between the leaders of north and south korea. is there for their latest pictures, showing the motorcade of president moon. at a summit in pyongyang, north leader kim jong—un promised to close a missile launch facility, overseen by international experts. the us senate has given the woman who accused supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh of sexual assault until friday to decide if she will testify at a senate hearing. christine blasey ford says she wants the fbi to investigate the alleged assault. and this story is on bbc.com. the hunt for the final resting place of captainjames cook's ship hms endeavour may soon be over — in time for the 250th anniversary of its voyage to australia. after a 25—year archaeological study of the area, the search has been narrowed to just "one or two" sites. now on bbc news it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk,

i'm stephen sackur. deploying troops overseas, whether to fight or protect, is a costly business, which is one reason why throughout history, wars and long—term military commitments have often been contracted out to private operators, operators, mercenaries — whose methods, personnel and cost can be very different. my guest today is erik prince, who founded blackwater, a security contractor used by the us government in iraq until things went badly wrong. a decade on, he's pitching to replace the us military in afghanistan. is that an idea donald trump might just buy? erik prince, welcome to hardtalk.

thanks for having me. people, i think, will associate your name with blackwater and the disaster that struck your company in 2007, when your personnel were involved in the killing of 14 iraqi civilians in baghdad. and yet, here you are, a decade later, making the case to privatise one key element of america's military deployment in afghanistan. how come? believe me, i think about the nisour square event almost every day. and that was was 11 years ago sunday, september 16, 2007. look, to define the whole company by one day's bad events is probably not fair. the guys did more than 100,000

missions, protective missions for the us government, with no—one under their care ever killed or injured. that being said, as america now rolls over 17 years at war in afghanistan, more than $1 trillion spent, 21100 dead, thousands more wounded, tens of thousands of afghans dead, and we're still spending, as a country, this year, $62 billion — more than the entire uk defence budget. i think it's time the bbc itself did an exhaustive study of afghanistan that shows the government only controls 30% of the terrain, the other 70% is in control of the terrorists. after that long, that much money, blood, treasure and time and we're still failing, i think it's time to look at other alternatives. we'll get to your vision, your alternative for afghanistan ina minute. but it only makes any sort of sense if you can convince people, both in washington, in afghanistan, and around the world that you have actually learned anything from what happened in 2007, as you say, 11 years

ago pretty much. and i look at the record, i see no record of you expressing deep regret, shame, reaching out to the family members of those who were killed. you have never, it seems to me, come to terms with what your company did. well, you're misinformed there. we actually hired the former chief prosecutor of iraq, who went and visited each of the families. there's actually only 11 people were killed that day. every death, of course, is a tragedy. as i understand, the death toll, and this is a death toll that has been used by us prosecutors and investigators is 1a iraqi citizens. sure. but the iraqis, and the iraqi prosecutor, the guy that prosecuted saddam, identified 11. and sadly, there was not even autopsies performed on any of the bodies because of the muslim tradition of burying within 2a hours. that being said, there's been more

than 85,000 iraqi civilians killed since the nisour square tragedy. but that's not, with respect, your problem. the problem is that your company was responsible for these deaths, described by the attorney for the district of colombia, ronald machenjr, at one of the trials of the personnel that you employed, he said: "it was an outrageous attack with devastating consequences for so many iraqi families". and he said, as the verdict was announced on some of your men, he said, "i pray this verdict will bring some sense of comfort to the survivors of what he called a massacre." sure. prosecutors can say whatever they need to to win a case. but it has not been clear, even within the courts in washington, dc. the first time that prosecutors brought charges it was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. the second time, it was overturned in an appeals court because the prosecution withheld

evidence from the defence. and the third time was a couple of few weeks ago, it was declared a mistrial. now the government is announcing, for a fourth time, they'll try these guys. as clear—cut as you want to make it, even in the usjudicial system it's not quite as clear, and not quite a massacre as you would want to characterise. that's not my word. sure. what is also the case, and i don't think you can deny it, is that the investigation launched into blackwater after this investigation — let's not forget that your personnel opened fire on civilians at a roundabout in baghdad itself. the investigation uncovered some very worrying facts. for example, according to the committee of investigation, blackwater personnel participated in 195 incidents betweenjanuary 05—september 07, in which 84% of the cases, your people fired first. sure.

