tv The Papers BBC News September 21, 2019 10:30pm-11:01pm BST
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jeremy corbyn has quashed an attempt to oust tom watson as the deputy leader of the labour party — a row which has overshadowed the start of the party's conference in brighton. iran reacts defiantly — in response to the us sending troops and missile defence systems to saudi arabia and the uae after last week's attack on saudi oilfacilities. teenage climate activist greta thunberg arrives to cheering crowds at a youth summit on climate change in new york — ahead of the un general assembly next week. and 75 years on from the battle of arnhem, a mass parachute drop takes place in the netherlands to mark what was known as operation market garden in world war two. hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be
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bringing us tomorrow. with me are the broadcaster and psychotherapist lucy beresford and john rentoul, chief political commentator at the independent. good evening to both of you. many of tomorrow's front pages are already in. the sunday telegraph looks at the future of labour and party leaderjeremy corbyn — suggesting that succession plans are well underway. the sunday times says the party has been plunged into fresh chaos, after a senior adviser quit, saying he didn't have faith that labour will succeed. the thoughts of nigel farage dominate the front of the sunday express. he says any delay to the brexit process will lead to what he calls a "clean break". and the mail on sunday has the story of the 80—year—old great grandmother, who was cleared of murdering her dying husband in a botched suicide pact. that gives you a flavour of what is
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to come, labour and the conference dominating the front pages. john, the sunday times, the headline is loser corbyn rocked as key aide walks out. it could have been, it's all kicking off in the labour party! it has been quite a day in brighton. what with the plot against tom watson, the deputy leader, called off but to have andrew fisher, the head of policy injeremy corbyn‘s office walk—out is signs things are not comfortable at the top of the labour party. i think it is worrying and there are lots of suggestions in some papers thatjeremy corbyn wants to step down. those rumours have been around for a while. congratulations to the sunday collea g u es congratulations to the sunday colleagues for putting them in print. these comments from andrew fisher are pretty damning stuff? and
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it isa fisher are pretty damning stuff? and it is a shame that a lot of labour party members would feel this is a shame this is coming out right now because they would have hoped the co nfe re nce because they would have hoped the conference presented a united front with a general election in the offing. if they present themselves as united than the tories will seem conflicted and they would be home and dry. but today and yesterday's papers said just how fractious it is and the psychodrama that still seems to be being played out in this generation of labour leaders compared to a generation ago. it is worrying in the sense that ordinary vote rs worrying in the sense that ordinary voters will look at this and think, if you are squabbling internally amongst yourselves when what we want to talk about is brexit, can we get that done with? and then talk about amazing policies? there was an interesting policy from dawn butler this morning about the menopause and
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how labour would like to put some initiatives in place for what could happen in the right place for women suffering from the menopause. that has been drowned out completely by this noise. a political bloodbath, we are hearing. the blizzard of lies and excuses, that is one of the reasons andrew fisher has resigned. it doesn't bode well. but you said the rumours have been around about corbyn staying or going for some time. i haven't given them much credence because my impression of him is somebody who is really determined. i know he is 70 but he is fit and healthy. absolutely committed to the cause. therefore i would have expected him to lead the party into the general election, which may be very soon or maybe not. is that one of the reasons why that attempt was made yesterday to get rid of tom watson? many people thought, corbyn might resign, he
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might announce it at the conference, and we really don't want tom watson holding this party? absolutely and speculation was that was one ofjohn lance and's motives to abolish the post of deputy leader. it was a pretty unsuccessful post of deputy leader. it was a pretty u nsuccessful attem pt. they try to rewrite the rules as well to constrain tom watson if he should concede to be acting leader. in which case, i don't understand why they didn't just change which case, i don't understand why they didn'tjust change the rule that says a deputy leader automatically takes over. there are pretty unimpressive polling figures so pretty unimpressive polling figures so yougov, and a research poll that how the conservatives at 37%, labour down tojust 22%. how the conservatives at 37%, labour down to just 22%. with a conference about to start, that will not excite members. when we come to talking about the conference starting, if we
