♪ ♪ 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 from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". ♪ >> hello. i'm christian fraser. this is "the context." >> they are losing another day of pay to save the nhs and make sure we can get our 7 million plus patients off of the waiting list and giving them the treatment they deserve. >> the kinds of offers we are getting from the government now that we have moved into a time of inflation are just not possible with being able to live to exist to pay our rent, to buy food.

>> disruption to patients, and i think that is disrespectful on the part of the nhs staff counsel. ♪ christian: hello. welcome to the program. bank holiday picket lines. the biggest nursing strike so far with a any and icu services affected for the first time. the approach to pay could mean this cycle repeating again and again for months to come. there is repeated unrest in france with thousands of marching on this labor day against president macron's pension reforms. we look at t latest from paris. one last pickup from port sudan where thousands of other foreign nationals are stuck desperately seeking transport. and the british mole inside iran, the double life of a former iranian defense minister.

firstly, to those strikes. some trusts warning patients not to attend a any except for life-threatening emergencies. the royal college of nursing says this was their biggest walkt so far with acute shortages affecting people services, including intensive care. the union agreed to provide cover in subacute acute areas, places like newcastle, the system was hanging by a thread. unless the government returns to talks, they said there will be more of this to come. >> for those nurses losing a day of pay and standing on the picket lines, should there be a further emergency, i won't have to ask them to do that they will immediately remove themselves from picket lines and look after their patients. that is what nursing is about. they are selfless people standing up for their patients from a nhs that is totally broken.

they are working every day and every night trying to look after the patients. christian: the union has rejected the latest pay offer. enough unions have voted in favor to approve the offer when it meets tomorrow, tuesday. members of the unions will be better off, but they are still preparing for more strikes. we got this update from central london, where the nurses moved off the picket line and mast together for a demonstration. >> it was a march that started a couple miles up the road at university college hospital. nurses who are striking were joined by other unions, marching all the way to the square behind me. when they got here, made a may have been the call from nurses who say they should have been paid because -- paid more fairly than they are. the other striking people are

the people protesting. i heard someone talking about workers rightseh b many behind us, nurses outside of city college hospital earlier said they do not feel they are being paid fairly. they feel nurses have had a 10% cut over the years. tonight's walkout ends at miight. the nhs are advising people who have a genuine emergency to call 999 as they normally would, but if it is not an emergency, call 111. the reason it stops at midnight is the government took the royal college of nursing to court. originally, they planned to strike into tomorrow, but the mandate for strikes ran out at the six-month month point, so if they were to do more strikes, they would have to ballot the members. everything is on tuesday when the unions will be meeting government and pleading their case and saying the government should not impose or implement the nhs pay rise without further negotiation.

christian: listening to ella jones, the industrial correspondenfor the press association. good to see you and thank you for being with us this evening. can we talk about this meeting tomorrow? what is the staff counsel and what do you expect will happen? >> staff counsel represents the whole of the nhs really. the nhs empyees will have somebody there. the department of health will have something there. tomorrow, the unions will report like on the various ballot results. because most of the unions have reported that most of their members have accepted the offer, i think what will happen is they will take a vote tomorrow. it is pretty clear that vote tomorrow will be in favor of accepting the pay offer, which has been at the heart of all of these strikes. that means i think the government will fairly quickly implement, impose, whichever way

you look at it, the pay offer to everyone, not just those who voted in favor, but members of the royal college of nursing. that will not stop the royal college of nursing from balloting. it is not the end of the dispute. i am sure some people will say tomorrow it should, but it is not good we have the junior doctors dispute of course. that dispute is not resolved either. christian: the gmb in unison who have accepted the bay dealer -- paid deal are the biggest unions and that is what you expect it will go through. you said it will either be introduced or imposed, whichever is your terminology. can you see a scenario where nurses would be on a picket line but with a better pay packet which is imposed on them, still striking overpay? >> i think it is entirely