and if they're following the rules of engagement, those are completely acceptable shoots. let me just give you a synopsis... but your contract... you're not going to let me finish... but i would just like to point out, because people will not know the detail. but the legal and contractual obligation upon your company in iraq was to use defensive force, open fire if imminent and grave danger to themselves was present. sure. and yet 84% of the time, your guys opened fire pre—emptively. and to describe, so the previous week, before the nisour square incident, one of our helicopters was shot down, another one of our convoys was ambushed with a roadside bomb, putting our guys in hospital. there was another small arms ambush against another group and in the morning in nisour square, moments before this incident, a car bomb blew up outside of an iraqi building where a us aid official was meeting, causing a support team to go block the traffic circle to provide a clear exit for the team moving away from harm's way. and when the intel provided

by the us government says be on the lookout for a white kia, and all of the other cars in the traffic circle stop, except for a white kia that keeps on rolling and keeps on rolling, it comes down to a split—second decision. the fact is we employed us military veterans who had served the country well and honourably, put them through an extensive vetting and training process, including psychological evaluations, criminal background checks, and weeks of additional training. we send them, we deploy them to iraq or afghanistan, wherever that was, and put under operational control of the us state department, performing under their rules of engagement. i asked you about regret and shame. i'm not hearing any of that from you today. of course. we paid salation payments to the families, we've extended condolences to the families, but like i said, 85,000 iraqi civilians have been killed in iraqi since the nisour square incident... so... and war is a very dangerous place and it's very sad any time an innocent civilian is killed, it is very sad. and i've had over a0 of my men

killed doing theirjob, protecting americans, iraqis, or afghans, or whatever the job might be. is it not the case that war is more dangerous when mercenaries are involved? and your business, as you established it in the 19905 and built it up, after 9/11 it became an extremely lucrative business, your business was about putting mercenaries into military theatres of operation? i think looking at even the death count in iraq, wars are dangerous for civilians the longer and longer they drag on. so finding a way to put the fires out and looking at a way to build local capacity is far more important. the united nations, for the last 17 years has made an effort, through an international convention, to eliminate the use of mercenaries. it is very significant, is it not, that the united states has refused to sign that? but ijust wonder if you personally are aware of the international feeling that this use of privatised contracted mercenary forces in warfare is unacceptable? i find it funny that even the un

brings that up since, effectively, the entire un peacekeeping apparatus is one of hiring contracted forces. us peacekeeping forces wouldn't eat, drink water, have ammunition, food, fuel or anything to support their operations if it weren't for contracted forces. effectively, they contract with nation states to send them troops that are sadly untrained, unprepared, and not very well behaving in war zones. but the operative point there is that the guys with the guns are soldiers serving their national army, seconded to the united nations. you put guys into the field with guns who are serving for profit, and ultimately, as you own blackwater, they serve for your profit. there is a wide variety of defence contractors that supports a nation's effort, be it a guy who makes boots,

puts fuel in the vehicles or trains... i understand your point, but i'm suggesting there's something intrinsically different about the guy with the gun. the machine—gun, the mortar. the kind of people you have in iraqis who are working for profit. the uk, throughout its history, and even the united states, turned to contracted forces when they needed it. across the street from the white house in washington, dc, we have statues of four key people — lafayette, rochambeau, von steuben, kosciuszko, — who built capacity in the continental army to gain the independence of the united states. so let me get this straight, if i could. we began with afghanistan and you have a vision of how the united states could, and in your view needs to use privatised contracted military security personnel to change the dynamic. why on earth do you believe the american government and the american people, given your particular track record, would want to listen to you on that score right now? well, here's the thing.

