A story of hope after Nepal flood

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription. Hello, I'm Rajini Vaidyanarvan. Thanks for listening to The World Tonight on Thursday the 3rd of September. We hear from a man who was rescued from an underground tunnel more than a week after flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border and ask how will the country rebuild.

0:41We speak to a UK minister visiting Nepal. Fresh allegations that Reform UK may have plotted to break the law on foreign political donations. The party says it's a hoax. An icon of American feminism, the writer, author and activist Gloria Steinem's died at the age of 92. and as Radio 4 marks Norman Day, a play staged at Hastings Castle, explores the story of 1066 with a modern twist. And we begin the programme with the latest on those devastating flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border. The numbers dead and missing have risen. 1 ,300 nearly now confirmed dead and more than 5 ,000 people still unaccounted for.

1:22A week on and there are still some stories of survival as well as growing questions about how one of Asia's poorest nations can recover. The UK's Minister for the Indo-Pacific, Baroness Winterton, is in Nepal as the government pledges financial help for the country. We'll hear from her in a few moments. But first, that story of hope. Because even as the odds of finding people alive get slimmer, rescuers are not giving up. Dan Bahadur Tamang was one of the hundreds of workers trapped in one of those underground tunnels of the hydropower plants which were flooded by the glacier collapse. Today, he saw daylight again.

2:04We were all stuck there for about 10-15 minutes as it flooded. Then we started looking for a way out. There were around 10-15 of us in there. I thought none of us would survive this. If the water rose, we wouldn't survive. But we could see some rebar under the floodwaters, so we thought, let's try to bend the rebar. So one by one, those of us who were still alive, we pulled each other up by the hands, pushing our way through the rebar until everyone managed to get out. The reaction from my wife was sheer tears. She refused to eat a single bite for four to five days, not until she finally met me again.

2:46Right now, I feel a deep sense of happiness. I was able to reconnect with my family. But at night, it all comes rushing back. I keep recalling the images of the water sweeping everything away. I think about my colleagues, how we ate together, shared a room and lived side by side. What a story there. Dan Bahadur Tamang. Well, our South Asia correspondent Azadeh Mishiri has travelled up to that main valley where those frantic rescue efforts continue. Rescuers still hope Nepal's tunnels hold survivors. Yet another attempt at Upper Trishuli 1. More than a week has passed and every hour counts.

3:35Finding a safe place to land, a challenge. The tunnel, flooded, choked with mud and debris. Rescuers deploy a drone to see what's ahead. Rafts, the only way to travel deeper inside.

3:58Almost immediately, they find a body part.

4:04They reach an underground chamber. There, rescuers hope they'll find survivors. They didn't.

4:14Some feel all is already lost. Ram Bahadur Thamang was one of the upper Trishulie 1 workers. He survived because he was outside the tunnel that day. But three of his cousins are trapped. He believes they're dead and is waiting to recover their bodies.

4:34No, I will never work in a tunnel again. I'm hurting and it's killing me inside. What am I going to do now? I can't find my friends. I won't return to my village without them. Nepal insists climate change is to blame for this disaster and says it will need up to£3.8 billion to rebuild. Even after all the destruction we've witnessed this week, it's hard not to take in just how stunning this entire area is. And Nepal is now talking about injustice, about the fact that even though it's one of the lowest emitters of global greenhouse gas emissions, it's one of the most vulnerable to climate change.

5:12And it's singling out countries like the United States, China, India as top emitters, and now asking for urgent financial help from a special UN fund for climate-related disasters to recover from this past week's events. Scientists are still studying the cause of the flood. For now, Nepal is caught between planning for its recovery and reckoning with the aftermath of the disaster. Azadeh Mishiri reporting there. Well, let's get more on the UK government's efforts to support Nepal, with 33 British nationals still missing. Andy Burnham says the government will send£5 million in aid to the country.

5:53It is a long way off the£3 to£4 billion Nepal says it needs to rebuild. The Prime Minister sent his minister for the Indo-Pacific, Baroness Winterton, to the capital Kathmandu to meet with officials and rescuers. I've been speaking to her. Well, I wanted to come here because you will, I'm sure, appreciate that the situation is nothing short of a disaster for the country and for the Nepalese people. There are already a thousand people who are confirmed dead, 4 ,000 people missing. And so I wanted to, first of all, obviously express condolences to the people of Nepal. I wanted to indicate our strong support for the Nepalese government and in its efforts to bring relief to the people.

