come under heavy criticism after the supreme court annulled the results of last month's presidential election, citing irregularities. the court said fresh elections should be held within 60 days. it is now believed more than 4000 people have died after —— 1400 people have died after catastrophic flooding gci’oss died after catastrophic flooding across southeast asia. the british security company g4s has suspended workers at a detention centre for allegedly abusing detainees. it follows a bbc investigation claiming officers mocked and assaulted people. and the world most powerful x—ray laser has been switched on in the german city of hamburg. it cost more than $1 billion and will be used to make fundamental discoveries atan used to make fundamental discoveries at an atomic level. now, as part of hardtalk‘s 20 year anniversary, another chance to see their 2010

interview with europe joe another chance to see their 2010 interview with europejoe arpaio. —— sheriff. welcome to hardtalk from phoenix, arizona. i'm in an open—air prison known as tent city. it's home to more than 1,000 inmates. the section i'm in right now is mostly illegal immigrants. and this place is the brainchild of my guest today — the self—styled ‘toughest sheriff in america,'joe arpaio. he has stoked a national controversy with his all—out campaign against illegal immigrants who are coming into the united states from mexico, just 100 miles and more to the south. the question is, is his campaign riding roughshod over the us constitution? sheriffjoe arpaio, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you. in the last three years or so, you focused more and more of your time and your resources on the issue of illegal immigration. why? well, first of all, you talk about resources. i did had special grants from the state legislature, so that helped out. when people talk about "i waste my budget going afterjust illegal aliens," the reason i started focusing on this problem was that two new state laws were passed, that no—one talks about. they talk about the present controversial, called a 1070 law, but we had two other laws pass — human smuggling and employer sanction. so i decided to enforce those laws — that happen to be felonies, most of the laws i'm talking about. so i started enforcing the human smuggling, arrested over 2,000 people

coming into our county, maricopa county, arizona, and we arrest the smuggler, what they call ‘coyotes,’ and the co—conspirators. and when you say ‘co—conspirators,‘ you regard the people who are being smuggled as co—conspirators? exactly. we're the only agency doing that. the county attorney has prosecuted those cases, a 94% conviction rate. why do you think no other authority regards them as co—conspirators and you do, and you lock them up? i mean, why do you think the difference is there? that's a good point. maybe they don't care about enforcing illegal immigration laws. maybe the chiefs of police have to report to mayors, or city councils. i don't report to anybody but the 4 million people who live in this county. i'm the elected sheriff. when you talk about other sheriffs, why they don't do it — we have 15 sherrifs total in arizona

— i don't speak for them. i speak for me and that's what we have been doing. and speaking for yourself, try to tell me how your attitude matches up to the words of a state senator russell pearce, who has been in the forefront of the political effort to take on the illegal immigrants. he said not so long ago, he said "it is time to circle the wagons against illegal immigrants who are responsible for a crime wave in our state and are stealing ourjobs." do you bring the same mindset? well, russell is a formal law enforcement officer — well, russell is a former law enforcement officer — in fact, he was my chief deputy for a year when i first took office, so he has a lot of experience in law enforcement. and now he's a state senator, politician. but he's been behind many of these laws... that's right. ..relating to illegal immigration. and they have all been upheld by other courts. but leaving aside the legality, and we will get to law 1070

in a minute, butjust in terms of the mindset, do you see illegal immigrants as responsible for a crime wave and for stealing jobs? well, you know, first of all, it doesn't matter, it's a violation of the law. i'm an equal opportunity law enforcing guy — i lock everybody up, whether it is hookers or deadbeats or animal cruelty, murders, you name it. this happens to be another law that i'm enforcing. so if it's... but you have to prioritise. any lawman has to prioritise because you've only got limited resources. and i just wonder why you've chosen to prioritise the immigration issue when looking at the statistics, and i'm quoting here from the independent immigration policy institute, they say, i'm quoting them, "crime rates are falling in arizona and research shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native born." i believe the crime rates — i'm not trying to take credit, nobody gives me credit anyway — but the crime has gone down in this county, just about the time

i started enforcing the illegal immigration laws, including crime suppression operations. where we go into certain areas and maybe arrest — what, like, i'm trying to think of the figures, let's say the average of 100 people ina15—hourcrime... these are your sweeps, where you go into, let's be honest about it, you go into latino communities. i've gone into white neighbourhoods, all different types. i know you have but by and large, according to lots of local people i've spoken to, you go into hispanic and latino neighbourhoods, you sweep through, you pick up people, sometimes on very trivial misdemeanours, and then you check out their immigration status. well, that's not true — we have hit some areas that happen to be hispanic but there's a high crime rate there, so we go into areas where there's a high crime rate, notjust into neighbourhoods — we don't go on street corners arresting people because they look like they are from another country.