you already have 15,000 us troops in afghanistan, you have another 30,000 contractors. what i'm recommending is a real rationalisation. to go back to what worked originally after 9/11, when you had a few hundred cia, a few hundred special forces personnel backed by air power and afghans, and they decimated the taliban in a matter of weeks. the relentless pursuit of them worked for six months. and then as the conventional army units showed up and the us and nato repeated the soviet battle plan for afghanistan, it's gone backwards ever since, and we've spent an enormous amount of treasure and blood, and even this year, the un says the highest rate of deaths of civilians in afghanistan for all previous the years. so it is not getting better in any shape orform. here's the reaction that president karzai, the former president of afghanistan, gave when he read your proposal a year ago.

he said he vehemently opposed it, he called it "a blatant violation of afg hanistan‘s national sovereignty." and that was one year ago. and since then, just in the last month, i produced a video, it's on wars of waste on youtube. i made a dari translation of the video and if you ask him, i think he has a very different perception now. do you think it helps that you called the idea something like setting up an east india company for afghanistan? in essence, that crystallised this notion that you treat afghanistan as some sort of colonial adventure from which you can profit. no. the model of how the east india company placed and built security forces works, which is almost all locals, with a few expat mentors attached for the long—term. you have to fix the fundamental flaw of the lack of continuity. and the kind of people i'm talking about using are not a bus driver off the street, but these are the same special forces veterans people love to praise on veterans day. the same people you referred to in iraq who ended up killing, killing, shooting dead 1a civilians.

from the united states, from other nato countries, the same proven veterans who have been in afghanistan for years. you send them back there and you pay them to go to the same valley with the same battalion. they know that terrain. you can pay that guy to stay there for 90 days, come back home for 30, go back again. they go to the same unit for years and you build that continuity. senator lindsey graham, on national security issues, a long—time hawk who's wanted to see america really address the military problem in afghanistan, really take on the taliban. he said this of your plan, he said "it is something that you would expect to come from a bad soldier of fortune novel. it is a military political approach that would be a disaster on both fronts." and that comes from a senator who wanted to send 100,000 americans to syria, to occupy syria. i'm talking about ending the war,

letting conventional troops go home, saving an enormous amount of money and saving an enormous amount of blood and treasure. but you are peddling a fantasy, surely. we've had nato have committing more than 100,000 heavily armed personnel to afghanistan, completely incapable of eliminating the taliban. you are suggesting you could eliminate them with what? several thousand us special forces and your 6000 private mercenaries. how on earth do expect anybody to believe that could happen? so when you attach them, the mentors would be attached to the afghan forces under their rules of engagement, living with, training with and patrolling with... i don't know if it's escaped you, but the afghan military is in crisis. the rate of desertion... they are. ..the rate of attrition. that's right. the rate of desertion is 2%—3% a month. they are haemorrhaging literally people, bodies, everything else because of the rampant corruption. if you have mentors that are with them in the field that make

sure the men are paid on time, and fed on time and they're well led, that you provide them air power, so that people show up with medevac, resupply and even close air support, again, our model, what i recommended, is that contracted aircraft flown by a contractor pilot and an afghan pilot, so that the weapons decision remains in the sole hands of an afghan, again, a true afghanization of the effort, and the third part is governance support so that the men, so that the supplies, which are routinely stolen... look, you have to feel bad for an afghan soldier who hangs out at a base, where he has not been paid in months, they're short on food and ammunition and nobody is going to help them when they're in trouble. when you look at the afghan casualty counts now and you see they are not dying by twos and threes, they're dying by the hundreds. you have to stop that systemic bleeding. this is the kind of capability embedded in long—time works. the one part of... you have tried to reach out, i know. sorry to interrupt, but i just want to move on to the politics of this. you reached out a year ago, or maybe more than a year ago, to the trump administration

and i think you spoke to steve bannon. he quite liked your idea, but nobody else did. hr mcmaster, who was national security advisor at the time, he hated your idea. it was rejected. you have since come back with your fancy video, you're trying to persuade the trump administration all over again that it will work. i know that, from what i've seen and heard, that you're excited that john bolton is now inside the white house as national security advisor. you perhaps think that political ground has changed. what evidence do you have that donald trump and his team are now listening to you? first year in office donald trump was given two choices. add more troops and more money — what the pentagon wanted — to continue the same policy of the last 17 years, or the pentagon said you should just pull out completely. they never wanted to entertain a third way — a way to have a much lower cost structural support for the afghan forces. the president was close to making a decision, but the race riot in charlottesville and all the rest that happened a year ago in august, caused a real concern for him politically and he went with what the pentagon wanted. he basically committed more troops —