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wa nt about the conference starting, if we want some insight into how the members are thinking, the sunday times article, taking a poll of members and what they think on various things. what stood out? the fa ct various things. what stood out? the fact they want to abolish the monarchy! we know that labour members are pretty and what they would regard as left—wing, they want to get rid of the nuclear deterrent and abolish the monarchy and the support a general strike to bring down the government. but is pretty antic. and they don't even like the national anthem? 0ne antic. and they don't even like the national anthem? one in antic. and they don't even like the nationalanthem? one in five antic. and they don't even like the national anthem? one in five are comfortable singing the national anthem and the rest are embarrassed or even angry. so sad! that might say more about the national anthem itself rather than the monarchy? are you saying we need a new song?! maybe that is for another day. you saying we need a new song?! maybe that is for another daym you saying we need a new song?! maybe that is for another day. it is a terrible song! we need aggravation contest for it. let me take you to the independent and there is more on
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labour, the corbyn stitch up blocks labour, the corbyn stitch up blocks labour backing remain. looking ahead to what will be the theme of the conference. where they stand or do not stand on brexit and where will corbyn come out? you saw a potential leadership contender, emily thornberry, coming out and being explicit about where she feels the party should go and it should be purely about remain but about campaigning for remain. what people are stressing about is the fact that jeremy corbyn simply will not come off the fence on this one and they are called leaders for a reason, you wa nt are called leaders for a reason, you want them to lead you and give you a position and inspire you to follow them. sitting on the fence does not really help anybody. it is very difficult forjeremy corbyn because he does not want to offend labour voters who voted to leave. he is trying to be neutral between both sides. as lucy says, that is a very
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difficult position to hold. emily thornberry is one name speaking out openly with this people's vote rally and keir starmer. and one of the reasons i don't like tom watson as he has been taking to the stage. 0r the potential leadership contenders circling? i don't think so. it will be interesting to see if there is more information in that yougov poll as to how much they still support jeremy corbyn but i support —— suspect they do and they might be disappointed with him but i don't think there is a mood... there is an argument to say that the move to re move argument to say that the move to remove tom watson, if that had succeeded, that could possibly have been the straw to break the camel's back for centrist mps to say this party is not for us. the fact that jeremy corbyn quashed that, nothing is happening, so i don't think the
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vultures are circling. they are sitting on their tree! and the focus is all on labour but as you said, there are parallels with the conservatives which labour ought to be shunning what it is bringing on this idea of parties that are split and infighting to the floor and it doesn't matter which. the theory goes that if you are a split party you cannot win a general election whereas one of them probably will win! somebody has to win more seats than somebody else! at this moment it looks like the strong leader, who has come say we are going to leave, do ordie, on has come say we are going to leave, do or die, on the 31st, that seems to be winning voters around. hence those polling figures. let us park the politics. the sunday telegraph... they have done a lot on corbyn but the story on the right—hand side is i78—year—old
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institution in the form of thomas cook which is looking wobbly?m institution in the form of thomas cook which is looking wobbly? it is, ididn't cook which is looking wobbly? it is, i didn't realise there were quite so many customers who had to be rescued if it does go bust. 150,000! that is quite an operation, to bring them home. i had no idea the rules were so complicated that there are laws that say no jet should be airborne when it is announced that administrators have been called in. all planes are on the ground, at which point they can say the company is over. fascinating story because this company has been in trouble for a very long time. they bought another company, my travel, in 2007 and they have been saddled with debt ever since. there is an argument to say perhaps hasn't be —— been brilliantly run in the share prices completely crashed to just 3p this month. which suggest that perhaps it hasn't been well—run. so turning
