UK police arrest five over incident at airbase

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0:42Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, live from London with Owen Bennett-Jones. And let's get straight to the Royal Air Force Base at Fairford, deep in the English countryside, a base used by the United States as well, where in the small hours of this morning, five men were arrested on explosives charges. Despite the time that has elapsed since then, we still don't have many details, but President Trump said a major attack had been averted. The arrest in the UK was fantastic. Working with Britain, it was an amazing job. We had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage to our port.

1:24And working with the British worked out great. Were they migrants? It may have been Scotland Yard. I don't know. We worked with a lot of them. We had them under view for a long time and we got them. Thank you. Well, there's still no official world on who attempted to attack the base. And that vacuum has led to speculation. It could be Russia. It could be Iran. Whoever it was, around 85 homes near the base had to be evacuated. And Richard O 'Cone is the assistant chief constable, so senior police officer in southwest England. Police received a call relating to three suspicious vehicles travelling towards RAF Fairford.

2:01Armed officers responded and subsequently arrested five men in the Welford area on suspicion of committing offences under the Explosives Act. The men were taken into custody where they remain. A 400 metre cordon has been put in place around the vehicles while the Army's Explosive, Ordnance, Disposal Unit examined them. Well, people living near the base say they first became aware of the incident around two o 'clock in the morning. And one local resident described what he heard and saw. I heard shouting outside our front door. Well, I'd say outside our front door. I don't know where it was from.

2:35And then looked out the window and saw people being held by the police outside the house. Bits are real, but you get used to funny things going on sometimes around the base. Well, this morning the reporting was saying this was not an intelligence-led operation by the police. But as we heard, President Trump has somewhat contradicted that, saying the people arrested were under investigation for a long time. So what's known about how much advance warning of the attack there was? James Landale is the BBC diplomatic correspondent. There have been contradictory statements at various stages. The day began with this idea that it was not an intelligence-led operation, that actually it was the result of alert passers-by who had seen something strange and had reported it to the police.

3:23There was a report that somebody had called the US base and that call had gone unanswered. So they'd called the police. Well, that's quite plausible because that report, because the resident is quoted as saying, I was driving through the night and I saw these guys in my gloves. But then we've had Donald Trump now come out and say that the authorities had had their eye on the suspects for, quotes, a long time. We don't know how long is a long time in that respect. And we don't know precisely the nature of that investigation. There has been some suspicion that security in the bases had been increased in recent days.

3:58But security in these kind of bases goes up and down as the days go by, depending on various different intelligence threats, most of which we know nothing about. So the truth is, we don't know yet whether or not this was a plot that was foiled by good intelligence or whether it was also a mixture of a bit of intelligence plus some alert passers-by sending in a report pretty quickly. I mean, that would be incredible. Yeah, it would be extraordinary. It would raise substantial questions about the way in which these bases are kept safe. At the moment, the rules as part of the deal between the UK and the US to have these bases on UK soil is that the US is responsible for security within the base, inside the perimeter.

4:42Anything outside is the responsibility of the UK authorities. Now, obviously, both sides talk very, very closely to one another about all of this. But the idea that you can have vehicles driving around unobserved is strange. We should remember this is a very rural area. But at the same time, this is a highly important US military base. And it is one that is being used in a conflict of war right now. And it has long been acknowledged that therefore it's a potential target. So it would be surprising that an incident like this can be foiled simply by a driver having his or her wits about them late at night on the way back from a social engagement.

5:27Indeed. That was James Landale. Well, it's often said in media reports that this base is used to launch attacks on Iran, and that might well be the case. But actually, back in March, when the British government gave permission for the US to use Fairford for Iran, the Prime Minister at that time, Keir Starmer, said it should only be used for defensive operations. The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose. We have taken the decision to accept this request. Well, let's assess how possible it is for the British to hold the Americans to a condition of that kind.

6:17Shashank Joshi is Washington Bureau Chief for The Economist. Is it, first of all, possible, really, to distinguish between defensive and offensive use of a base like this? I think it's extremely unlikely that there's a clear distinction between offensive and defensive operations. Remember, when Keir Starmer originally offered use of this base and allowed it to be used, it was at a time when the United States was conducting attacks for the purposes of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, trying to suppress, for example, Iranian missile launches and Shahid drone launches that might be threatening shipping.

