♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... woman: architect. bee keeper. mentor. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. george: actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it's exciting to be part of a team driving the technology forward. i think that's the most rewarding thing. 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 fr viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". >> i am christian fraser and this is e context. >> we need a new approach that recognizes unchecked addiction is another. >> everything they are announcing to go was ready to go a year ago. six gambling ministers and four countries agreed to publish this white>> welcome to the program.

the british government set out the biggest shakeup of gambling laws in nearly 20 years. do the proposed changes go far enough to protect problem gamblers? where -- why is there so little focus on advertising? the army in sudan repaired to extend the cease-fire by 72 hours. the british government says the evacuation is dependent on whether it holds. we will talk to some of those still waiting. a shareholders revolt at bp. some of the biggest pension funds expressing deep frustration with the company's revised climate strategy. afterpope francis says women and laypeople will be given greater responsibility in the running of the catholic church starting in october. we will hear from one of those that campaigned. we start in sudan. the british government -- and effect, no, we start with gambling. today the british government set out a much delayed review of the

rules governing its $18 billion gambling industry at a time when u.k. betting companies are exporting highly successful tactics to the rest of the world. the rules are designed to prevent problem gambling. among the changes are a state limit for online betting, new background checks,nd a tax to fund research and treatment for problem gamblers. the cultural secretary lucy chambers explained why it was necessary. >> we need to identify that a flutter is one thing and unchecked addiction is another. today we are bringing in our pre-smartphone regulatns into the present day with a gambling white paper for the digital age. >> it has taken the government 2.5 years and 10 ministers in charge of gambling policy to produce a white paper that was first promised in 2020. it is long overdue. >> the government has delayed the white paper many times.

everything was ready to go one year ago. six gambling ministers and four cultural secretaries agreed to publish the white paper immediately. we welcome measures in announcement -- the announcement that we have long been: four. >> the chair of the betting and gambling council defended the industry pointing to the billions they generate for the u.k. economy. >> we are a scessful industry that supports 110,000 jobs in the country and we contribute 7.1 billion for the economy and pay 4.2 billion in tax. we have two -- 22.5 million customers at regularly on a monthly basis take part in betting. >> we are joined by the former leader of the liberal democrats and the former mp and alice smith the bishop of saint aldrin's. do you think this goes far enough?

>> it does not. there are some steps in the right direction. we waited four years for the white paper -- white paper and there are tiny steps in the right direction. the tiny -- the comparison with what is in the white paper, if you sat through the city arsenal game last night the advertisements for gambling were made to look so easy, trivial, to millions of people, many of whom were young. when you assess that and compare that against the backdrop of the many people i represent that have been victims of gambling addiction, the families, the lives ruined, people driven to suicide. it seems to me that we are doing what i imagine we did in the government in the 50's and 60's over smoking where the evidence is there of enormous harm. i don't want gambling band but i think that advertising should be banned on television and i am surprised it is not even mentioned.

>> alex smith, why do you think that is? >> i think the gambling industry has been very successful in lobbying. recently there was one mp caught offering to help the gambling courts. the gambling industry pays more money to mps in consultancy and free tickets than any other industry in britain today. there is a battle between an industry that makes a huge amount of money that has been brilliantly clever. it privatized and nationalized the cost. you and i are picking up the 1.2 7 billion cost to the state. so, i think that is why there has been so much slowness. >> tim, what used -- confuses the campaigners given the time we have had to wait for the white paper. will definitely go through and

what is still up for consultation. why do we need a consultation when 10 different ministers, 2.5 years of debate has elapsed since we were promised we would get a white paper? >> absolutely. 50% of the white paper is consultations on stu that might not happen. so, yes, i cannot help but think this is a government that has been monopolized by very well-paid lobbyist, well-funded organizations. yes, i look at the evidence of people that i know, families whose lives have been devastated , relationships program, families utterly devastated, people that have lost their lives to gambling addiction. i hear libertarian argument saying, do not interfere. i am not calling for gambling to be banned. i am calling for far greater regulation and recognition that everything that enslaves you robs you of your freedom and a