we don't do that. we arrest all types of violators of the law in our crime suppression, from dope peddlers to warrants. i can go on and on. we'll get back to that, because it does get to the heart of the debate right now about the law 1070 here in arizona, but before we do, a fundamental point — is it not the case that immigration law, defining it and implementing it and keeping america's borders safe, is a federal government responsibility, not that of the state or of local lawmen such as yourself? well, you know, i was a federal official. for almost 28 years, i was the regional director of mexico, south america, texas, arizona for the us drug enforcement. i know where the mexican border is, i know where the problems are in mexico and other countries... sure, but it's not your responsibility as sheriff of maricopa county. it is my responsibility. we have state laws that i am enforcing. ijust mentioned the two laws that we are enforcing. we do have inherent authority to enforce federal laws.

we do enforce the bank robberies, as fbi, guns, atf, — i can go on and on. so law enforcement does enforce federal laws in this country. but as you know much better than me when the federal courts, the district court looked at the arizona so—called sb 1070, the bill which would have brought in new powers for policing and checking immigration status of people, the district court decided that this was fundamentally a federal issue and that it blocked some of the powers that were designed to go to the police here in arizona. well, that's just the district court. that's going to go on to p0. i presume it will go up to the supreme court. there has been other rulings that says that law enforcement can enforce the federal immigration laws. so this is one judge's opinion. it hasn't affected my operations. i'm still doing the same thing i've been doing it for three years. nothing changes with me.

you, of course, as sheriff responsible for the security, the well—being of a community. you are a community figure. does it worry you that so many figures in your own community — and thinking about local offices of the national council on civil liberties and la raza, the hispanic legal and human rights movement, they are all absolutely adamant that the way you interpret the law right now — and even more so the new law 1070 — are a fundamental violation of rights and would drive, to quote la raza, "a wedge between racial communities." well, first of all, if you say "so many people in the community" — my polls are usually 80% so you're talking about a small group of people. your polls recently haven't been anywhere near 80% — the poll i saw that's most recent, your favourability rate was down to high 30s or low 405. that was two years ago by a pollster — if you read the polls, it was 56%.

you are talking about an old poll. let's talk about current polls that have me at over 80%. so you're going back to garbage that was printed two years ago, some pollster that doesn't like me, but it doesn't matter, i know what my polls are, i know what my support is, i know all the money i have raised for my next election, millions of dollars — evidently someone likes what i'm doing as the sheriff. sure, but that's a slightly different point from actually considering the law, and ijust, on that issue, it's very interesting to me that you've got a picture of you shaking hands with the president, president 0bama, there. and it does seem to me that there's the danger here of you and your supporters, although allies like senator pearce here in arizona, being on a collision course with the president, who has made it quite plain that he does not believe arizona should push ahead with law 1070. well, you mentioned 0bama and i'm going to have to respond to that.

you see bush underneath. i only met with 0bama as a courtesy to the secret service — when the president comes into town, would the sheriff like to meet with the president? of course you would, because he's your president. he's still our president. absolutely. and i would respect the office and maybe we disagree on certain issues but that doesn't matter. well, you do disagree, don't you, because he also talked about this word ‘a wedge' — he said that the arizona law would drive a wedge between communities. well, i don't know about that. i've had great support with the hispanic community. i was their hero at one time when i arrested a military reservist on a highway for pointing guns at nine people on the street because they looked like they were from mexico. i arrested the military guy. i took a lot of heat on that. so you don't go around pointing guns at people because of what they look like. now i'm the enemy. you are now, and ijust want to put this quote to you because it is a very powerful one, i wonder how you react to it. thomas saenz, who is the president of the mexican—american legal

defence fund, he says that the way that you are treating the immigration issue now "is very similar, comparable, to what southern sheriffs were doing in the united states in the early 1960s, refusing to bow to federal edicts" — those, of course, about desegregation. do you see any comparison in yourstand? well, you know, if i'm so bad, as sheriff, being in office, 17 years, why would the us government, homeland security, train 100 of my deputies and gave them authorities to enforce illegal immigration laws? why did they do that? 100 deputies have been trained, five weeks of training. why would they do that if this sheriff is so bad? another set of figures, just, it's interesting to tease out what you make of them. an analysis by a group of civil rights lawyers locally found that 70% of those that were arrested in one of the phased sweeps that you conducted in the area had spanish surnames and they point out that maricopa county generally has a 31% latino population —