6:50It still is doing some of that, but we don't know exactly what the purposes of US military action are right now. There are suggestions the US may be preparing for another bombing campaign. So whilst there may have been private undertakings given by the US to the UK saying, we'll only be striking Iranian missile launches, for example, rather than nuclear sites or other kinds of broader Iranian regime targets, I think in practice it's very difficult to enforce that with any confidence. Well, difficult. And also, I mean, do US officers, senior officers in charge of strategy, do they take this kind of commitment seriously?

7:24Well, I think normally when you have liaison operations, that is kind of agreements between one country and another, military officers and intelligence officers do take these things seriously. For example, if intelligence is passed on, you know, with a particular purpose, you're not allowed to share it any further unless you have permission of the country that gave it to you. And countries, by and large, do adhere to those principles. The difficulty in this case, I think, is not so much trust in individual officers or trust in the American Air Force. There's a very strong working relationship between the US Air Force and the British, which obviously goes back many, many decades.

7:57The issue here, I think, is more the fundamental blurriness of what it means to do defensive bombing in the context of a military campaign that is pretty open-ended and vague. And I suppose it's worth making the point that from the Iranian point of view, they just wouldn't accept that any such distinction is real. Well, I think it's really interesting the language we use to talk about this, because we're talking about counter-terror police, this being a terrorist attack, and of course the method of using potentially vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, VBIEDs, as they were called by insiders.

8:27That is a kind of classic terrorist tactic, familiar to people from insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But of course, from the Iranian point of view, if this was an Iranian operation, they would potentially make the case that this is really fundamentally no different to the Ukrainian Operation Spider's Web, which is getting vehicles with drones close to Russian airbases attacking Russian bombers that are attacking Ukraine. And it's really a purely military target that is directly involved in ongoing armed conflict against Iran. And so I think, you know, no one should really be surprised that military assets being used in an ongoing military operation are going to be under threat and now can be attacked in a more direct way than before.

9:08Do you think U.S. confidence in the ability of the Brits to defend this airbase will have been shaken? I'm not sure. I think it may have been strengthened, to be absolutely honest. American officers themselves will be the first to tell you they've been chastened by Ukrainian operations against Russia and the vulnerability it shows of air bases. If you want to take out a bomber, you know, you don't do it in the air. The easiest way to do it is on the ground. American air bases in many parts of the world lack hardening. They lack hardened shelters. Now, I think there have been real serious security lapses by the British.

9:40But what I will say is that, you know, we've seen the threat level at RAF Fairford went up earlier this week, which suggests to me they did have some intelligence. But as you pointed out, as James pointed out just now, you can take all the precautions, but luck often does come back to play a role. And that was Shashank Joshi of The Economist. Well, Chris Phillips was the head of the UK's National Counterterrorism Security Office. He's been listening to all of this. You're very familiar with the kind of events that have been discussed in the UK today. Just first of all, you've heard all that coverage.

10:12what stands out to you as striking? Well, the striking thing is that if it was a team that the US or British were looking at, it strikes me as being strange that they weren't being followed and that's the oddest thing about this. Simply put, yes, if it's three vehicle bombs, then this was a major plot against the US and maybe the UK science. Just because the fact that they've been arrested at this particular site doesn't mean to say that this was the intended target. We mustn't forget that. If you think of these two countries that are being talked about all day, Russia and Iran, as possibly responsible for this, which would you think is the more likely?

10:57Well, as the day has gone on, I've thought it's more likely to be Iranian, probably people that the Iranians have dotted around our country and grouped them together to commit this particular act. The Russians, we know there's big concern about them hitting NATO bases, but I don't think that they would particularly choose to attack a US base at this time. You should be in a good position to answer this question. How easy would it be for a group of conspirators to get explosives in the UK? Well, it seems that this is going to be homemade explosives. Homemade explosives is fairly easy to make, albeit it's extremely dangerous.

11:40And one of the issues that's not being talked about at the moment is if it is homemade explosives, where is the bomb factory? Because that is a very, very dangerous location that needs to be identified. You can make bombs with items that you can buy in B &Q, for instance. Military explosives, much more difficult to get hold of, but much more powerful. Why have we heard so few details today? How do you explain that? I think that the police are working really hard to identify, A, where this bomb factory is, and B, any other suspects involved in this. and until they get some leads on that, then they're not going to be willing to spill too many beans.