3000 more men and he said "there's no timetable, this is open—ended, it will take as long as it takes." and now we've gone another year and the pentagon has not delivered on the results they promised. my question is quite simple — what makes you think any minds have now been changed inside the white house or the pentagon, becausejim mattis the other day was asked directly about your plan and he said he had no interest in it. of course, the pentagon does what the pentagon does. they like conventional approaches. remember, after 9/11... can you just answer me? give me one reason to believe that, apart from being a pretty extraordinary story of a guy who saw his reputation ruined 11 years ago, now coming back into the fray and trying to persuade america that mercenaries can work in america's interests, apart from that fascinating story, can you give me any specific sign that says donald trump is interested in your proposition? what i have heard from people that i know at the white house is that the president is demanding some different options. the president saw the video that i made and is asking questions. why is the pentagon wanting

to continue the same failed policies of the last 17 years? the president rightly campaigned on ending endless wars, 0k? spending more than the entire uk budget as america just in afghanistan when we have budgetary problems, is dumb. you speak ultimately as a businessman. since the disaster that struck blackwater — and you've pulled out of blackwater in 2010 — you have worked in the middle east, according to some reports you tried to set up a private army for their uae, then you've moved into business in china and africa. you now get very well paid by the chinese to offer security to some of their biggest businesses, mines and extraction industries inside africa. you said this recently, you said, "this is not a patriotic endeavour of ours, we are here to build a great business and make money doing it." that is what you are all about, isn't it? for a public company that is absolutely what the responsibility, the fiduciary responsibility is... you are going into the great detail

of how you think this could be a boom for security in afghanistan. in the end, that is irrelevant to you and your perspective. you, as you said quite frankly, "this is not a patriotic endeavour, we are here to build a great business and make money." you know, stephen, ifunded a loya jirga in 1998 already. a loya jirga is a peace conference. we were trying to get king zahir shar to return from rome, to go back to afghanistan and to make peace — so i have been paying attention to peace in afghanistan longer than most. far longer than it was any business. and sadly he didn't go. and 9/11 happened. and it has been going largely sideways since then. if this effort, if the president were to change course, i would do it all through a us entity, of course, accountable under us law and tax authorities. one final thing. we are almost out of time. one final thing that intrigues me about this, you seem very confident you can reach out to donald trump. it interests me a great deal that you, first of all, donated a lot of — a very significant amount of money — of money to donald trump's presidential election campaign

but also, in that very important period, in the run—up to his inauguration injanuary 2017, you had a meeting in the seychelles, with a senior associate of vladimir putin, a meeting which robert mueller, the special counsel, has shown a very great deal of interest in. what was that meeting all about? i went to the seychelles, as i've reported previously, to go meet with some emirati businessmen, to do business in africa and some of the other places we do business and there was a russian fund manager that was there... kirill dmitriev, the head of the russian direct investment fund, was at that meeting. apparently you had been given a heads up that he was there and you went off to meet him. who gave you the heads up? somebody in the trump transition team? no, no, no. it was one of the emirati schedulers. robert mueller, as i understand it, wanted access to your phone

and computer records — is that true? sure. theyjust wanted to know what i knew about that meeting and if there was anything else that i had done from the transition or anything else... interesting pause. "anything else" — i mean, we know now that robert mueller has dug very, very deep into allegations of associations, even collusion, between the trump team and of russia in the run—up to the election of 2016. and they certainly found i did not meet with any other russians. not before, not after. is robert mueller still talking to you? haven't heard from him for months. i have never heard from him, but i heard from one of his people. it was probably march since i've heard from anybody. i just wonder, when you're trying to convince donald trump that you, your business should be actively involved and indeed making profits out of afghanistan, why donald trump would listen to you? do you think it could be anything to do with all of that? no. because it is not theoreticalfor me. you know, there's 30,000 contractors in afghanistan costing an enormous amount of money. you have $5 billion the us spends supporting the afghan army,

