majority. Opinion polls seem to suggest that, you know, the overwhelming majority of people surveyed do want the president to be removed from office. We're sort of affecting the democratic will in order to set up a more robust system. I mean, what do you make of that argument?

44:20Ebola Vaccine Scientist:I think that's correct that the majority of the people actually want this president to be done. But in order to set a precedent where the protection of human rights and the system of checks and balances can be restored in a way that it actually respects the rule of law is a very important precedent going forward. This new governing majority does have the necessary public support to undertake these measures. The previous consecutive four urban governments that have undermined human rights and rule of law so many times used the exact same arguments that Peter Mojder is making right now, referring to the will of the public.

44:56Ebola Vaccine Scientist:So I think when we talk about due process and when we talk about the protection of human rights, it is really important to understand that while the majority in a country may wish a process to be very quick, sometimes it really pays off on the long run to respect due process.

45:15Aid Worker:I guess there could be another arbiter of this, which would be the European Union. I mean, they in the past have withheld billions of dollars of funding to Hungary because they've been concerned about the rule of law and about human rights. the EU has pretty much unlocked, I think, about$19 billion worth of funding to Hungary since Peter Modzha came to power. Do you think that they've acted a bit too hastily?

45:48Ebola Vaccine Scientist:I think they were a little bit too quick in approving these measures, as I think it is very important to learn from lessons from the past where some legislative measures were not properly implemented as they should be in practice. So I think it was a little bit too early.

46:06Aid Worker:And that was David Wieg, Hungary Director for Amnesty International, speaking from Budapest. Zhuzhanna Selany is a former MP for the Liberal Hungarian Together Party. She's now at the Central European University's Democracy Institute. Is it not reasonable to say that these changes about the respect, inculcating respect for the rule of law, have to, in their turn, respect the rule of law?

46:32Ebola Vaccine Scientist:It's important to say that Hungary is in a very unique situation, but there are no international standards yet. I mean, very few countries in the world is going through a so-called post-illiberal restoration of democracy. Actually, there is no other country really in Europe doing this after 16 years of illiberalism. So this is the status quo. There are a huge number of autocratic holdover appointees basically nominated by Viktor Orban's regime for nine, 12 years over several cycles in order that if they lose power, these appointees may subverse a new democratic regime.

47:14Aid Worker:And I understand that argument, but it's about the pace of change. I mean, there are other options open, for example, you know, just trying to remove the president through impeachment if you decide that he's simply not up to scratch.

47:27Ebola Vaccine Scientist:So the current amendment of the Constitution is not a new constitution we are talking about. It's a short-term, limited, transitional constitutional reform that we are seeing at the moment. A more wide range of constitutional process will start, as the government says, in September. So the current amendment aims to do quickly things, to do things fast. I mean, also, it's very understandable for political perspective that in this post-illiberal trilemma, a new regime, the new government should actually do things efficiently, fast, so that people can really see that things are changing.

48:12Aid Worker:Yeah, but you could imagine another government that you don't support, if it were maybe more in the image of Fidesz in future, doing exactly the same thing and saying, well, we need to act quickly.

48:27Ebola Vaccine Scientist:So we don't know how this government will operate on the long run. We only can talk about this very first amendment to the Constitution. And I think politically it's justifiable. I think my colleague also said that this is politically a very understandable step. The thing is that removing the president is almost practically impossible, according to the Hungarian situation, similarly to many other countries. So there are not very many options for the government how to do this. what they might have should have done more detailed, a kind of explanation in the written part of this constitutional amendment.

49:10Ebola Vaccine Scientist:The government has to overcome this dilemma of being efficient and fast, democratic and according to the rule of law. And this trilemma is actually very complicated. And we will definitely see further experimentation in Hungary in this regard in the next couple of years.

49:28Aid Worker:And that was the former Hungarian Together Party, Liberal Party, Zsuzsana Zsuzsana, I do forgive her, beg her forgiveness, Seleni. That's it from this edition of News Out. From me, Tim Pranks and the team here in London, thank you very much for your company.

49:56Ebola Vaccine Scientist:Is the American dream still possible? I'm Asma Khalid, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. One of the most successful exports the United States has ever sold the world is the American dream, that tantalizing promise of a better, freer, richer life. But is it still attainable?

50:14Aid Worker:I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well.

50:17Ebola Vaccine Scientist:For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.