12:25So what do you expect in the next few days? How do you see this unfolding? At some stage, some locations will be identified and there'll be a lot of people put out on the street in order to search for explosives, probably in houses. That is a particularly dangerous exercise, particularly if it's homemade explosives. and further follow-up arrests to identify those people that have been linked to this group. And just very quickly, a final point. I mean, the UK has a pretty good record on getting down to the details of exactly what happened in these plots. Yes, we always have done in the past. I just hope that we've got the sufficient resources to deal with the nature of the threat that we've got here and in the coming months and years ahead.

13:15Yeah, thank you very much indeed. That was Chris Phillips, who is the head of the UK's National Counterterrorism Security Office. You're listening to the World Service of the BBC.

13:38And coming up a little later, a tribute to the late film director David Lynch from the musician and actor Alicia Witt. I felt as soon as I met David that I had met the most extraordinary person. It's because of who he was as a human being, the empathy that he had, the insistent optimism. More from Alicia Witt in the programme a little later on. Just now some headlines. Five men, as we've been hearing, have been arrested in Britain on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offences after suspicious vehicles were reported near an airbase used by the military. And the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, has announced his resignation so that he can run to be prime minister.

14:38You're listening to NewsHour. Two giant pandas are now on their way from China to Atlanta in the US. It is one of the outcomes of President Xi's visit to Washington. And China's policy of giving away pandas as part of its cultural diplomacy, soft power, started right back in 1941 when one went to the US. And they are such attractive, beguiling animals that so-called panda diplomacy has probably helped China's global image. But actually, there's been a change since 1941. They are no longer given away. They are leased now. Calvin Lau is a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Liverpool.

15:22Why did that change happen? I think it was since 1982 that all the animals stand abroad are actually on lease instead of being gifted. I think it's just partly because China realized that they probably no longer need this kind of free gifting as a diplomatic way. But also, most importantly, that's just their increasing awareness of animal welfare and biodiversity. So probably they realized that pandas as a very specific Chinese local animal wouldn't get along very well if you just give them away in a foreign country. So that became research-oriented programs supervised by the Chinese team, because obviously pandas need very specific cares and very fragile animals, and their breeding is very difficult and all these kind of things, just like very substantial sort of barriers.

16:11They do breed abroad, don't they, in zoos. I think that has happened. So who owns the cub? According to the arrangement and the contract that they have with all these leased countries, I think all the pandas, including the parents, as well as the cubs, they all belong to China. So China has the rights to cut the lease or to kind of shorten the contract or to demand the return of these animals at the end of the contract. I also read that the Western Zoo, in this case in the United States, has to pay China for having these pandas. OK, tell us about that. There is a payment. Somebody said$1 million.

16:47And somebody said there's just also kind of a monthly rental fee for that. I couldn't really put my finger on the exact number, but I do think there's a very handsome amount. So that is an income for China, but there's also income for the local zoos as well. Yeah, I guess the zoos think it's worth it because they bring in visitors, right? They bring in paying people. Yeah. And the two pandas China gifted to Japan first arrived in Japan. And actually, I think they queue 30, 14 hours just in order to see the pandas. And also the Edinburgh Zoo, obviously, which is about to go into bankruptcy, was rescued by these two pandas.

17:22So it's just a very substantial income. Yeah. I'm just wondering how long this idea can last. Because, I mean, when it first happened at the time of, you know, the US-Chinese rapprochement and the pandas came in, there's a huge amount of coverage. And as you say, these long queues to see pandas in Japan. But do you think it's a diminishing asset for China, really, that people are getting a bit used to it? First of all, I think my understanding is that the idea that the pandas are queued, if you look at their face, if you think that they are queued, that this is actually largely at the very beginning of Western cultural imagination.

17:55Because, you know, pandas are very wild animals. Back in 100 years ago, when they roamed across Chinese villages, those Chinese locals didn't really quite think that they were actually cute. Their cultural image was pretty much the product of 20-century cultural exchange between China and the West and the awareness of biodiversity. So I pretty much believe that the glamour of the pandas do have a very strong hold in the West. Whether or not they are diminishing, of course, nowadays, people have a lot of preferences. If they're not looking at pandas, they can look at La Poo-Boo, for example. But I do think that they still have the momentum.

18:27They still have the charm. Okay. Now, I've just got one more question for you. I mean, you study China. Do you think if the American said, right, we've got a lovely gift for you, you know, we're going to give you some wild animal or some beautiful object, but we want you to lease it and pay us for it. I mean, do you think the Chinese would go along with that? There have been no precedents as Americans give China any gifts. I think what China really won is the Americans' acknowledgement that this is a very important bio-lectual relationship, that we need stability in this relationship. We'd better remember what we did during Richard Nixon's visit.

