♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. brook: these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me. i'm thriving by helping others everyday. people who know, know bdo.

narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". >> this is "the cont" they are choosing to make that additional crossing. they are essentially asylum shoppers. >> in effect asking this to give legislative section to the possibility for the minister of a crime will deliberately disobey the moral obligations of the country.

>> we want to have a conversation with china, it makes it more difficult for us to do that when we are offending our own treaty obligations. >> number 10 says britain needs a deterrent against illegal migration. the draft bill clearing its final hurdles this evening. did the british government get it right in sudan? eight flights of left today but several thousands are left to evacuate. ukraine is getting ready for the next major assault of forces.

what is the government strategy on semiconductors? we will speak to one who is threatening to relocate his operations to the united states. first to westminster where mp's have been voting on the illegal migration. the plants of been approved after the government defused a potential rebellion. there has been criticism of the town that has been taken by the home secretary before the debate and also that of the immigration minister. >> the vast majority of this individuals coming to vote coming from an obvious place of safety in france with a fully

functioning asylum system. they are choosing to make the additional crossing. they are essentially asylum shoppers even though they came from a place of danger. they are doing that because they believe the u.k. is a better place for them to make their claim and to build a future. >> around 70 pages of amendments were put forward, but it is those adopted by the home secretary that have the best chance of adoption. this a chance that will mean courts could not stop a migratory move unless that person poses a risk of irreversible harm. then those claimed to be children to treated as an adult if they refuse to undergo scientific assessment. a commission says it is seriously concerned the bill will break international law. the council of europe said it

could encourage other states to start evading and abdicating their responsibilities. those concerns were expressed by the conservative and former attorney general. >> why does it need legislation if what in fact is not being asked but this house should approve quite consciously and liberally a deliberate breach of our obligations under the convention. the administration could ignore it. this provision invites this house to give legislative authority to the minister doing that if she chooses. >> we will get into that a lot more over the course of the next few minutes. let's get an update on where the bill is. it has been debated, lots of

amendments. what does it look like as it hits over to the lords? >> it looks pretty much like the government has wanted it to. the oppositions attempts to amend it didn't pass at all today and it will go forward. what you saw there was those voices you heard the former attorney general and others who stood up conservative mps who had concerns about aspects of this. what happens now is that this bill will go forward to the house of lords where it will be debated then you can expect much more hostile reception. particularly over some of the issues that were raised such as by two former conservative leaders, theresa may and one other. what they are exercised about is the question of modern slavery,

human trafficking, people brought to the u.k. under false pretenses then find themselves pressed into perhaps prostitution, illegal work, that sort of thing. what this bill says is that anyone who comes to the u.k. il would be arrested and legadeported to their home compy -- home country or another country such as rwanda. with the former leaders have said is there concern is that if you or someone in the u.k. subject to forced labor, prostitution, any incentive for them to escape and go to the police and say what happened to them would be removed because the traffickers would say if you do that, you will be sent to rwanda.so it wouldn't move prots this people have. they did not push amendment. the lords could pick up things like that. what we see is the core of the

bill, the idea that anyone who comes here illegally would be detained and deported, children also. the one concession from the government is they will look at a time limit on that on the detention of children. also another concession that they will look at and ring forward proposes for safe routes for asylum-seekers in the future, but nothing detailed nothing tactical laid out. that would be sometime months and into next year. a few concessions, but essentially cap part of the bill is still there. >> let's speak to the refugee and migrant's program director. start with the first point that jeffrey cox made in the house this afternoon. ministers already have the power to ignore will 39 order -- rule 39 order and that would be a dispute between the states.

orders like that have been ignored in the past. why do we need the legislation? >> one of the reasons for it is that if a minister were to ignore such a ruling of the desk european court, that might lead to the minister being put before british court to rule on whether that was a lawful thing to do. what's happening in this bill now is ministers to be the sole decision-maker on whether follow a ruling of the court and the exclusion of british courts from making rulings on these matters at all. >> the cncil of europe which is not a european body, but they oversee the way that human rights legislation is applied within europe, they said that if this bill goes through, they would be concerned that other states might start picking and