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round and asking for a bailout from the government is hard to swallow and it sets a very dangerous precedent for the government to do that. the irony is that one of the banks that are saying to thomas cook, you need to give us £200 million, is actually rbs, which itself was the subject of a bailout. there is a huge difference between being a bank and being bailed out and a travel company because holidays are a discretionary expense , holidays are a discretionary expense, i feel very sorry for people who paid for their wedding in la nza rote people who paid for their wedding in lanzarote or wherever, people who paid for their wedding in la nza rote or wherever, desperately sorry. probably this company is going to have to go to the wall.l brutal view. you might be seen the future clearly. staying with... staying with the sunday telegraph. a totally different tack. the duchess of sussex... meghan markle? what is
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the plan? lucy told me that megan and harry... that's the one! what was that you said about the national anthem?! i understand they are on their way to south africa, i thought they had been exiled by the older brother? this is part of an exercise to really capitalise on some amazing feel—good people have towards harry and megan, particularly harry. megan has been making amazing strides on what she talks about, her causes. when she goes to south africa she would take some of our cheap as my clothing and donating that in various places but she will talk about gender— based violence various places but she will talk about gender—based violence and south africa is riven with horrible violence that has been taking place, particularly with the student murdered in cape town. if they go to
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a part of that world and raise the profile of these awful things going on, that is absolutely breaded. they are taking archie and some of his things, cynics might say they have work to do to get people back onside. they have had a tough time in the papers, it is nice to see something nice in the papers. in the papers, it is nice to see something nice in the paperslj in the papers, it is nice to see something nice in the papers. i like meghan markle. she is very self—made woman. she has such fantastic skills that taken her to the top of her profession and we should not try to ta ke profession and we should not try to take down, this syndrome we seem to suffer from. we like to end on agreement! that's it for the papers this hour. lucy and john will be back at 11:30pm for another look at the papers, and don't forget, you can see the front pages online on the bbc news website at bbc.co.uk/papers. and if you miss the programme, you can watch it later on bbc iplayer. the headlines are coming up at the top of the hour, but next on bbc news it's time for click.
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emergency call: a request for an ambulance at manchester. it is michelle gaffey. she said the patient in the bathroom, she has overdosed. a 35—year—old male. he is not conscious, not breathing — overdose. america is facing the worst public health crisis in its history. 70,000 of its citizens are dying each yearfrom drug overdoses. i'm not doing nothing, except sticking a needle in my arm, every day, all day long. it's a waste of everything. around three quarters of those
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are a result of opioid addiction. it's the number one killer of americans under 50, and it has reduced the average life expectancy. we go out on these types of calls over and over and over again, all day long. doug, can you get up? by the end of this programme, three lives will have been lost due to opioid overdoses. it's a crisis widely blamed on the overprescribing of pain medication, the addictive nature of which has left many turning to the street when their prescription dries up. i was 16 years old and got my wisdom teeth out. and they prescribed vicodin, and i was like, "what is this miracle? these things are amazing!" and in the end, i ended up being an everyday user. now synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which can be 50 times stronger than heroin, and carfentanil, which can be thousands of times stronger, are being imported in bulk
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from china and cut in with heroin. it's not heroin that's killing our people. it's fentanyl. it's an issue affecting every corner of society. layla, wake up! again, fe nta nyl driving up into new hampshire to pollute our communities. president trump has declared it a national public health emergency. we will end this terrible menace. we will smash the grip of addiction. last year, the food and drug administration and congress pointed the finger at the tech giants for fuelling the epidemic by not removing adverts for the illicit sale of opioids on their platforms. america is in the midst of one of the worst epidemics it has ever experienced with this drug epidemic. but your platform is still being used to circumvent the law and allow people to buy highly addictive drugs without a prescription. what we need to do is build more ai tools that can proactively... you been said before you were gonna take ‘em down,