19:01We'd better remember that we are allies during the Second World War. This is the payoff China won from America instead of any concrete animals. And that was Calvin Lau, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Liverpool. The traditional narrative of the triumphant British-led 1953 Everest expedition is being challenged by the new film Tenzing, which premiered in Zurich this week. The movie puts the focus not on the British who organised it all, but on the Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgah who climbed Everest alongside the New Zealander Edmund Hillary. The picture is going to open in the Zurich Film Festival.

19:42It's actually already had some showings at other big film festivals. And from Toronto, Tom Brook reports. The Toronto Film Festival, one of the stops for the historical drama Tenzing, which is being shown at several major festivals in the run-up to its release next month. This is Tenzing, the man we've all been waiting for. The film tells of the triumphant 1953 British Mount Everest expedition. in which New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first men to reach the peak of Everest. Tenzing! In Britain, news of the feat came through on the eve of Coronation Day in 1953, and it was perceived as a great British achievement.

20:29Perhaps we should join forces. In the film, Tom Hiddleston portrays Edmund Hillary, and Tibetan actor Jindin Penso plays Tenzing. Run! The cast has been promoting this picture along with Australian director Jennifer Peadum, who, with the film, is making her first narrative feature. In this film, the story of the British Everest expedition puts the emphasis on Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. I wanted to tell a different side of the story. You know, Tenzing Norgay was, you know, one of the people that helped achieve that feat for the British and he'd always been a supporting character. He'd always been with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, as opposed to the hero of that narrative.

21:12It just felt to me time to redress that balance or just to look at that story from a different point of view and what it meant for him. I am on the climbing team. The movie conveys the difference in approach between how British members of the expedition viewed Everest as a mountain to be conquered, whereas Tenzing and the Himalayan Sherpa community revered Everest as sacred, the abode of a goddess. It's like a different paradigm for those people in that community. Those mountains and those landscapes are the living embodiment of their gods. For Westerners, it's something quite different. It's a symbol of achievement.

21:48And so showing the difference in approach, I mean, there's various scenes in the film that the Sherpers describe the mountains as the bones and them as the blood. It's a different relationship to landscape that we possibly don't understand. And this was an opportunity to explore that idea. Tenzing had its Canadian premiere here at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it took place less than a month after the huge devastation wrought by landslides and flash floods in the Nepal-Tibet region, not far from where this Mount Everest epic was set. But it is seen as providing audiences with a positive and respectful portrait of not just Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, but also the local population who live in the region.

22:39One of the film's producers, Ian Canning, acknowledges the film is landing in the wake of a tragedy. I think the film can play, I hope, some part in bringing that part of the world's culture to the screen and to audiences all around the world. and I think hopefully some sort of feeling of how turbulent and unpredictable the environment and landscape can be and I think that Tenzing in a small way also tells that story. The film's cinematography is striking. The mountain climbing sequences shot in Nepal and New Zealand come across as authentic. And so does the story of the self-spoken Tenzing, a man who contributed mightily to what was perceived as a great British triumph, but who may, through this film, get people to understand his perspective and view mountains and Mother Nature in a rather different way.

23:33And there we are. That was Tom Brook reporting from Toronto.

23:41John Deere is putting in work and putting up highlights. Oh, man, look at those passes. Tillage, planting, harvesting. Three years in, and these pre-owned machines are still at the top of their game. We're talking reliability, performance, and long-term potential. And get this, these veteran machines can pick up the latest precision tech with ease. You know it, and fans ready to add John Deere certified pre-owned equipment and more options to their lineup can shop at machinefinder.com. Booyah! It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia with a dark secret of the school's head teacher.

24:21This was someone I respected above anyone else. And the investigation led by students he's trying to silence. If this is leaked to the media, I'll be destroyed. This is World of Secrets, catching my teacher. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

24:45You're listening to NewsHour. Mongolia is famed for its vast grasslands and nomadic herdsmen, but with a catastrophically cold winter three years ago, when temperatures went down to minus 45, there was a devastating impact on herders and their livestock, with the authorities saying around 5 ,000 herding families lost at least 70 % of their livestock. Well, that event inspired Bilgadei Gunguluk to make an app called Hunu, which allows nomads to keep track of their livestock and the weather. And he spoke to Krupa Paddy from the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar. I come from a nomadic family myself. My family is from the southern part of Mongolia.