this was their way of saying whatever the sheriff says, there is racial profiling going on right now in maricopa county. how do they know how many people we stopped? how do they know how many people we arrested? we didn't take in 70%. sometimes we do have a crime suppression operation and the criminals, they're all violating the law, that we arrest, happen to be hispanics. just happen to be? yeah. we don't racial profile — we stop everybody. everybody. it doesn't matter who they are. but when we stop the person and it happens to be hispanic and also here illegally, we're not going to overlook that. would it worry you if the perception was amongst hispanic people in your community, that it actually wasn't the case? well, you know, they can — i think i have a lot of support from the hispanic community. the legal people here — not the illegal. it's notjust hispanic groups, human rights groups who aren't happy, there are even police chiefs

who i imagine you regard as colleagues of yours, who say that your methods simply are wrong. i'm thinking of the chief of police of mesa, george gascon. he says that affecting — "effective policing needs the cooperation of minority communities" and he says "we, unlike sheriffjoe, focus on people who are committing predatory crimes." really? is he in san francisco now? do you know that? did you check? well, he was in mesa when he said that. no, iwill tell you no. that's his philosophy right? why is he going around locking people, hanging around street corners, around buses, that are poor people? he says he only goes after violent criminals. he says that there's a fundamental issue. you have to establish trust between communities in america. 0h, 0k. and you have failed to do that. really? i have a lot of trust with the community, big time. i have a — i have a hotline. a hotline. 8,000 calls i got in a hotline to report illegal immigration violation.

where do you think all the information comes from? illegal aliens. that's how we get our information. where do you think you get information on dope peddlers? you get it from people involved in drug trafficking? the use of drugs? no, i get a lot of information. this is a cop—out by police chiefs that they're worried that with the police will be mistrust with the hispanic community, it won't give them any information, it takes a lot of resources, yet they can go after hookers and go after task force with no seatbelt and when 53% of the people in myjails booked by all police agencies are small crimes, so don't tell me that they only concentrate on big—time crimes and violence. the cop—out is this — they have to report to politicians, they have to report to city councils, city managers, and they don't like to enforce the illegal immigration laws because some people want amnesty in this area in this country. ithink, if i may, one

of the reasons that gascon was not happy with you is that you took one of your well—known posses into his neighbourhood. he described it as a deeply dangerous situation. i am the elected sheriff, i can go anywhere i want in this whole county. he was not doing the job on illegal immigration, so i did. and i have the authority as the elected chief law enforcement officer to do that. maybe he should have been doing thejob instead of going out with all these activists, raising money against me. as a highly respected lawman, you have been decorated across the united states... the world. why are you facing an investigation from the bureau? when you are high profile, you do get people looking into you. it's quite extraordinary in your case, you seem to have upset

so many people. a whole host of local of officials accuse you of abusing your power to investigate them. not just what we talked about, your policing methods with minority groups, but also a systematic abuse of your powers locally. that is not true. we co—operate with the grand jury. i have been the first federal official for 30 years, i know how the government operates. they can have the investigations, i am not concerned about it. shouldn't you be concerned about it? shouldn't the people of the city be concerned about it?

i will mention again my polls, every day i am in the headlines. it doesn't bother the people, they've read through all this garbage. it is a question of what the mindset says about your attitude to law enforcement. i can see the board which is about the conditions in your tent city, going into the pink underwear that you force your prisoners to wear. many of them are kept in temperatures higher than 100 fahrenheit. the question is, is it your intent to dehumanise, to humiliate the prisoners you are responsible for? i am an old—fashioned guy, a senior citizen. when i grew up, when he did something wrong, you took away a privilege.

we even used the word punishment. sorry to interrupt, i know it is rude. many people in your tent city are awaiting trial and have not been convicted. everyone in that city has been convicted. we recently celebrated oui’ anniversary. 0ur men and women fought for our country in iraq, in afghanistan. everybody in those tents has been convicted. these conditions, including the pink underwear, you have been proud to say that you only feed your prisoners two meals a day, you say it costs you more to feed your dogs than it does your prisoners. we have dogs in the jail, yes. some of the prisoners under these conditions have yet to be convicted. these conditions apply whether they are in the tents or not. i am just asking you whether you think that is acceptable. of course it is. they get their 2,500 calories. it is just not pepperoni pizza or steak, it's not where they have television, smoking, coffee. i took all that away, took it away. i was sued when i took away the coffee, but i won that case. so where is the problem? the hispanic community

is the fastest—growing in the united states. they are the biggest minority community, their numbers are on the rise with a high birth rate, higher than pretty much any other minority community in this country. if the republican party is to form a coalition in future, they need hispanic and latina votes. are you helping the party reach out to that community? i don't do that, i just lock them up. it has nothing to do with politics. i think the republican party would like to be assured we lock up

anybody, italian, whatever. it doesn't bother me if anybody says i am locking up hispanics, i am locking everybody up. you are very proud of your roots, your family is italian. they were immigrants themselves to the united states. i know you will tell me they were legal immigrants, it's a fair point. in the end, your history is part of the rich american immigrant experience. on a personal level, does it strike you as strange that you have pitched up a job where so much of what you do seems to be a about stopping immigrants making a life in america? no, this had been going on for three years when the laws were passed. before thisjob, i had

other priorities. it is myjob to enforce the laws. ideal with the president and attorney general. i got along very well working with the mexican government. you would not get along with the current mexican president. stick his nose out of our business. i know the secrets of mexico, i lived in mexico forfour years. he ought to worry about his own problems, not the united states. look at his immigration laws, his presence, his corruption. he ought to be looking at himself, not the united states. coming back to something we discussed earlier, if there has to be a collusion between the federal government and forces here in arizona who want to pursue a different agenda on immigration policy, are you ready for that? i am ready for anything.

you want to wipe the laws off the book? that is ok with me. if the laws are there, i am going to enforce it. if not, i won't. if the feds intervened to tell you you can't do what you have been doing? if that could be proven, and the law says... justifies what they say, of course i won't do it. i have survived 17 years, i hate the word survived, but i have been getting shots for 17 years. people wonder why you do it, you don't get much money, you don't want to be the governor. when i leave, you'll forget my name. why do i do this? what objective? because i'm getting a little publicity? i don't need that. what is my reason? i ask myself that. you're not going to ask me. i was waiting for you to tell me!

when i go on the streets and everybody comes up to me, almost everybody, and they say, thank you, sheriff, thank you for what you're doing, that motivation, as long as they keep saying thank you, thank you, i'll keep going. time for me to say thank you. thank you for being on hardtalk, sheriffjoe arpaio. hi there. we've got some decent weather coming up to start the weekend. with high pressure in charge, we'll have some sunshine to start the day on saturday. mind you, some of you might have been woken in the night by the odd

rumble of thunder. a few storms from lincolnshire, down through cambridgeshire, hertfordshire and essex, as well, all clearing out of away, and starting off then on saturday with relatively cool air around the place. temperatures ten to 12 degrees in the towns and cities, but cooler than that out in the countryside, so certainly a chill in the air. will be fine start to the day, though, on saturday. i mentioned the high pressure with us. that is going to bring some sunny spells, but the second half of the weekend will bring a change in the weather. we'll have a bright start for many, but outbreaks of rain will work in from the west. ok, here is saturday's weather forecast, and it should be a glorious start to the day, with clear blue skies for many of us first thing saturday morning. into the early stage of the afternoon, there will be a little bit of cloud bubbling up, particularly across parts of southern and eastern scotland, eastern areas of england, and that cloud could bring one or two very isolated, light showers. but the vast majority will enjoy fine, dry weather. it will tend to cloud over, though, for western counties of northern ireland as we go

through saturday afternoon, the breeze picking up here ahead of a weather front. but for england and wales, plenty of sunshine around, and in the sunshine, widely, we'll see temperatures climbing into the high teens and low 20s. the highest temperatures probably around london and the south—east of england, at around 22 celsius, so very similar to what we had yesterday. it will feel pleasantly warm in that sunshine, but there are those isolated showers towards the coastline of essex and into parts of east anglia. here is the charts from saturday into sunday. we lose this area of high pressure. these weather fronts on the way. they will begin to show their hand as we go through the night time, with an area of rain working into northern ireland first, and then later in the night we'll start to see the cloud thicken, and outbreaks of rain arrive on strengthening winds across the south—west, wales, the north—west of england, and western parts of scotland, too. it will be a relatively mild night, though, as the cloud continues to work in, 12 to 15 degrees for saturday night. here is the chart for sunday — well, quite a different day. a bright start, yes,

for eastern scotland and central and eastern england, but the brightness will not last. we will see the cloud thicken up, as this band of rain pushes its way east, with with one or two heavier bursts around. even behind that rain, at will probably stay cloudy at times, before brighter spells come in. temperatures between 15 and 19 celsius, so a cooler day. monday will have a few spots of light rain and drizzle across western coasts and hills, and more persistent rain working into the north—west. despite the cloudy conditions, temperatures are not doing too badly, highs again about 22. that's your weather. this is bbc news, i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: celebrations in kenya as the supreme court declares last month's presidential election null and void. president kenyatta says he'll abide by the decision. i personally disagree with the ruling that's been made today but i respect it.

fire is burning out of control at a chemical plant in texas which flooded in the wake of hurricane harvey — the area has been evacuated. at least 14 100 people have now died, after heavy monsoon rains at least 1400 people have now died, after heavy monsoon rains across large parts of south asia. also in the programme: the billion—dollar x—ray laser scientists hope will lead to new breakthroughs in medical research.