has killed two people, injured more than a hundred. emergency services have been working through the night to free people trapped in a ten—storey building that was partially destroyed when the 6.4 magnitude quake hit. there are reports that south africa's president jacob zuma could resign — if he can agree a deal with his deputy cyril ramaphosa. mr zuma has been under pressure to quit to avoid a power struggle. and this video is trending on bbc.com. the most powerful rocket in the world has blasted off, making a clean getaway from florida. the falcon heavy launcher is made by spacex, the company owned by the american entrepreneur elon musk. and it is carrying his old sports car. that's all from me now. stay with bbc world news. now on bbc news it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i am stephen sackur. they say you can judge a man

by the company he keeps. if that is true, my guest today should provide telling insight into the character of president donald trump. roger stone is a hugely controversial and divisive figure in american conservatism. he is a long—time friend and sometime adviser to mr trump. is he also a symbol of all that is currently wrong in american politics? roger stone, welcome to hardtalk. delighted to be here.

we have just gone past the one—year anniversary of the donald trump administration. how would you describe the political atmosphere in the united states today? i would say improving. the president continues to be a polarising figure. he came out of a relatively close election where both candidates were exceedingly polarising. but the rising tide of a strong economy is helping enormously. we have created under the watch of trump 2 million newjobs, we have a record stock market, african american and hispanic unemployment is at historic lows. overall unemployment is extraordinarily low. suddenly, you have these billion—dollar companies like apple coming back to the us to repatriate money there, to expand there.. so, i am growingly optimistic about the president and the county. it's all the more remarkable that his approval ratings

are at historic lows. a great economy, and yet, a president who is profoundly unpopular with the american public. i would argue that he's polarising rather than unpopular. but you've have seen the figures just i have. i have. i quibble with some, obviously there are methodology questions and so on. first of all, every poll showed he couldn't win the election, the same pollsters. in the first year of the presidency, i don't think you can judge his overall success. i think as the economy grows, as he gets more of his programme in place, particularly after his historic tax cut cuts in and has some traction, his approval ratings will go up. what about the intangible political culture? we have the extraordinary sight of a president who, according to independent fact checkers, has, in the course of his first year in office, delivered pretty much 2,000 false

or misleading statements. if you like your healthcare programme, you can keep your healthca re program. read my lips, no new taxes. no president has ever told the exact truth... the president has never said anything he believed to be untrue... but these are untruths on a scale never seen. do you accept that? n ot exa ctly. every president has a potential to prevaricate. but we just had the election. these arguments were all out there, but he won anyway. his opponent had not the best track record of truth either. what if i said this style of politics is something you imbued in the president? you have been a friend and political ally for a long time. and for a time, you were a very senior adviser until 2015

when he decided to run for president. there are people that believe your attitude to quote unquote "disinformation," you have extolled the value of it, the power of disinformation, is something you passed on. first of all, no one imbues donald trump with anything. he marches to his own drummer. he is his own wordsmith, he is his own tweetmaster, he is his own speechwriter, his own strategist, his own press secretary. he is the chief architect of his own success in an extraordinarily improbable election in the us. something you said he may have picked up on, you said "i believe in doing anything, ‘anything,’ necessary to win," then you added "short of breaking the law." i actually lifted that quote from lyndon baines johnson

which he stated in his biography. i mean "leave no stone unturned." you don't stop campaigning on election day, which george bush famously did in new hampshire. the implication is you make an all—out effort, short of breaking the law. lying is not illegal. lying is fair game. well, you do not lie on purpose... sometimes you say things that prove not to be true. well, donald trump lies on purpose, we both know that. you can talk about very little things, the size of crowds and things like that, but there is evidence to show he must know it cannot be true. evidently, the voters have taken that with a grain of salt because they elected him. absolutely. i'm saying that your view of politics is it is not about words like "values," your "conscience," it is about doing whatever

is necessary. that is a political culture you believe in which donald trump believes in as well and perhaps they are associated because you have known him for an awful long time. i believe it is a political culture that every successful president in modern times has subscribed to. i do not think donald trump or i have done anything different than has been the norm. here is a quote for you, i know you know him, you may not respect him very much, but a writer who's looked both at your career and donald trump's, jeffrey tubin, he says "in many ways, roger stone created donald trump as a political figure," "the trump candidacy was in form and style a roger stone production." i'm flattered, but i cannot take credit. it is true that i first thought of the idea of donald trump as a candidate for presidency back in 1988. and i was drawn to him as a potential candidate because of his independence, independence created by his wealth, independence in the sense