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and you haven't. and they're still up. gentleman's time has expired. well, his questioning was up, but we've got a whole programme, and we've given nick kwek the whole show to investigate this. i've spent the last few months looking at this hugely pressing issue which is sweeping america, but what is important is that it's notjust an american issue. we're beginning to see the full extent of this on our shores here in the uk, where apparently a quarter of us are being prescribed potentially addictive medication. but in the states, i wanted to look at whether or not technology companies really are contributing to the recent rise in opioid overdoses, or as technology companies, if their inherent nimbleness and ability to quickly innovate could actually provide an interesting solution to the epidemic. 0k, and nick's first point of call was an online forensics lab in the south of the usa. at the university of alabama at birmingham, gary warner and his students monitor for illegal activity online. so some of these students are investigating terrorism, some are working
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on financial crimes. their pioneering expertise in computerforensics have helped the likes of the fbi, the secret service and now facebook — the virtual home of more than half of americans. they realise that they had a problem with drugs being sold on their platform. we've been working to eliminate terrorism from their platform for some time, and i think we've taken the same approach. they said "what could you do to help with this?" gary and his team have flagged thousands of websites to law officials that they believe advertise illegal drugs. i browse social media platforms, looking for people that are selling drugs on them. they usually comment on drug user's posts. in the comments sections, there will be people trying to sell them drugs. just one of us alone finds probably thousands of different accounts every day involved in some way, hundreds of different websites we go through. it's a lot to look at. we look at the worst parts of the internet — like, that's ourjob, we're paid to do that.
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there are "research chemicals", is the term they use. research chemicals websites are selling the bulk fentanyl. 0n the social media, it is really more the people who are looking for an individual dose. what is on your screen there? i have a lethal dose of fentanyl, compared to a penny. it's 2mg, is enough to kill a grown man. what we're seeing is that a lot of what people are buying is a painkiller. they're going to a site that looks like an online pharmacy, not realising that's not a legitimate pharmacy, and they're buying the drugs without a prescription. and the problem is that when you get it, it's not a properly regulated drug. you don't know where it came from. you're really rolling the dice with your own safety. so you've been doing this line of work for a few years now. how much of this is work and how much of this is personal? so, yeah... well... yeah, we'll go there. 0k. um, i lost my daughter,
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uh, to heroin. she was, um... she was a troubled kid and she got involved with heroin and she actually committed suicide while she was high one night. she was 19. um... if this lab can help... ..somebody else not lose their little girl or their son, um, that's a worthwhile cause. exhales. wow! yeah, when i asked gary that question, i actually didn't know how close he was to the issue, him losing his daughter. but what i have found is that a lot of people that are drawn to this line of work are personally connected in some way. they've either had had family members have gone through it or going through it now, or they themselves have gone through it. 0k, right. so we've established that social media makes it easierfor people to find drugs. i'm assuming that gary warner's lab could do more thanjust flag up posts to facebook?
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yeah, so users searching for drugs in america now on facebook are redirected automatically to a government—run support website or helpline. but, as gary's team told me, with a lot of these adverts appearing in people's comment sections or in private, closed groups, they are not actively going to search for drugs. these links just appear and they might click on them and may be redirected to websites that sell the drugs. but with 500,000 comments being posted to facebook per second and the ability for people just to create new profiles to then advertise drugs online once their old ones are shut down, it's kind of an impossible task to keep up. the platforms will shut them down but theyjust get brought up under a different name. but they — i'm not sure if it's one person or a scam or a big organisation, but they will have about 15 or so different accounts, run by the same person, because they have the same phone numbers. people used to sell viagra on facebook. 0k, well you get rid of the word viagra and a couple of variants
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on it, and people said "oh, i guess i can't sell viagra on facebook" and they quit. the criminals, the drug user, the drug dealers are all getting very creative with "how can i describe my product i'm seeking or my product i'm selling in a way that gets me around the censors?" they've got 0's in the middle, where they're supposed to have 0's. so if you are searching for things by the dosage size, having the letters mixed in messed that up. there's just been this almost — we call it a keyword arms race. we put some terms in and facebook begins to block them, so they use different terms, and then itjust keeps going. how many have you got? 0h, keywords? uh, 1,695 — and that's an older list. we probably have more than that. itjust needs to be updated. people are like "well, they should just hire more content moderators." and no — if you had an infinite number of content moderators, you'd almost need one for every person who's posting on facebook. they've got to go after it in an algorithmic way. gary's team are developing software
