US envoys arrive in Moscow

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1:17Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm Paul Henley. Coming up a bit later on in the programme, how a statue on a station platform unlocked memories of the Kindertransport. It was a monument of a little boy sitting on a case, actually, and he looked a little bit glum, and it all flooded back to me because I could feel what he was showing. That's coming up later on. First, President Trump's envoys, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, are in Moscow as part of what they say is a renewed effort to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

1:58According to the government in Kiev, the plan is for the US envoys to head to Ukraine tomorrow. Someday, Washington has not confirmed that. President Trump told reporters on Friday why he was sending his envoys to Moscow. There's a personality problem in Russia and Ukraine. You have President Zelensky and President Putin, they truly hate each other. You know what hate is? They have serious hate. You know, last week they lost 32 ,000 people, mostly soldiers during the last month, four weeks. They lost 32 ,000 soldiers. They're losing, on average, 25 ,000 soldiers a month. It's got to get settled.

2:37So I did. I sent Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner, two great negotiators. They've done a great job. And we sent them over to see whether or not we can get something done. No details of a peace plan have been made public. President Trump just said there was one. Are they bringing with them new proposals? No, they're bringing with them a proposal to end the war. Because I ended eight wars. I hope you're proud of me. I ended eight wars. I get no credit for it. I ended eight wars. Did I get the Nobel Prize? No. Well, in the hours preceding US talks in Moscow, President Zelensky has condemned continuing Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian airports.

3:18Ukrainian officials also said Russia had struck an industrial enterprise in a southern region overnight, killing four people. We'll go live to Kiev soon. First, here's our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, reporting on the Moscow end of the story. I asked him if he knew anything in detail about the latest peace proposal. President Trump has said that we have an idea for peace, but really we have no idea at the moment what that idea is, whether it's an old idea which is being tweaked or changed or developed, or whether it's a completely new idea. But I have to say expectations of some kind of breakthrough here are pretty low.

3:57And that's based on a couple of things. First of all, keep in mind that as far as Steve Witkoff is concerned, this is his eighth visit to Russia as envoy over the last year and a half. He's had a lot of face time with Vladimir Putin. They've sat at the table talking for many hours. The previous seven trips did not produce a breakthrough. And also keep in mind that from the speeches, from the public statements that President Putin has been making recently, there is no hint there, no sign that the Kremlin leader is ready to compromise. It's very hard to tell when you talk about public opinion in Russia because there are no reliable polls, of course, but there is talk of it turning against the war to a certain extent.

4:43Do you think the president could be feeling any pressure from that? I think we need to separate these things, public opinion and Vladimir Putin's opinion. I think there is enough evidence to suggest from opinion polls and from the conversations we have with people on the streets, for example, that, yes, a majority of people in the country would like the war to end and would like the authorities to cease hostilities and start negotiations, peace talks, because more and more Russians have been feeling the effects of the war. However, there's no sign of this public opinion putting any pressure on Vladimir Putin.

5:26he seems determined in his own mind to press on, believing that things will eventually go in Russia's favour. And part of his calculations may well be that, what, we're September now, the winter will be coming very soon. And I think, certainly from things that the Russian military has been saying in recent weeks, I think the belief here is that one more big push during the winter and Russia could secure victory. Also, he may be looking around Europe and seeing the political situation in Europe potentially being on the verge of change. He may look to possible future political change in France or in Germany.

6:07And when you've been in power as long as Vladimir Putin has, more than a quarter of a century, you tend to play the long game. President Trump has said of Zelensky and Putin, they truly hate each other, and that is getting in the way. Now, it's not unusual for a national leader to hate their invader. Give us a clue of the personal feelings that Putin has towards Zelensky, maybe? I think it's not just towards Volodymyr Zelensky. You know, the decision to launch this so-called special military operation more than four and a half years ago was taken by Vladimir Putin. This was his responsibility.

6:43You know, it wasn't supposed to develop into a multi-year war. It has, with many negative consequences for Vladimir Putin's country. And the longer it's gone on, the more frustrated Russia's president has become. And so for him, it's almost existential now. I mean, he believes he has to achieve what he can present to the Russian people as a victory. Now, what exactly that is, isn't clear. But I think in his mind, at a minimum, he wouldn't imagine stopping this war until Russia has control, for example, of all the Donbass. He knows that he's the man who took the decision and he knows that this hasn't gone according to plan.