choosing which laws to apply from an international treaty. e you concerned about that? >> amnesty is extremely concerned about that and not just in relation to the particular point you just raised. this bill also shuts down this country's system and says it won't decide and provide protection to people who seek asylum here. it shuts down also protections to victims of modern slavery human trafficking. all ofhat is a signal to countries elsewhere that if they don't want to abide by their international law responsibilities either, then this country thinks that is fine. as we speak, and lebanon for example, syrians are being returned to places where they are at risk of -- as wouldost people's lives as acontis by regimes elsewhere bad

around the world. >> there is an issue with the legal asylum roots which many moderate conservatives picked up on today. surely you can accept that there are signicant problems with what is going on in the system. as he said today, he said the immigration minister said there are essentially asylum shoppers that people are pacing through -- passing through a safe country like france and coming to the u.k. which is true. how would you argue that criticism of the system as it is? box >> i think the minister should get some perspective. the international laws on asylum do not require people to claim asylum in any particular country. if you have family in this country for example or other connections here, there is no reason if you can, why you

should not seek asylum in this place ther than somewhere else. >> how do you separate general asylum-seekers from the migrants that we know are mixed up these number of people coming across the channel because there is significant evidence some of these people are coming from safe country like albania? >> with respect, there is significant evidence that the majority of these people who make these particular journeys are refugees. of course, if our country like it triesoo d operates an asylum system and manages the claims it receives, yes it will have to decide the claims of people who are -- entitled to asylum and perhaps some people who are not. that is how asylum works. we expect the french to operate that, the germans, the italians, not to mention -- >> as far as the returns, people would set yes that's well and

good but very few people are returned and we need a better return system. >> we are not going to have a better return system if instead of actually focusing on deciding who gets to stay and is entitled to stay and looking at the situations properly of who is not, instead we follow the government's current plans and this bill simply refusing asylum to everyone knowing full well they cannot be expelled to their home countries. there is nowhere else to expel people nor should they be expelled. this is just creating more mess and cost and doing nothing to address what might be general and concerns about managing a fair and efficient system. >> we will have to leave it there. thank you so much. some of the governments plans

popular in some parts of the country but the debate will continue in the upper chamber. you are watching bbc news. let's get some of the days other news. more than 20,000 new police officers have been recruited in england and wales meaning the country has met the target it set during the general election. labor says ministers are just catching up on their previous cuts. one mp has been expelled from the conservative party after he compared covid-19 vaccines to the holocaust. he was also found to have breached lobbying rules. he has accused the party of kicking him out under false pretenses. a man has been given a jail sentence of 22 months for helping the killer of a nine-year-old in liverpool last august. he already admitted to driving

in the aftermath of the shooting. uk's evacuation effort in sudan is precarious. the cease-fire is holding, but there is no assumption that will be the case tomorrow. the method -- the airport being used to evacuate is being shut down downing street says eight flights will have departed by the end of play today. it is a race against the clock which begs the question whether

this should have stopped -- started much earlier. the french have already completed their evacuation of foreign nationals. the germans had fewer to get out. it wasn't without risk. >>'s is the airfield that the u.k. and other nato allies are using to get their citizens out. it is not very close to the city center which is here and is difficult to reach. that is because of this. these show the areas where fighting has been verified in footage the bbc has seen. you can see this has been turned into a battlefield. that makes it very difficult. there is also a huge demand. it is estimated 250,000 sudanese people trying to flee and that is driving fuel prices and making it difficult.

these are the different routes they are taking. land, to the port, to ethiopia to south sudan chad, and egypt. that is not an easy route either. there are many checkpoints and this is 1000 kilometers on a bumpy road. one man has told the bbc that had to go through 25 checkpoints just to reach the bus station at the edge of town and wait to get on the bus because of surging fuel prices, the cost of a seat has gone up to $400 u.s.. the question is, did the u.k. government take too long to act? 20 to look at other country comparisons. germany took out 700 people. 200 german citizens. italy there were only 83 italians plus 23 citizens of other nationalities. france there were 209 french citizens along with 538 people from 41 other countries.