and $57 billion supporting itself to be in afghanistan as well. you take that number of troops and contractors way down, you save tens of millions of dollars. under this plan i recommend, you save about $1 billion a week, the american taxpayers do. let me end by quoting you the words of us democratic congresswomanjan schakowsky. she said this of you, "erik prince likes to present himself as the perfect patriot, in fact he is the super mercenary." isn't that the truth? you will never escape the taint of blackwater? you know what? jan schakowsky can say many things, but it is her husband that went to prison for tax fraud. and she also knows because of the leaks out of the intelligence community, that i have put myself, my resources, my network, my life on the line for the united states. i serve the united states in trying to figure out a way to end america's

longest war — if somebody has a better idea, i'm all ears. but this is not theoretical. i have had dozens of my own aircraft in country, trained thousands of afghans. we built the entire afghan water police. the training, the mentoring in the field, the same kind of modelling we have out here, as large as the us forces are, with all the spending, and all the aircraft, they still ended up contracting out for this kind of support, so to not consider the same for the afghans, i think is foolhardy. erik prince, i think you to being on hardtalk, we have to end there. thank you very much indeed. thank you. thank you very much indeed. hello there. storm ali brought damaging winds across parts of the uk on wednesday.

wind gusts of more than 90mph for parts of northern ireland. you can see this hook of cloud on the satellite picture, that's the storm pushing off towards scandinavia, but that doesn't mean things will be quiet over the next couple of days, far from it. and that means what we have on thursday is this wriggling frontal system bringing pulses of moisture from the atlantic, so through the day ahead we are going to see heavy rain at times and still the potential for some strong winds. a windy start certainly across northern scotland, some heavy showers here, and some rain across wales, the midlands, parts of eastern england, which will fizzle for a time before returning with a vengeance from the west as we get on into the afternoon. now, as the day wears on, the winds will ease a little bit across northern scotland, but still hefty showers blowing in on the breeze. some sunshine as well, 15 degrees for aberdeen. for northern ireland, calmer than it was on wednesday, but still breezy with a fair amount of cloud, but look at the afternoon in north—west england, the midlands and into wales, very, very heavy bursts of rain with the risk of disruption and localised flooding. windy to the south of that but warm as well, 21 or 22 degrees in the south—east, where we may well stick with some sunshine. and then we go through thursday

evening into the night, we take this wet weather across northern england, wales, the south—west. we push it eastwards, and with that, the winds strengthening across the southern and particularly south—eastern areas with gusts of 40, 50 or maybe 60mph, or even a touch more in some places. the strongest of the winds during the night into the early part of friday will always be in these southern areas. so, if you have travel plans, really over the next 2a hours or so, through thursday, on into friday, some heavy rain, gales at times. there is the potential for disruption. your bbc local radio station will keep you up to date. friday starting windy in southern and eastern areas too. but this area of low pressure responsible will be sliding awau to the east, and in its wake, it will leave us all with some much cooler air, which will be coming from a long way north.

a messy start to the day, outbreaks of rain windy down the east coast as we go on through friday. the worst of the rain will ease, the winds will tend to ease as well. then we'll be left with sunshine and heavy showers, and a cool feel. 11 degrees in aberdeen, perhaps 18 or maybe 19 in parts of the south—east. then the weekend, very mixed. some sunshine, yes, but rain at times, most especially in the south. this is the newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: north korea promises to close a key missile test site. the us says it hopes for complete denuclearisation, within the next three years. the us senate gives the woman who accuses supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh of sexual assault until friday to decide if she will testify. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme: a mental health crisis among refugee children on nauru island, with reports of self—harm and suicide attempts. and election time injapan.

we look shinzo abe's chances of becoming japan's longest—serving prime minister. live from our studios in singapore and london,