genuine liberal will want to rescue people or prevent people from being enslaved by something that is an addiction that rep and lives. >> is there a distinction, enough distinction, looking at the pictures to the right of you there, of online slot machines, casinos online. is there enough distinction between that and the sports betting market that a lot of people subscribe to with online betting companies? >> there is an assumption the latter is somehow more harmless. there are friends of mine that regularly bet. i do not think they have a problem. they seet as something i have every right to do. with the more compulsive, obviously a lot of that is online and it is easy to lose a lot of money very quickly. either way looking at major sporting events, let's think of the world cup and the european international championships of football. in between, and certainly on commercial television, in between every half when you have

enormous family audiences there is a presentation of gambling as being an ordinary harmless attractive thing, no big deal. people get drawn in. people do not start by losing loads of money. it is a drip, drip, drip slow pass to sometimes desperate misery. you have to get the balance right. i don't want gambling to be banned. much more heavily regulated. the stakes reduced. we will start with funding tv advertising. >> there are a lot of people watching around the world that will think this is a very british debate. the british companies are usually successful exporting a hugely successful technique to other countries where they are making enormous profits. it is starting to open up in the united states. it has opened up in europe. i know you are in conversation with people overseas as to what sort of effective this can have. >> it has mushrooms. particularly in the states but

across europe and the far east, always a hotspot for gambling. we cannot tell other countries what they need to do but it is interesting the number of parliamentarians in touch with us. they have been alarmed to see what has happened to us since the almost total deregulation of gambling after 2005. the extraordinary social cost. something more than 400 people a year are taking their lives in more than 62,000 teenagers are now diagnosed with a clinical gambling problem. 62,000 are diagnosed. how many children that are not even supposed to be gambling, are actually gambling? it is pretty much a wild west situation. going back to your original question, i think it is very worrying some of the things getting put out for consultation. i was a member of the house of lords select committee on the subject. we have all of the evidence that has been marshaled already. this is simply delaying tactics.

i am trying to get a question in the house of lords next week. about how quickly we will get a move on this. we will be talking with the gambling commission. >> on this point, the consultation is detrimental for people that want change and also for the industry. if you are speaking to shareholders, to the city about your profits, you want to know what certainty there will be for the industry going forward. it is not really benefit anyone. >> certainly it does not benefit more than 1000 people who have lost their lives the last two or three years as we have been prevaricating. this is not just affecting a few people. one point 4 million people in the country are materially affected by the problem with another 1.5 million people likely to be, or so researchers say. this is something touching large numbers of families. the other thing is, i think a number of football clubs are now

waking up to the fact that some parents are saying they do not want their children to watch a premier division match. these statistics -- this statistics say if you watch the match you will see about 700 advertisements during that time on shirts and on the side of the pitch and so on. they really have to think about where they are placing themselves. some parents are saying this is grooming my children do something i do not want. >> bishop alan smith and tim, good to talk to you. across the world and the u.k. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making headlines today. teachers in england staged further strikes in their long-running dispute over pay. thousands of schools were closed or partially closed due to the action by the national education union that said it regretted the disruption caused. the education secretary said the strike was extremely disappointing. u.k. government won a legal

challenge to cut short a nurse's strike in england. e action was planned for sunday night through to end on tuesday. a judge at the high court ruled the union mandate to strike runs out on monday. the first of may. politicians in union in northern ireland have described the budget outlined by the westminster government today. as a brutal and damaging. it would normally be set by storm and but the democratic unionist party is currently blocking power-sharing in protest of the post brexit trading arrangements. the 72 hour cease-fire agreed to by the two warring factions in sudan ends at midnight. we have a statement from the army in the past hour saying that they are prepared for looking at extending it for another 72 hours. but that is only a report.