compared to the u.k. and u.s., very different prospects, different scenarios. 16,000 american citizens. we have to consider that when we look at the question of whether the u.k. government took too long to act. >> any of those are still to come out. we hope to talk to one of them tonight who was turned around today. how long will that hold up? >> the bbc has been following the event in sudan and in this map we can see the areas or we have been able to if i the fighting violence the military presence has been stationed around. imagine if you are citizen and you need to getut on an airfield can -- kilometers out of the city, you would need to cross a war zone where much of the fighting has been happening. this is the airbase and we

analyzed small traffic, but in the last warty two hours, this small airfield has seen military transport planes landing and taking off every 20 minutes. there has been deterioration on the tarmac and we understand that it might work the evacuationlans. what are the options? for british citizen and national foreign citizen, there are routes toward eritrea and chad. what the british government is considering is this route from airfield to parts of sudan. if you put these locations into your gps, the route that you would take around 12 hours but we would also be able to see some traffic in this route and we don't have way to verify if

this is a safe route are not. what we know is that sudan will have an airport and a big port so there will be more option for the british government to evacuate the city from the point. -- evacuate the civilians from that point. >> joining me from washington is the director of africa programs at the u.s. institute of peace and also formerly head of the foreign office. he was the permanent secretary to the minister at the time. thank you for being here. was there a point for you when the violence and situation we have now seemed almost inevitable? >> we certainly saw the increase in tension over the last several

weeks with the redeployment of the rapid support forces into khartoum as well as by other forces. i was there two or three weeks ago. the tension was palpable. we knew that some of the hardest decisions were being negotiated in the political framework including the integration of those forces who would command the forces, the relationship with the civilian government. many people calculated that the two forces were posturing for a stronger tactical advantage and to get a better outcome in the negotiations. they thought that they would stand firm and maybe have some small fight, but i don't think many people anticipated that it would devolve to this level, spread, and scope of violence that we are seeing now. >> with that in mind, do you think an adequate assessment had

been carried out by the foreign office in mind of what the situation was? >> i'm sure there have been risk assessments because every british embassy has risk assessments and evacuation plans and crisis management plans which they regularly up. don't just have one, you have several. those plans would have been in place. what we just heard was very interesting because most people didn't think this thing was necessarily going to kick off in the way it did. you can never predict when a crisis is going to happen. you can't really go around as a foreign office preempting crisis and saying this one might get bad so we should send in military aircraft to evacuate british nationals, that simply can't be done. we have to be realistic about what >> the options are >>. journalists have been vocal in

their criticism. they said the attempt to evacuate the embassy staff without the military, it angered the sudanese military so much that they restricted access. >> in these situations, countries do generally try to coordinate but they can't always coordinate and they face ssues. di of the germans getting out 700 people. if the british have had eight flights today, there must've been 100 people on each flight. the brits got more than 800 people out. let's keep these things in balance. i don't know exactly what the detail of the threat was to the british embassy that led the government to decide they had to move to evacuate the embassy w'e it in extreme circumstances.

i guess they were not able to fully coordinate with germans or others. it is regrettable, but i'm sure that's what the situation is. >> there were different numbers of people coming out. if the germans only had 200, then you have a different risk assessment. to a country that is trying to get 4000 or maybe 16,000 out like united states. >> that is the issue. you have to bear in mind the limits and what is achievable. if you have 200 or 300, that's a couple of aircraft. presumably it's easy to know where they are and it's easy to get them together to evacuate. sudan is a very big country. if you have 3000 or 4000 people, they may not all be near the city. it takes a lot of flights to get them out so your capacity to

deliver is more limited. that's why think it was really important that the british government supported efforts to get the cease fire and get the permissive environment that allowed what seems to be quite successful operation over the last 24 hours to take place. >> the cease fire is holding but only just. the united nations said it would have to weigh in today. why's it proving so difficult to put presure on these two sides? >> the point that it is maybe just holding is important. cease-fires are complicated for a number of different reasons. you have to have those at the top agree. they have to communicate those to those who are leading in strategic and tactical areas and that has to be communicated to

the front lines. it requires command and control, communication, discipline. it also requires that all of those who play those roles believe that there are sufficient consequences if the cease fire itself is not held. in this type of urban warfare, it's also incredibly difficult to call f a nationwide cease fire without getting quite technical and practical about what that means. where does the fighting stop? >> bringing out the foreigners, is that convenient for the military? does that mean they will be more inclined to start fighting keep fighting customer >> i think we need to be paying attention to where the sudanese are going into the trends that are developing for those who are fleeing and those who are still stuck. >> sorry to cut you short, we are going to head to a break. we hope to make contact with

someone who tried to get to the airfield today, who spent several hours strength to get through the check went, but did not make it. there are plenty of people in that situation andatching nervously what is happening with the situation. simon is went to stay with us. we will talk about narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for americs neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. brook: these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me. i'm thriving by helping others everyday. people who know, know bdo.