7:28So it's not just a case of animosity towards Volodymyr Zelensky, although there is a lot of that. He realises that as the man who took this decision to start this war, he bears ultimate responsibility. That was our correspondent in Russia, Steve Rosenberg. In the past few minutes, it's been reported that President Putin has ordered a halt to attacks on Kiev for three days to coincide with the visit of President Trump's envoys to Moscow while in Kiev. President Zelensky has been keen to stress the fact that Russia was still targeting Ukrainian civilians hours away from those peace talks. Clearly, he said, on ex-Russian strikes on the Kiev airports were a reaction to the possibility of the US side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine, saying there would be no threats to diplomacy from the Ukrainian side.

8:18Lisa Jasko is an MP from President Zelensky's ruling party, the servant of the People Party. She's also a member of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. She told us she was not hopeful about these talks. We've seen a huge escalation in the recent 10 days with new types of reactive drones flying to Kiev and to other cities. For you to understand how different it became, so basically now every 30, 40 minutes we have an attack somewhere nearby and it just lasts forever, which means that we are not capable to work, to study. The only way is actually to be in a shelter all the time, but that's not possible.

8:56So we had a dramatic change, I would say, in the beginning of summer when the massive attacks became also huge and very frequent and we have almost no patriots for air defense, which means that every time when these ballistics and different types of massive weapons are flying, It means that we have a lot of, very often hundreds of civilians killed. And this is just the fact that we cannot even protect our people. Life became much more exhausting here. And many people don't sleep, including myself. And our mental and cognitive capabilities really deteriorated, to be very honest. That was Lisa Jasko, governing MP for President Zelensky's party in Kiev.

9:45Let's go live to Kiev now and the BBC's James Landale. James, welcome. Has the envoy team, Witkoff and Kushner, been to Ukraine before? no they haven't uh and therefore if they do turn up um in itself i think that will be welcomed by the ukrainian side simply if it gives them the chance to set out their stall and explain to mr trump's two negotiators precisely their perspective of this conflict because largely that perspective has been shaped uh by the russians so far uh and will be shaped as we speak uh you in the meetings and discussions that are taking place now? Yes, they're coming from Russia and they will be presenting, presumably, largely, President Putin's point of view.

10:34They will be saying what Ukraine needs to give up in order to get peace. Well, we don't know that. What has happened so far in this conflict is that every time the Russians, the Americans have got involved, occasionally they've tried to put pressure on Moscow, occasionally they've tried to put pressure on Kiev, more of the latter than the former, but at no point have the Americans actually shifted the dial. And I think what will be interesting is to hear whether or not the negotiators in Moscow deliver a similar message to the CIA chief, John Ratcliffe, who was in Moscow recently, talking to his counterpart, trying to give a slightly more realistic assessment of the conflict that's taking place at the moment, because certainly in Western capitals, the fear is that Mr.

11:26Putin is getting a pretty rosy picture of the conflict. And I think that they're trying to, certainly the international community are trying to encourage the Russians to realize that actually the situation on the battlefield is not quite as positive as they make out. The problem is the Russian side has very, very rarely given any indication yet that it is willing even to contemplate the end of this conflict, because at the moment they think that they're gaining on the battlefield and elsewhere. The latest casualty figures were outlined by President Putin, sorry, by President Trump in a clip that we heard there.

12:04Do those figures carry more weight than before, do you think, with both sides as the war grinds on? Well, it is an overt strategy of the Ukrainian government to kill as many and injure as many Russian soldiers as possible so that Russia struggles to replace them and therefore makes the issue of mobilization in forced conscription something that the Kremlin has to contemplate. Now, President Putin said last week that mobilization was, he said, utter nonsense, suggestions that they were going to happen because that would be hugely unpopular, politically unpopular within Russia. But it is certainly Ukraine's strategy to force that as a policy option on the Russians.

12:51And at the moment, they believe they are inching slowly towards that. Because normally the rough sort of ballpark numbers that are claimed by the Western capitals in Ukraine is that normally they are causing about 1 ,000 Russian casualties a day. That's the ballpark figure, which is extraordinary in itself. But in recent months, that number has on occasion been ticking up quite substantially. So that in recent months, one diplomat said to me the other day that they reckoned, they estimated Russian casualties of about 40 ,000 people in one month alone. Now, if that pattern continues, then the Ukrainians do hope that it will eventually start putting political pressure on the Kremlin to act.

13:38And in any case, and very briefly, James, Vitkov and Kushner are welcome in Ukraine. They'll be welcomed into government talks, will they? Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. They'll be welcomed because the Ukrainians need as much support from the Americans as they possibly can. And I think the Ukrainians will want to show that they are more willing to end this war and agree a deal than the Russians. I think that'll be their argument. Many thanks. James Landale, live from Kiev, BBC World Service. This is NewsHour.