we still need to confirm that. downing street says the british ambassador to sudan is speaking to the two sides trying to persuade them to keep the cease-fire going. in the last few minutes we have been hearing from government ministers that say they will continue to get the flights out to monica as long as they can and as long as the situation on the ground is stable, as it is currently at the moment. let's speak to our diplomatic correspondent paul adams in nairobi. i am pausing because there is a lot unknown at the moment. the government wants to keep going, but it depends on the cease-fire and whether it holds. >> look, we need to derstand already, the cease-fire has not been holding in any sense that anyone living in khartoum would recoize. it has been holding enough for the flights to continue from the airbase 20 miles north of khartoum. that is not the same as a proper cease-fire.

residents of the city have talked about violations in a pretty terrifying situation. at several times in the day. there was not much of the cease-fire to renew. what we have this evening is the sudanese government saying, as it indicated last night, that it was willing to observe another 72 hour cease-fire. without any word from the other side, from the rapid support forces, it feels like a slightly empty pled. possibly even, the setting seen for being able to blame the other side of the fighting continued. i do not think we should get ahead of ourselves here. there was not much of a cease-fire in the first place and if one side says it will extend the cease-fire, that's not very much. >> we have heard from the u.s. secretary of state that the united states is heavily involved in this. who else is putting pressure on the two sides, paul? >> i think the united states

definitely is. it is thought that the united states and saudi arabia were both instrumental in getting that first cease-fire in place two or three days ago. the offer of talks last night from the government of south sudan was a bit of adjuster by regional players to try to lay a role and broker some kind of settlement, at least a cease-fire. they have an interest in trying to calm the situation at a time where potentially tens of thousands of people are streaming across their borders. we don't know what the army is talking about tonight as a response to for that offer or, more likely, a response to the pressure from people that really matter, the united states, saudi arabia, the united arab emirates. britain, as you mentioned in the introduction. everyone was trying to make this

happen. bows out of self interest, the ability to continue extracting foreign nationals. also, out of an acute awareness that if this things disintegrates and degenerates further sudan is in for a difficult time. >> paul, thank you. there is a press conference ongoing at the white house at the moment saying the situation is unlikely to improve. in fact it could worsen at any moment. they have floyd additional conseil or staff to the region. they are urging americans to leave within the next 24 hours. the british foreign office says eight flights have landed carrying 897 people. my colleague louis jones have been watching them come in through the day. bring us up-to-date, louis. how many flights have you seen come in today and what are they saying on the ground about how long it can continue? >> christian, they described it

earlier as a steady drumbeat of flights arriving here into cyprus. the numbers you said, those are the latest official ones. eight flights as of 4:00 p.m.. however, one big one was quite a while ago. secondly, we were nudged earlier that flights will continue to come in here. if you think about it, they were planning on operating right up until the cease-fire deadline that is three hours away. even after that, if you take off within that time, three to five hours after that to come in. it could still be the early hours. and everything underway. the other thing to bear in mind is from an operational point of view, yesterday, officials from the army said that conditions are right we will contact if conditions are right we will continue to operate. the technicalities of that cease-fire are potentially less important. that is slightly contrary.

perhaps in the same spirit as the government today talking about that, the people to make a move to the airfield north of khartoum within what is the last couple hours before the technical end of the cease-fire. >> we need to stress, lewis, that people landing have had difficult decisions to make in the last 24 or 48 hours. whether to risk their journey to the airport and whether to leave people behind. is there a risk that some of those that did make it to the airbase north of khartoum are left on the airport -- the airfield? >> potentially. we have heard different stories about people coming. we have seen people arrive here with small children. conflicting with that we have heard some people who have children that are perhaps on their own. cousins. that have had to leave those behind really difficult. decisions. on the flipside, we have also seen people here just behind me

from different countries. clearly, there is some discretion happening about who comes on and who does not. really difficult decisions are being made on the ground there. as for eventual numbers, we are still technically just below 1000. that number will probably pick up. if you think about the original numbers, more than 2000 u.k. nationals registered and are interested in trying to get out in this way. more than double that, the actual number of u.k. passport holders in t country. >> we will come back to you in the next hour. i know it's a fascinating situation tonight in relation to the cease-fire. communications with sudan are not easy. i want to try and give it a go. we can sak to jerry on the line from the port of sudan. not at the airbase, but headed east trying to get his ship out of the country. jerry, i hope you can hear me. tell me where you are and what