possible that we can see further strikes in this dispute. the royal college of nursing were always going to rebalance their members despite going to court over a technicality of one day. the mandate runs out today, tomorrow, so they will rebalance their members in the next couple of weeks. if that ballot comes back in favor of more strikes, they made it clear today on picket lines that there will be more strikes. they will have had the same pay rise as everybody else, but obviously they are not happy with it. a lot of the union members voted in favor are not particularly happy. the majority has been 52% to 55%. no one is doing cartwheels about the dispute. the other issue now about staffing, that remains. still nurses leaving the profession and not enough joining. whatever happens tomorrow, it will not solve that.

the nhs i fear will be in some kind of a crisis for a long time . christian: there are these rumors that people are switching unions, that the unions are losi numbers to those who rejected the offer. is there a split, and is that a split that might undermine the morale in the workplace? >> there has certainly been no hemorrhaging of membership for the unions that accepted it. for all the unions involved, teaching unions, silver servants , you name it really, they have all put on members since the dispute started. i guess there is always a little bit of people thinking we should go to that union because they are doing better than us. there has been no massive switch. most of the health units have been solid, coordinated. so, no. there might be some areas.

there was an interview with a couple of people in london today saying some people have switched from one union to another. that might well be happening, but there has been no massive switch. that is not the story. the story is they are still angry, still on strike, and we might be seeing strikes by doctors and in the autumn school term, we might see head teachers on picket lines with teachers. christian: the teachers unions coming together. the refrain from most of the unions is the government is refusing to engage in discussion the one question we were asking in the newsroom today, where is as left, the organization that came in and mediated between the two sides, that they were going to find some common ground. ere are they in the midst of all of these strikes? >> i think you mean another one. christian: i am sorry.

>> that is the train drivers. christian: i get confused. yes. you are quite right. apologies. >> they would be delighted to think they got help. they are still there. they made it clear they are perfectly happy, willing to get involved in all of these disputes, but it takes all sides to want to sit down. they cannot make people come to them. at the moment, most of the dispute has been the unions saying they are prepared. they want them to get involved. they think that is the only way some of the deadlock disputes will be resolved. up until now, the government said they did not want to do that. it is up to the governments to say they will sit down with it. the only way the dispute will be solved is if all sides sit down together, either by themselves in a room, not a courtroom, or under the chairmanship and get it sorted otherwise.

i can see the disputes lasting the rest of the year. christian: we will no doubt speak more about it. in the meantime, i will rehearse my acronyms and get them right. thank you very much. he has for a long time covered the industrial practice and returning on the program. meanwhile, there have been hundreds of thousands of people marching across france venting their anger against president macron's pension reforms signed in march. it kicked off on a traditional route. police fired tear gas really in the day to try to disperse protesters in paris and other cities. the change in the pension law raised the retirement age from 60 to to 64. the government has been trying to turn the page on that for several months, but today was the first time since 2009 that all eight of france's main unions have joined together in calling for protests. let's go to paris.

this always tends to be the part of the day when things get quite feisty as the police try to wrap up the protests. what are you seeing? >> you know the pitch. you know whait is like. what we are seeing is the tail end of the protest. the police officer trying to clear people out of this particular area. this is the endpoint of the rally today. you can hear them. a lot of people are not happy because the police pushed them down to the entrance to the metro so that is why you can hear the booing and the jeers, the hissing, all oit. this has been a hotspot for violence for four or five hours now. it is hundreds of people rather than tens of thousands involved in the violence. police say more than 100,000 people on the streets today, and they were setting fire to various things. actually got a big building that

came ablaze here. a big operation to put that fire out. christian: a mix of grievances that goes into a labor day, cost of living, pensions. but certainly the government wanted to try to turn a page on the pensions debate. today's protests and the size of them suggest that will be easier said than done. >> absolutely. you are right. there is this long tradition here in france of people showing what they are feeling on international labor day or may day, whatever you might call it. today was no different. this time around, the anger was focused laser sharp on emmanuel macron, the president, and his pension reform. let's not forget it has gone through. i was going to say it went through parliament. president macron bypassed parliament to make it happen. lots of people are angry here.