6:44And I also wanted to look at the support that we're giving to British nationals and how we are putting the£5 million that we've pledged to support the relief efforts, how that is working in practice. And what's the latest that you're able to share on the British nationals who are missing in Nepal still? As the Foreign Secretary said, there are 36 cases of missing British nationals. Our consular service here is working round the clock to support families. But I'm sure you will appreciate it is a very, very difficult situation because of the scale of the disaster. And of course, what is so challenging with this particular tragedy is it may be impossible really to know where these loved ones are because of the nature of this incident.

7:39You're absolutely right to point out that it is a very difficult situation at present. And so that's why we're working very closely with the Nepalese authorities. And as the situation on the ground continues to develop, of course, we will seek to reassure families that we're doing everything we can to get information to them and to find out as much information as we can about the different rescue efforts and the searches that are underway. And of course, there are Nepalis who are also missing. There are rescue efforts that are continuing in some areas. What more is the British government doing in terms of assisting any of that?

8:25First of all, there are thousands of people who are missing. We know there are a thousand people have been confirmed dead, but we know that there are 4 ,000 missing. What we have done straight away is to announce a£5 million pledge to the relief effort. And that's being spent in a number of ways. First of all, three million pounds has gone to the UN agencies to give support that we are working out with the Nepalese government and local government. We're also looking at how emergency shelters can be provided. We're collecting data on where people are. And we're looking to provide in those instances clean water, sanitation, latrines, a whole range of ways in which we are working through, in some instances, the UN agencies, but also with the Nepalese government and local government.

9:23So we can absolutely identify where the need is and get the aid there as quickly as possible. You're talking there, of course, about emergency assistance that the British government is providing. But we know the longer term trajectory, don't we? And that is that UK aid to Nepal is going to be falling in the next decade. Does what you've seen and the people you've spoken to in Kathmandu make you think that the UK government should reconsider the level of aid that's provided to a country like Nepal? We've been a long-standing partner of Nepal and we have over a number of years supported Nepal's crisis resilience, which is an incredibly important part of the assistance that they need.

10:09But of course, if I may interject, the overall funding overseas development budgets going to fall for Nepal. I'm looking at the numbers here. They might be going up a little bit, but then they fall to as low as£5 million by 2029. Is this the time, though, when you see the devastation and the generosity that the UK has had towards Nepal in the past? Is this the time to cut funding and should there be a rethink? What I'm saying, though, is that as well as what we're doing in the immediate term, we are working to look at future recovery. And there are ways that we can invest in infrastructure, but we do that jointly with the Nepalese government, with wider institutions.

10:58One of the projects that the UK government's aid has funded over the years are those hydropower dams. and one of them that's under construction in Upper Thrichouli is in the area where these floods hit. There are a lot of questions being asked about the safety of hydropower generation given that there are so many workers still trapped in those tunnels. Do you think there needs to be a rethink about that form of energy? Following on from this disaster, there is going to need to be a lot of scientific research into what the implications of what has happened are. You're quite right to say the issue of the hydropower station there has raised a number of issues around what caused the glacier to collapse and what we need to do in the future as a result of scientific research.

11:54That's Baroness Winterton there speaking to me from Nepal. Coming up later in the programme, a play about the missing stories from the Bayer Tapestry. In the whole of the Bayer Tapestry there's three women, so there's definitely some missing voices in there. Either grieving, they've been hard done by somehow, or they're fleeing a burning house. So there's a lot of missing stories there. There's the women who actually created that tapestry. That story with the two people behind the play is going to be staged in Hastings Castle. We'll have all of that coming up in about 10 minutes. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen.

12:35Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription.

12:54Nigel Farage's senior aide suggested a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of half a million pounds for Reform UK. That's according to Undercover Filming broadcast by Channel 4. Reform UK deny any wrongdoing. Let's get more on that from Harry Farley, who's at the Reform Conference, which has been getting underway in Birmingham. Harry, what does this filming appear to tell us? Well, it appears to show a man called Dan Dukes, who's a senior aide to Nigel Farage. He was filmed meeting a man who was posing as the British-based son of a rich American. So the key thing to understand here is that under electoral law here in the UK, it's permissible to donate to a political party if you are registered as a voter here in the UK or you're a company registered here in the UK.