that he was not deeply committed or responsible for the policies of the past, he had no investment in mistakes that had already made. and what i saw was a growing two—party duopoly in which the two parties working together had gotten us endless war without national inherent interests being clear, national debt, spending and borrowing with no end in sight, policies cheating people going through the system and waiting in line and rewarding those coming in illegally, rorting people, trade policies which sucked jobs out of america. and a stagnant economy by those who did not know how to run a business. i thought a person with enormous courage and the knowledge of an inside could come to the fore and really change things. how disappointed, what kind of sense of betrayal did you have,

when when once the bandwagon started to roll in 2015, a bandwagon which you set in motion, you were thrown overboard. no, i would argue with that interpretation. i most definitely resigned, i showed that resignation to the new york times and the herald the night before. why? if we take the words of donald trump at face value... no—one breaks up with donald trump, he breaks up with you. there was no point in disparaging with him or disagreeing with him. i was too busy campaigning for him. i probably did more television interviews on his behalf after i left the campaign than before. oh, i recall all of that, you were a very familiar figure, offering your total loyalty and support to donald trump even though you had left the official campaign. but i am a strategist. and a campaign cannot have two strategists. and there was no sense in my staying so that i could fight with him

about things, by the way, which he turned out to be right about and i turned out to be wrong about. this is the first candidate for president in my experience of 10 national presidential campaigns who never took a poll, who never spent any money on, you know, paid network campaign advertising or analytics, or focus groups. are you still in contact with donald trump today? from time to time. are you still offering advice? occasionally. and does he take it? sometimes. for example? well, i believe the president is entitled to a presumption of discretion. and if he is nice enough to make a call asks you what you think or tell you what he thinks, you should have discretion. i do not discuss in detail what we might talk about. this is something where bannon was extraordinarily indiscreet to the detriment of the president. i would never want to be in that position. you talk about steve bannon, a person donald trump calls sloppy steve, for so long

his chief strategist. a self—appointed role, which is a dangerous title to give yourself. call him what you like, he was very important for the key months in which donald trump won the presidency. steve bannon was a key figure and entered the white house. but my point is this, general michael flynn, who was national security adviser, anthony scaramucci, sean spicer, reince priebus, katie walsh, as well as key figures outside the administration, but so important to the government, james comey, the fbi director, recently andrew mccabe, fbi deputy director. all of these people, are people who have either been fired or quit in the first year of the trump white house. it looks like chaos. no, i don't agree with that. first of all, some should have been fired much earlier. some did not serve the president well.

bannon blew himself up, and has only himself to blame. and i think general flynn is a great patriot who was unfairly and incorrectly terminated. really? a man who lied about his meetings with the russians? no, he lied about making a call to set up a meeting with the russians, an underlying action which is perfectly legal. he lied to an fbi agent, at least that's what he plead to. we will get to something which hangs like a very dark shadow over the whole of the donald trump presidency, that is the special counsel investigation into allegations of collusion during the election campaign between the donald trump campaign and the russians to interfere with and directly influence that election. yes, a fairy tale, a canard, a falsehood, meaningful co—ordination, co—ordination, conspiring, collusion with the russians, there has never been any evidence of it produced either by the house or the senate committee. you speak with such confidence.

you can't possibly know what robert mueller has discovered. we would have read about it by now. why! he hasn't finished his investigation. he has nothing. i guarantee it. we will wait and see. what about the indictments related to russia ? he processed indictments. it was a process... he indicts manafort on crimes not related to russia, but campaign activity not related to it 15 years ago in ukraine. paul manafort, a close friend of yours, facing serious charges. none of them related to russian collusion. well, let's look at the facts. at least 12 donald trump associates had contacts with russians during the campaign. contact with the russians are not illegal, and it is not evidence of collusion. hillary clinton's campaign had similar contacts to russia and the ukrainians? summer, 2016, contacts to the kremlin. jared kushner, one of donald trump's sons, a meeting which donald trump himself then oversaw a spinned message on which was, it seems, factually incorrect.

the meeting was legal and produced nothing. why was she in the country without a visa. why would the 0bama nsa and the fbi allow her to be in the country for such a meeting. and the evidence of malfeasance is never produced because she doesn't have it. why would she be in the country for such a meeting? the meeting is a nothing burger. i have heard this phrase nothing burger before. it is an american expression. it comes down to what we do and do not know about the mueller investigation. i am willing to go on record now. you can reinterview me when it is revealed he has nothing relating to russian collusion. i agree with the president. it is a witch—hunt. it could be about obstruction of justice. now we are going back to the firing of james comey. look, the deep—seated political