i sent them a do you think yo are fighting a losing battle because it happened? they said no. the unions it say if they keep pressure up the streets, they can hope to see some sort of a repeal of the law. whether that happens, whether we see a change from emmanuel macron's government, any u-turn or concessions or reversal, no sign of that. these are the images we have seen for four months now. once again, more violence in france today. the rest of the country, too. christian: when you look at it in european terms, increasing the pension terms, it is not a radical reform, but it appears to be this deep sense of injustice in france. why is that? >>this is something i was puttig to people today. there was a woman in her 70's who talked about proud of being a grandma but also her fear of the future. she says young people have to work longer.

when i say that your president says this is bringing you country in line with other big european powers the likes of italy, germany, and other places where people don't have to work longer, the response you get is that is not how it is done here. we work hard for so long, we should be allowed to enjoy our retirement. that is certainly the message. president macron in contrast says the pension of the country will dwindle away if he does not do something drastic. the french have to work harder and for longer. and this is something that is a patriotic duty to do, how he phrased the debate. a few skirmishes here, but nothing in the way of serious violence. it will not happen in the next few minutes, but the police are hoping to get people out before they lose delightfully because it then becomes more difficult

to watch a police operation. christian: politically, the president's term bouncer he is not fighting for reelection when his term is up. that said, you can -- he can probably sustain the protests. but what about strikes? pay a lot of solidarity among the unions today. what would that mean? with the government be forced to look again? >> there has certainly been a degradation in his authority. this is his second term. he has been in power for a year with no honeymoon whatsoever. a lot of people assume the person who would bear the brunt of all of this unpopularity would be the prime minister, but she is still imposed for now, even though she was the person whose face was on this, which suited emmanuel macron very well. i think a lot of people wonder about what would be the impact

in the next election. just to go back in time and little bit, it was a straight choice in the elections between president macron and the other candidate. excuse me for one second. it was the idea of the far right coming instead of emmanuel macron. for a lot of people, that was not acceptable so they held their noses and went for emmanuel macron. marine le pen of the far right was simply not a valid option for many people. i think he is really windy politically, it would be interesting to see how that translates to the political authority the rest of his term because he lost his majority in the parliament. doing other stuff would be difficult now. christian: notasy talking over the shouting. rest the voice. around the world and across the u.k., this is bbc news. let's take a look at other stories making the headlines today. tribute have been paid to a man stabbed to death at a nightclub on sunday named as 36 on michael

allen, who was confirmed dead at the scene following reports of a street brawl. police have been granted more time to question 24 you are man in connection with the merger inquiry. new figures show 4500 hospitality venues have shut down across the u.k. because of soaring costs in the past year. the pace of closures has slowed down. the bank holiday is expected to help buyers, pubs, and restaurants. the host of masterchef australia has died suddenly in melbourne a day before a new season of the tv show was due to air. he was 46 and originally from scotland. he worked with the chefs around the world before opening his own staurants in australia. you are live with bbc news.

there have been repeated airstrikes today on the sudanese capital despite an extended cease fire which is supposed to be in place. the fighting has intensified as thousands head for the exits with port sudan the bulkhead forgetting in and foreign nationals out. british passport holders were told to arrive at the airport before midday today for the last flight the british government has put on to evacuate those stranded. reportedly, they also offered space to doctors who have leave to remain in the u.k. our reporter has taken a closer look at port sudan. >> we are looking at port sudan in more detail because it has been a key location for evacuations. this road is about 850 kilometers long from the capital to the port. that is around 500 miles. google maps will tell you it takes about 12.5 hours, but at the moment with airstrikes, military checkpoints, fuel shortages, and the sheer number of people turn to take that