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to automatically scour the web for fentanyl — a tool previously used for homeland security investigations. and so, if we go visit one of these sites — you know, five fentanyl pills between £200—$980. well, we didn't really look for that. we found it by the bing magic tool giving us a list of recommended sites that scored high for fenta nyl keywords. the average user experience, it's harder to find drugs online than it's ever been before on these platforms. is it possible still? yes. it's always going to be possible. and if we multiplied by 100 the amount of money we spent, it will still be possible, because that is how facebook‘s scale works. it's not only facebook — twitter has also come under fire for not removing public posts advertising illegal drugs for sale. we don't need to have our social media promoting the use of illegal drugs to our children and our families. yes, i agree with you this is unacceptable and we will — we will act. lauren culbertson heads up twitter‘s
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public policy in washington. we've taken down 17,000 tweets since we have ramped up this work, and that number is growing by the day. as well as deleting tweets, twitter has partnered with the drug enforcement administration on their biannual ta ke—back days, where americans can safely deposit their unwanted opioid medication. they created a pill emoji and spread the word through hashtags. voiceover: whatever the case, don't be the dealer. right now, we're actively working on a search prompt, where people would be directed towards services. we're just having a few engineering issues but we should be there soon. so traditionally, twitter is champion freedom of speech and doesn't want to get too heavy—handed with censorship. how much has twitter had to change its policy with regard to the opioid crisis? well, illegal activity has always been against our terms of service. and so, we enforce against that. as a lot of people appreciate, content moderation is really tricky and you have to strike the right balance.
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and so, while we want to enforce against illegal drug sales, we also want to make sure that we're not over—correcting in censoring the people who are talking about, and have conversations about, the opioid crisis. 0k, sadly, that's all we've got time for for the short version of click for this week, but you can see more ways that tech is trying to help solve the opioid crisis in the full—length version, which is available to watch on iplayer right now. if you've been affected by drug addiction — maybe it's you, maybe it's someone you know, help is out there. you can talk to frank, which is the nhs's confidential advice service for addicts and their carers. their phone number and website is below. thank you for watching. stay well. we will see you soon.
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good evening. saturday brought us a glorious day of summerlike weather across much of the uk, with temperatures in the mid—20s. in fact, we saw highs of 27 celsius during saturday afternoon. things will turn cooler and more unsettled from sunday onwards. now through the rest of this evening and tonight, we've got rain moving in from the west, so northern ireland, wales, the southwest of england, seeing some heavy bursts, with the odd rumble of thunder, but mild, anywhere about 15—17d overnight. clearer skies across scotland in eastern england as we start the day on sunday, but there will be this band of showery rain arriving across eastern areas through the middle part of the morning, and then the next area of rain moving west to east through into the afternoon. so quite an unsettled story, not as warm as recent days, 18—23d. northern and eastern scotland staying dry through much of the day. monday, a bit of a dryer story for many parts. there will be some sunshine,
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this is bbc news. the headlines at 11:00: jeremy corbyn has quashed an attempt to oust tom watson as the deputy leader of the labour party, a row which has overshadowed the start of the party's conference in brighton. iam i am particularly disappointed with jon lansman, the boss of momentum, because i think he has notjust undermined me, ithink because i think he has notjust undermined me, i think he has undermined me, i think he has undermined jeremy, i think he has undermined jeremy, i think he has undermined the party, and frankly i think he has undermined the momentum delegates. former vice—presidentjoe biden has called for president trump to be investigated over whistleblower reports alleging he put pressure on a ukraininan leader to investigate mr biden's son. iran reacts defiantly in response to the us sending troops and missile defence systems to saudi arabia and the uae, after last week's
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