13:48So in this instance, the son based here would be a permissible donor, but his father would not be. And what this undercover filming was done by a group called Verbatim Investigations, Channel 4 were the original broadcasters to show it. They say they verify the material they were given. They chose to broadcast it. So it's a combination of that undercover filming and then Channel 4's journalism. We've decided that it's important and it's in the public interest to show you, you to so you can hear what they've reported so the first extract we can hear a clip of it now is from dan dukes he stood outside a pub in westminster and he's with the reporter posing as the son of the american donor and they've he's raised a concern that his father wouldn't be able to direct donate directly to the party within the law let's have a listen You realise that you can do it.

14:39You can do it. A key moment. Dukes suggests William can pay using his father's money. That actually, that kind of disrupts me as a solution. The solution is that the father gives the money to his son, William, who hands it over to reform. That would be illegal. But Dukes claims they've done it several times before. But, you know, serious point.

15:27So Dukes wants to know just how much could be on offer.

15:36What kind of figure donations are you taking? So I've got a budget for... What's that? Yeah, we've got our commercial operations and this sits somewhere between the commercial and the philanthropic, right? It's a little bit of both. So I think we could probably go... You know, if I were to make it to number 10, you're having a buyer who's effectively going to be as cheap as staff at number 10. Yeah, exactly. If that isn't in business insurance, I don't know what it is. Exactly.

16:06So I think five would be a realistic first. 500 would be a realistic first salvo. That's£500 ,000. So that voice you had there was the Channel 4 News reporter and the bleeped out sections, we should be clear, are where it appears as if Dan Dukes is suggesting this is a practice that they have done with other donors. Now, Reform UK deny any wrongdoing. They claim to have been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded climate change activists, and that's a reference to those undercover reporters. But Reform UK have launched an investigation into Dan Dukes. They wouldn't confirm if he remained a party spokesperson.

16:50Mr Dukes himself has been approached for comment. And Harry, did Nigel Farage know about any of this? Well, later in the footage, Channel 4 broadcast, we see a lunch in Clacton in Essex with both the reporter posing as the UK-based son and another reporter who's his supposed American father. Sat opposite them are both Dan Dukes and the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and they're talking about their idea. Let's have another listen. It's a bit discreet, but the mechanism now for this next phase is we've had some discussion with Dan, with James. It's all above board. All above board. I'm going to be the, it'll be me, so I'll be the registered donor.

17:35And so I think there'll be some conversations, you know, necessarily, you know, lawyers, back office and so on. But then Dad will send the money to me and then as soon as that's done, all of those conversations are had, then the money's available. Thank you So, no, we Basically, thank you Look, it's very important Thank you

18:01Thank you And just to be clear, what you heard at the end there that was Nigel Farage thanking them both after being told about this plan and the reference to James that you heard that is James Orr, Reform UK's head of policy who is now also the subject of an internal investigation I understand that he also denies any wrongdoing. We've approached the Electoral Commission. A spokesperson for them said that information about any potential attempts to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider. And we've approached the police and the Metropolitan Police told the BBC they were aware of the reporting but had not begun an investigation.

18:38Harry Farley, thank you very much. It's a case which has gripped and divided America, one which has also stumped the jury, who are after days still unable to reach a verdict. Lindsay Clancy is accused of murdering her three young children in the basement of their family home in Massachusetts in 2023. The 36-year-old former nurse doesn't deny killing them. Her lawyer argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and couldn't distinguish right from wrong. But the prosecution believes she made a calculated, intentional decision to kill them. Well, the jury must reach a unanimous decision. And today, as they came to court, it was clear that they still can't.

19:22A few hours ago, the judge, William Sullivan, told them to continue deliberations. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt. For everything in the lives of human beings is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. Well, let's go to the BBC's Ionee Wells, who's been following the story from Washington. So, Ionee, they still appear to not have a decision. Where does this leave things now? That's right. The jury in this trial have been sent home for the day, meaning that their deliberations, which have now lasted more than 36 hours, will continue into yet another day.