route, it is taking a lot longer. the u.s. had armed drones accompanying one of its convoys as it made that trip. once they get to the port, it is onto boats like this for those who have the necessary paperwork, and this is what that looks likenside. as you can see, tightly packed. this is a 10 hour journey across to saudi arabia. let'hear from someone who took that trip. >> it was very hard. i had to take a long trip from sudan and leave my family back there. yes, it was very hard. but since i got on the ship, it was good. >> saudi arabia has evacuated more than 4000 people from 100 countries. the u.k. says it's final evacuation flight is today and has so far gone out more than 2000 people, mostly british. other countries including pakistan are using the airport

at port sudan. what about the sudanese? if we go back to the map, there are other routes available to get the road north leads to egypt, and we know egypt in recent weeks have had 16,000 people come across the border, most of them, 14,000, are sudanese. we also know the population of sudan is more than 45 million, so a lot of people still needing to get up in the days and weeks ahead. if we have a look at the other routes available to them, we have south into ethiopia, south sudan, and of course chad. we know many people are also taking those routes to try to get out. christian: let's speak to our chief international correspondent this evening. lovely to see you. the world health organization has set about 16% of the capital's hospitals are fully functional. so some of the people turning up at the border are in a fairly

sorry state. >> well, sudan was in a fragile situation before this fighting erupted on april 15. not just at 50% of the hospitals are now working in the capital but the world food program said 50 million people were dependent -- 15 million people were dependent on food aid to survive. looking at the images coming day in and day out with buildings satellite and the central bank was not spared the fighting, people are trapped inside their homes. even if they were injured him and we are getting reports of bullets flying through windows, gunmen breaking into homes, ransacking homes, robbing families at gunpoint. even if there were injuries, they would have to run the gauntlet to get to the emergency services. i am sure even doctors are unable to get to those places. so many people are on the run. this is why the united nations,

the u.n. humanitarian chief has said that when it comes to the aid situation, sudan is almost at breaking point. christian: explain for us this operation. how long is the crossing, and how do you see the international aid operation working through this port of sudan? and is it set up to do that? >> well, when a crisis like this happens, aid agencies look at the ways in, where people are getting out, and how we can get to the places we need to be as safe and quick as possible. it is difficult along the border with a method to this in all directions. but the red sea crossing depending on what kind of a pencil you are in -- we were in a saudi warship so it took us 10 hours to leave the port city here on the west coast of saudi arabia to reach the eastern coast of sudan, to reach port

sudan. some of the people that came across in a civilian boat chartered by the saudi military, and took up to 18 hours, and when you arrive, we arrived at 2:00 in the morning. even then, there was a line of ships turned into rescue boats waiting to pick up people. people were lining up across the dutch along the wharf. even the naval club has been transformed into a tented village. people are sleeping rough on the streets, the hotels are swamped, and with every day that passes, more people are arriving. some people are getting out. we see every day there is a ship arriving in port at the naval base. mostly, they are saudi warships or the civilian ships they are chartering. they told us when we visited the base that the entire royal saudi navy has been deployed for this mission, but today an american

ship came and there have been indian -- came in. there have been indi and chinese vessels. so many are looking at this as the safest and quickest way out. that is why across the red sea, port sudan is rapidly becoming a humanitarian and evacuation hub. compared to other parts of sudan, it is relatively quiet. it is peaceful but not at peace. it is overwhelmed by people. christian: just a minute left. is it going to test the capability of the aid agencies? as many as 800,000 people fleeing across seven borders into seven neighboring countries. that is a very difficult thing to manage. >> very difficult. we were surprised to hear from the head of the world food program in port sudan today that this fighting took them by surprise. they are scribbling to catch up. yesterday saw the first aid flight to arrive in port sudan,

the first. this fighting is in its third week. christian: thank you very much indeed for that. tens of thousands heading for the border in sudan. we will keep and i on that over the course of the program. a very fragile cease-fire there. we will go to a short break. stay with us. 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.