14:12The authorities in Nepal say they've rescued another two people ten days after the catastrophic flash floods on the border with Tibet. A woman was rescued from the fourth floor of her home and a Chinese male worker has been pulled alive from a blocked hydropower tunnel. A day earlier, two Nepalese workers were freed from a separate tunnel. Many others are still thought to be trapped. More than 1 ,300 people are known to have been killed now by these floods, and over 5 ,000 remain missing. I've been speaking to Chris Cooper, who's an engineer and tunnel expert. He works for the Indian construction giant Larson and Tubro.

14:51I asked him about this latest tunnel rescue in Nepal and if it had surprised him. I was not really surprised. I was very relieved. All the way from the start, there's been some speculation that people will be holed up in refuge. areas. So I wasn't expecting it, but it was something that was likely. It took so long to happen because the portals and infrastructure had been basically covered by the deluge that happened. So it took a while, the first couple of days not finding anybody. They had to actually access the infrastructure where the people were. So I'm still hoping for more people to be found.

15:31We don't know the exact details, but how might someone survive in a blocked tunnel for 11 days? They've got to have oxygen, be it a well-supported area, and have water. The good thing about hydropower is that the infrastructure is well-designed, and so we're not looking at a collapse of the infrastructure. What's happened here is that the feed tunnels have become choked. that choking actually is a good thing in a way because it means it gives an opportunity for the slurry to be arrested before it gets into the main construction area which will be the power house at the the control areas so now that these people is down at the rescues have got access and started to explore the internal structures there is a possibility these people if they've been lucky will will have found a safe refuge and if they've had water and oxygen has been there then they they have a good chance to to be to be rescued so you're optimistic about more lives being saved in the very near future yeah there was people were saying i mean there were a lot of people underground they were saying that possibly a hundred people were in in these large caverns where there is oxygen so when we got the first two that was basically proof of the concept.

16:50The people that came out have apparently reported that their colleagues, obviously they know who was in the tunnel, but they were communicating and could hear their colleagues further down the tunnels. So there's as long as the oxygen's there and they're in the safe area there's likelihood that we might find a couple more people. It must have been a pretty hellish existence for 11 days, albeit if you're in a cavern You probably run out of battery power. You're probably in the dark, fearing the worst. I would say so. So it's very hot, very humid. The air will be dank, no light. The people that came out, initially, the first question was, how many days have we been down here?

17:37And these people, particularly being the Aethon Siste, they're doing a lot of praying, I'm guessing. This rescue was a different tunnel from yesterday's rescue, I believe. Give us an idea of the scale and the different locations involved. So the inundations come down about 150 kilometres from where the initial glacier collapsed. And the rush of the years, this is not a stream that's just babbling down a gully. This was a release of potential energy into kinetic energy. and in places it could have been running at 100 kilometres an hour. So we're talking multitudes, probably 100 kilometres. 3B was where the first people were discovered.

18:25Upstream from that, there's, I don't know the exact figure, but 13 to 14 more pieces of infrastructure that were under construction. Chris Cooper there, engineer and expert on the construction of tunnels.

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19:34I'm Paul Henley. Now, it seems an ambitious promise to voters anywhere. Everything is possible. In one of the very poorest parts of Germany, where people have the lowest incomes and the worst indicators of health, the election slogan of the far-right AFD party is particularly bold. It seems to be working, though. State elections are coming up tomorrow in Saxony-Anhalt, south-west of Berlin. Regional authorities hold sway, more sway there than in many countries. The latest polls have the Alternativa für Deutschland at between 40 and 42 % of the vote, which puts the party within reach of an absolute majority, and securing power in that state would mark a first for the far right since the Second World War.

20:19What is Saxony-Anhalt like then? Katja Heuer is a German historian and author of the book Weimar, Life on the Edge of Catastrophe. Saxony, and it's quite a small state. It's only got 2.1 million people in it in terms of its population, but it's also relatively large. So it's quite sort of rural and used to have a big chemical industry in particular, but also other forms of industry during the East German era, where it was part of the GDR of the German Democratic Republic, as East Germany was known. And a lot of this industry sort of declined or was dismantled after reunification. And so people had to change jobs.

20:59Some people were unemployed. But it's basically now more and more post-industrial landscape where many people either fear for their jobs or have already lost their jobs. And as a result, it's got some of the lowest wages and pensions in Germany. And this is one reason why people are quite worried about their future. It's also a reason why there aren't many immigrants there, I suppose. That's comparatively the case. So compared to other regions in Germany, the number is still quite low. but it's still doubled since 2015. So to people there, it doesn't feel that that's not a lot, because they have seen their cities in particular change, but also smaller areas, because the refugees in particular were distributed even into smaller towns.

21:41And so people still feel that there's a significant change there. Why do you think that the everything is possible slogan goes down particularly well there? Well, I think the AFD have realised that they just can't carry on just going on anger. So they used to have posters, election posters that said things like enough with an exclamation mark. But really what people want is to know that the future is going to get better than the present or the past. And so to try and give people this sense of optimism, they've gone with the slogan, everything is possible, which they use to kind of say to people, look, the other parties constantly tell you that things can't be done or that it's complicated and and that there aren't easy answers, we're saying to you everything is possible.

22:24We'll sort this out. And that's something that really resonates with people who often feel that their lives haven't got better or stagnated or even got worse in recent years. There are a lot of eyes abroad on this election coming up in Zaxony and Halt. What's the level of interest in Germany and are big conclusions being drawn about the fact that the AfD is doing so well in the polls? I mean, this is huge in Germany as well. I just spent much of this week there. And I will also go back next week because there's so much reporting all across Germany on this election with reporters from the entire country going to it.

23:00And that's a noticeable change from just a few years ago when these state level elections wouldn't attract much attention at all. You kind of just get the results on the news at some point. But really, this wasn't something that would have been of interest in Hamburg or Munich. and this is really seen as a kind of landmark occasion where all eyes are really on Saxony-Anhalt, both in Germany and abroad. And tell us about the AFD's man in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund. Yeah, so Ulrich Siegmund is remarkable because I think he's really the first charismatic figure that the AFD have found as a leader-type figure because he's quite young.

23:40He was only born in 1990 and he comes across as very positive and energetic. I don't know how he does that. He's been around for months now. They started their election campaign much earlier than the other political parties. And he's constantly smiling, taking selfies with people, taking the time to talk to them after events. There's merchandise with his face on it and people have got mugs and T-shirts with it. That's really quite a remarkable change because previously people, the ratings for the party have always been higher than the ratings for individual politicians. People were kind of electing them or voting for them despite their leadership figures.

24:16And Uri Sigmund, for the first time, much like the slogan that the AfD is using in Saxony, I know this everything is possible slogan, has really managed to give the party a kind of more optimistic image. And that's, I think, attracted voters to it that wouldn't have previously voted for a party that just seemed a party for the disgruntled. German historian Katja Heuer. now childhood obesity is a growing health problem across the world in england the national health service has launched a network of specialist weight loss centers alice alett roberts gained exclusive access to one of those clinics in the east of england where she met parents medical practitioners and a six-year-old patient what's your name i can't remember your name This is Theo.

25:06He is one of a few thousand elementary school-aged children to be treated at a pioneering type of obesity clinic in England. More toys. There are a lot of toys there, aren't there? Theo's mum Rachel and his dad Perry noticed that he started putting on weight rapidly when he was a toddler. He's six now and has just reached 58 kilos. So he actually was born quite a small child in particular, so he was just under seven pounds and he started to get bigger and it came on quite quickly. Theo's parents were referred by their doctor to a publicly funded weight loss facility called a Complications of Excess Weight Clinic.

25:48Each Q Clinic around the country will see on average 100 new patients each year. That is really just the tip of the iceberg. This is Professor Ken Ong. He is the lead clinician at Cambridge University Hospital's Q Clinic. He told me that Theo is one of the youngest children they are treating at the moment, but he has seen children as young as four. For an adult, a healthy body mass index would be less than 25. Many of the children who attend our clinic have body mass index ranging 30, 40, 50, sometimes well above that. They are at a very extreme level of weight. What makes these clinics different from traditional weight loss services are the number of specialists all treating the child under one roof.

26:36Not only doctors and nurses and dieticians, but also psychologists, family support workers and family therapists. Hi, I'm Tessa Saunders, I'm a family therapist. Your job as a parent is that it's not about children being happy 24-7, you know, it's about preparing your children to cope with life. If you have the whole family approach, it's a team approach, and that team approach is what's going to make a difference. Can you be as still as you can, please? Thank you very much. And hold. Yep. And for Thea's parents, it's the psychological support that has been key to managing his obesity and controlling his appetite, especially because his overeating is closely linked with his autism diagnosis.