19:59There are 12 jurors who have remained deadlocked after two attempts to reach consensus so far. they have a third attempt to try and come to a decision or there is a chance that this could be declared a mistrial if they are unable to. Now, before the jurors were sent back for their final deliberations of the day-to-day, the judge reminded them to abide by the law regarding what's known as the principle of being proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Essentially, the idea that you must prove as a prosecution beyond reasonable doubt that somebody is guilty. Lindsay Clancy's lawyer expressed frustration after the judge made this reminder, alleging that one juror was refusing to listen to the law about reasonable doubt in this case.

20:46He said that if the court came back for a mistrial because of that, it would be a shame. He repeated that to reporters outside the courtroom afterwards. Now, I should add that the jury are not identified in this case. We don't know what their positions are at the moment. We don't know what their respective verdicts are. That is all still unknown. But what we do know is they have been sent back for what will be another day of deliberating tomorrow. And it is still unclear whether we will get a definite verdict or, as I say, if this could end in some kind of mistrial. Ioni Wells in Washington. Thank you very much for that update there.

21:21Now, it doesn't take much to guess what this is the sound of.

21:29Slightly annoying, isn't it? That is, of course, the buzzing of a fly. But before you swat the next one away, let me tell you about some new research which could explain more about how the human mind works. Scientists from the UK and the US have for the first time mapped the entire brain of both male and female flies. Now there's a picture of a fly brain on the BBC website if you want to know what they look like. Interestingly, they're rainbow coloured. Researchers say that their findings won't explain gender differences between humans, but they could eventually help us understand how genes influence neurological conditions and our behaviour.

22:07Well, Dr Jeffress of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, one of the first co-authors of this research, joins me live now. Welcome to The World Tonight. Why map the brain of a fly? OK, so I think our motivation is really that we're sort of trying to understand, you know, the anatomy of thought in some sense. How is it that, you know, the amazing stuff between our ears lets us do all the remarkable behaviors that we can do? You know, play a sonata, have this, you know, social exchange. You know, these are incredibly complex things and we need to start somewhere.

22:46And it turns out that in microcosm, you know, the humble fruit fly can actually do a lot of really quite complex behaviors. And there we can actually start to reconstruct the entire brain wiring that lets that animal actually do those behaviours. And so what characteristics are you looking at then? So inside the brain, what we're looking at is over 150 ,000 neurons and all of the connections between them. and then we're linking that to genes that control differences in behavior, something we've known about for many years and those behaviors include a range of behaviors in this case that are sexually dimorphic, so that are shown by one sex rather than the other.

23:38So for example male flies are much more aggressive towards other male flies when there are females around but they will sing towards females in order to try and encourage them to mate. Interesting. The question is, how can this be applied, if at all, to the battle of the sexes when it comes to humans? So, you know, the motivation for our work is really this business of trying to understand how brains process information, how they take all of our sensory information and then turn it into decisions, to memories and behaviour. And so that's a really very general and fundamental problem. and although it's very fun to think about sex differences in behaviour it's really that motivation of trying to understand how you can build a nervous system how behaviours are actually encoded in our genes which are such a long way from behaviour and the substrate of that behaviour is this wiring and so a little bit like a chip has a particular wiring diagram we now know that brains, certainly these fly brains have particular wiring diagrams that are reproducible from one animal to the next, but also different across the sexes.

24:51And so in terms of human behaviour, what we're thinking about is we can find something about the logic of how genes specify different behaviours. OK. And yeah. I have to stop you there, but thank you so much. Really fascinating to hear more about the mind of a fly. That's Dr. Jeffries from Cambridge University there. A quick reminder, if you want to listen back to any of this programme or previous programmes, you can of course go to BBC Sounds where you can also download the podcast. The main headline in the newsroom on The World Tonight, the British Army's been ordered to halt large non-essential training exercises to cut costs.

25:29Now, she was the feminist's feminist, an activist, author and the face of women's liberation for decades. Gloria Steinem died on Wednesday at the age of 92. The news was announced today on Instagram. The statement said that she'd passed away peacefully at her home in New York City. Born in Ohio in the United States, it was from humble roots that she rose to prominence in the women's rights movement. One of her early breakthroughs in journalism was an undercover expose as a waitress at the Playboy Club. She went on to campaign for reproductive rights and equal pay for women, and she founded the feminist publication Ms.