establishment has tried to undo what it couldn't do at the ballot box repeatedly. first there was the recount that failed, the recount showed that trump actually won wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania by a larger margin than expected. then they wanted to brief the electoral college on russian collusion. it would have been the shortest briefing, at that point, in all time. there was no evidence then, there is no evidence now. then there is this investigation. well, mr mueller‘s had a lot of time and a lot of money. yet i'm aware of no evidence of russian conspiracy or collusion. meetings do not constitute collusion. if so hillary clinton was colluding with the ukrainians. there are people in washington who are still looking very closely at your particular bit part in the allegations concerning... yes, indeed. ..and russia, because it did seem

for a time as more and more detail was coming out about hacked information that was garnered on the democratic party that you were getting a heads up from wikileaks about what was coming down the pipes. entirely false. everything that i ever tweeted or wrote was because i was following the tweets of both wikileaks and assange and reading his various interviews. you were pre—empting them. for example, you seemed to know that john podesta was going to come into the firing line before it was issued in wikileaks. yes, because injanuary 2016 i read all the panama papers information about business activities in russia. you didn't need a heads up from wikileaks to realise that that was going to become an issue in the campaign. after the focus on manafort, the focus on podesta was going to happen. i never said anywhere that wikileaks would polish his e—mails, because i did not know. it is odd that the russians were hacking the democratic party... we don't even know that. oh, come on, the fbi, all of the american intelligence

community... when the intelligence community say "with a high degree of confidence it is our assessment", that meant they don't know. no, i don't agree with that. the same people told you lee harvey oswald killed kennedy and he acted alone, which now we know, on the basis of recently released documents, is unlikely true. you can take your view of what is credible and i can take mine. the fact is that the russians, according to every credible intelligence official in the united states, were hacking the democratic party, the information was being given to wikileaks... right, right. and as former counterintelligence officials... and you appeared to be ahead of the game knowing exactly what was going to come out. and as it happens, here in the uk, right now, you made a point, i believe, yesterday or the day before, of going to the ecuadorian embassy to try to seejulian assange. yes, idid. what is that all about? let's take these one by one.

as william binny and ray mcgovern, both former top counter—intelligence agents have said, there's more evidence that the dnc information was downloaded to a portable drive and taken out the back door. there really is no evidence that it was hacked... goodness, you really don't trust your own government, do you? because they lie to us constantly. the nation magazine, hardly a right—wing organ, it was the organisation published that study. secondarily, assange himself has said roger stone has not tweeted anything i have the authority said in public either in an interview or in a tweet. i spent four hours in front of a house intelligence committee where i went voluntarily and, as i told them, and i say now, i know of no one who conspired with the russians, i have no prior knowledge of the hacking of the dnc, i'm not even sure they were hacked. the reason i went by the ecuadorian embassy, i did not ask for a meeting, that is incorrect, i dropped offa card. it is because i don't believe julian assange is a russian asset. i believe he is a journalist. i do not believe wikileaks is a russian front, i thank it is a news organisation.

a news organisation with a better reputation for accuracy than, say, the new york times and washington post. even as we speak, donald trump's war with the top echelons of the fbi and, indeed, it seems with the most senior officials in thejustice department is continuing. absolutely, because we now have a memo... this is dangerous territory. it's not dangerous at all. yes, the fbi and the cia would not like to release a memo that which showed they used a fabricated dossier as the justification for surveillance by the state on the republican candidate for president. far worse than watergate. i guess you are giving me a very authentic view into the collective mind of the so—called alt—right. no, not at all. you don't trust, for one second, those put into the positions

of highest authority in america's leading security and intelligence agencies. you believe the fbi, the cia, and i dare say every other intelligence agencies... they have been politicised. those agencies have been entirely politicised... because they don't do what you and donald trump want them to do does not mean they are politicised. the fbi and the cia opposed the release of a memo that will demonstrate that they violated the war because they say it threatens national security. nonsensical. the thing is, you have a very strong set of opinions about what's happening. yet i come back to what they opened with, you win your political career have always prided yourself in the power of disinformation. to quote ted cruz, a right—wing republican, you have spent your entire career lying. because everything i have said today will be borne out to be true and you can come and re—interview me when that happens. that's how confident i am that i am correct. your record suggests that you are, from time to time, inclined to use

language which deepens and expands the fractures in american society. you mean like hillary clinton saying black people should be brought to heel, for example? no, i mean like roger stone tweeting about ‘negroes‘, using the word beginning with b for women he politically has disagreements with. well, let's take those down. i did refer to someone as a negro. i also wrote and apology to that person in my column. but why did you do it? who knows, maybe i had too much.. you know the resonance of the word negro, you know what it conjures up about segregation. actually, i don't think it's offensive. but because some black people i know do think so i did apologise for that. as far as calling ana navarro a bitch, i stand by that. an abusive, nasty, narrowminded... you started this interview by worrying aloud about the polarisation in america today, and then you use that kind of language in an interview. we call it the first amendment. you can say what you like. you can call it what you like, but i guess what i'm getting to is this — your politics, your style of politics,