your situation is? jerry, can you hear me? tell me what your situation is there in the port of sudan. >>[indiscernible] >> i think we will struggle with that line. jerry, i am really sorry. but we can barely hear you. we will try again with that line to see if we can make contact with you. i can tell you that jerry is there and quite a few people are out at the port of sudan. he can see a ship bringing equipment into the port. he will be headingk op bleittohc them. the hms lancaster, there in the port just off the port, is not there to evacuate citizens easier. people in the port of sudan at the moment are being denied

options to get out safely. which, of course, is frustrating. we will see if we can make contact with jerry again shortly. several international aid groups are deeply concerned aut the crisis and the growing impact in neighboring countries. and also, of course, in southern sudan. joining me from juba is marie helen vernie they u.n. refugee representative in south sudan. thank you for being with us. what changes have you seen in the last 72 hours. >> in the past 72 hours we have really started to see a lot of people arriving in south sudan at the border. it is a mix of people. south sudanese refugees living in sudan coming back. also, sudanese people fleeing into south sudan. and a number of other ethiopian and eritrean refugees in sudan now moving into south sudan. we have really seen numbers

going from 900 monday to more than 3600 today. arriving in a part of south sudan that is extremely remote and extremely difficult. it has, at the moment, no access to any roads. so, people, the risk is people will get stuck in a place where it is very difficult to bring any assistance two. >> can you go back in time for us a little bit and explain the situation with south sudan ended the relationship it has with khartoum. >> exactly. south sudan, until 2011 was part of sudan. south sudan only got independence from sudan in 2011. so, as a result, there are still a lot of people of south sudanese origin living in sudan. also, south sudan in 2016 had a pretty awful civil war. a lot of south sudanese went to

seek refuge back in khartoum. we are talking about at least 800,000 south sudanese refugees in sudan. right now these people are coming back in a pretty terrible condition. we have been hearing about decisions people have been having to make to leave khartoum. it is the same for these people. we are seeing every day that people are much more vulnerable. some have had to walk part of the way. they have been traveling for seven days to reach the border. >> naturally, we have been focusing on this rather frenetic operation in khartoum. there are of course thousands of sudanese heading for neighboring countries, as we say. one would assume, and you are pre-positioning equipment and supplies in south sudan now ready for thousands more to arrive, how much cooperation are you getting from some of the bigger countries? are people helping?

are there too many crises around the world at the moment? >> well, this is all part of that. nody expected that. we have been seeing the numbers going up in the past two or three days. there has been a lot of interest and willingness to support. south sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world. 75% of the population of south sudan. obviously, arrivals of large number of people returning to their homeland. nevertheless, in conditions not planned. it is going to be difficult. to make matters even more complicated, the entire north of south sudan is entirely dependent on sudan. for many thanks. for food coming in, basic goods, and also, the oil pipeline that goes from south sudan to the port of sudan where you are trying to contact that person just now. that of courscourse went through sudan.

basically, one of the major exports south sudan has is now being cut off. so, apart from the arrival of refugees into south sudan, the situation for the people of south sudan themselves will be quite complex. >> very briefly, because there is only about 30 seconds left, is the united nations involved in the truce negotiations tonight, the cease-fire negotiations? let's the mission in khartoum -- >> the mission in khartoum. in south sudan, we are not involved. >> is there any connection between south sudan and the rebel forces? do they have any power to bring to the negotiations that are ongoing? >> the president of south sudan is really trying tbring the two parties to talk together. he is working with regional parties to try to orchestrate some kind of cease fire or p stop between the two parties. >> best of luck between -- down there.

it is a difficult situation in south sudan and all neighboring countries at the moment where many refugees are heading. stay with us. we will get to a short break and talk about a stormy annual shareholders meeting at bp today and also women given the vote at the sinnott in rome 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 america's 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... woman: architect. bee keeper. mentor. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. george: actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it's exciting to be part of a team driving the technology forward. i think that's the most rewarding thing. people who know, know bdo.