it is corroding and corrupting american political culture today. i have done nothing in politics that isn't the norm. american politics is not beanbag. 0ur opponents have said things about us every bit as coarse as the things we may have said. so i reject this idea that i have changed the culture. see, i was positing earlier that you may have influenced donald trump in some ways. when donald trump said what he said about immigrants who come from countries like haiti and he said that he wished more would come from norway less from those s—hole countries like haiti, when he reacted to the charlottesville display of power by neo—nazis by saying there were some fine people involved, how did you respond to what trump said in those situations? the president denied saying that. no republican senator who was there can recall him saying that. no, i think you will find that lindsey graham, who is a republican, said that dick durbin‘s interpretation of what was said was right. well, perhaps lindsey graham

is pandering for people back home. look, i'm not going to criticise the present for saying what people think. the united nations human rights council described it as racist. the united nations, they have accomplished a great deal... i guess it's this, here you sit with me in united kingdom, you know that there people around the world who have responded to things they have heard from donald trump and wonder whether the united states is led by racist and that doesn't seem to worry you. what matters are deeds, not words. african american unemployment is at the lowest point in our history. yeah, they called richard nixon a racist. he gave us affirmative action. he desegregated the american public schools without violence or bloodshed. what matters are deeds, not words. when you look at what's happening today in the united states and you consider donald trump as a man and as a president, how do you think this presidency is going to pan out? it depends on whether he makes america great again.

our economy is already booming. in the state of the union address he talked about restoring our inner cities, detroit, iwould like to see him do that. i would like to see him follow through on the place to get us out of afghanistan and syria. i'm rather disappointed that the generals have talked him into continuing or increasing our presence in those places. he ran as an anti—interventionist in the campaign. but one year does not a presidency make. and so far i think he's doing extraordinarily well, given the intractable opposition of the 2—party elites. roger stone, we have to end there. but thank you very much for being on hardtalk. happy to be here. hello.

it feels like we've been stuck in the deep freeze over the last few days, and that's not going to change very much during wednesday. cold air remains firmly in place, and some of us have some snow on the ground, as well — that weather watcher picture from north yorkshire on tuesday, where we have the lying snow, particularly. there is the risk for some ice during wednesday. a widespread frost, certainly, to start the day, because we are still firmly ensconced in this cold air. something a little bit milder out in the atlantic, but we won't feel the effects of that just yet. for the time being, this area of high pressure giving most of us a fine, dry but cold start to the day, under largely clear skies. 0ur towns and cities down below freezing, but out in the countryside, those temperatures really have been dropping away. the sorts of temperatures we'll have to start the day — between about —5 and —11 degrees. still some snow potentially

for a time across east anglia, and the south—east, as well, this weather front tending to push away and another weather system starting to show its hand out west. that will start to thicken up the cloud through the morning across the western side of scotland. perhaps just one or two showers in clipping into north—west scotland, but generally, down into the heart of england and wales, there will be a fair amount of sunshine. some extra cloud for northern ireland. the odd shower, maybe, for west wales and the south—west of england, and still some of those snow showers taking time to clear away from the far south—east. but they should do so fairly smartly during the morning, in most areas, and then a nice slice of sunshine. eastern scotland, and particularly england and wales, seeing plenty of crisp winter sunshine during wednesday, but this frontal system will thicken up the cloud out west. outbreaks of rain, and ahead of that a spell of snow for a time, particularly across scotland. still a chilly feel to the day. now, as we go through wednesday night, we'll bring this band of cloud and rain, and some snow

on its leading—edge, further southwards and eastwards. but we start to pick up more of a south—westerly wind, so that's going to bring slightly milder air. these are your overnight lows, edinburgh, belfast down to four degrees. the coldest weather to start thursday morning will be across the south—eastern corner, where the skies stay clearest. but that's where we'll have the best of the sunshine during the day on thursday, this band of cloud and rain continuing to sink southwards and eastwards. in fact, the rain looks likely to turn heavier across parts of wales and northern england as we get on into the afternoon. something brighterfollowing on behind for scotland and northern ireland, but with a fair rash of showers, a slightly milder day. but as we push that weather front away, we get back into the cold air, with some further snow showers for the end of the week. i'm rico hizon in singapore. this is newsday on the bbc. the headlines: after the taiwan quake, the aftershocks. those trapped inside the toppling buildings take the brunt. an eyewitness is talking

to the bbc when this happens. oh my god. this is an after—shock, i'm sorry. positive early gains as asian stock markets open, and after us shares bounced back from a roller coaster ride for the world's stock markets. i'm sharanjit leyl in london. also in the programme: