tv BBC News America PBS August 16, 2023 2:30pm-3:01pm PDT
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woman: architect. bee keeper. mentor. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news". ♪ >> this is bbc world news americas. ukrainians held as prisoners of war tell the bbc they were subjected to torture. district attorney willis with a racketeering charge for trump. and we look at search and rescue
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efforts that continue amid the destruction. ♪ >> welcome to "world news america." we start in ukraine where the country's humanitarian corridor allowing ships to pass through the black sea is being put through its biggest test yet. a hong kong flag merchantship successfully left the ukrainian seaport of odessa and is a key test of russia's blockade after it pulled out of a deal letting russia export crane. any ships headed for the ukraine ukrainian ports can be a target and called it an important step. james waterhouse has the latest now from difference. from kyiv. james: there's action at sea.
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since a agreed route through the black sea has been agreed upon they announce a corridor without a acknowledgement from russia which continued to target commercial vessels and yet we have a cargo ship leave the port of odessa this morning and was trapped there before the invasion and is continuing to make its way south towards turkey. now, there are some in the insurance and shipping industry that are rightfully nervous about this because russia enjoys quite a lot of dominance on the southern ukrainian coast and used its vessels to blockade ukrainian ports and yet this vessel made its way through and more could follow but there's a big if if russia decides to leave these vessels alone. it's a big if because it's continuing to strike ukrainian ports with drone strikes. >> as the war in ukraine continues, a bbc investigation heard from ukrainian prisoners of war who say they were
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subjected to torture, including frequent beatings and electric shocks while held in russia. a dozen former captives described extreme violence and ill treatment in violations of humanitarian law. many surrendered in mare autopilottal -- in marupel before being released. we tracked down some of the ukrainians that were held to hear their stories. >> the part was when they called you up for investigation. >> how can you describe a place where you are stripped of everything human. >> these ukrainians were captured by the enemy. >> they can do anything that they want with you physically. >> and taken to this russian
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prison in a place they now associate with torture. in may last year, the city of mare open emwas under siege and ukraine ordered the troops to surrender. >> when i heard about captivity for the first time, had the worst images in my head about what could happen. >> he was held there for several months and said he was frequently beaten and given electric shock. he witnessed other captives suffering, too. >> after the beatings one day, i was brought to a room. i saw a young man holding his hands up, his fingers were bleeding. >> did they insert needles under your fingernails, i asked. he said yes.
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for weeks i tracked down ukrainians who had been taken there but came back. now she is a conscript officer and was a medic when she surrendered. she said not even the women were spared the brutality of the guards. >> they dragged us by our hair. they beat us in the kidneys, in the ribs with hammers and batons. >> can you describe it? >> only devils live and work there. >> this is dennis, a military surgeon, he tells me people were beaten as soon as they arrived in rooms, hallways, and even in the shower. he was left with three broken ribs and could barely breathe.
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they threw me on the floor, ordered me to not lift my head up and give me electric shocks until they discharged the entire tase of battery on me. you're convulsing, if you lift your head off the floor they start beating you and the circle never ends. >> up to 10,000 ukrainian prisoners of war remain in russian captivity including hundreds of the defenders. many are held in prisons across the country, a violation of the rules of war. here campaigns like this one are fighting for their freedom and for russia to protect our rights. >> ukraine says nine in every 10 prisoners who have been returned allege they were tortured. >> this is the biggest challenge for me now, how to protect our people on the russian side, and i don't know how and nobody
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knows how we can do it. >> the russian defense ministry hasn't replied to our requests for comment. but prisoner swaps like this one give hope to families still waiting to see their loved ones again. >> how do you recover from all of this? >> i'm currently undergoing treatment and my priorities are to take care of my health so i can put on my uniform and pick up my weapons and defend my country. >> the battles in this war continue, not only on the front lines but also in the lives of ukrainians trying to overcome so much cruelty. bbc news, kyiv. >> earlier my colleague katrina perry spoke with john allen, a retired u.s. marine corps four star general and former commando of the nato international security assistance force about
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that report and ukraine's counter offensive. >> the bbc is reporting today a dozen former ukrainian captives say they were tortured while in captivity in southwestern russia in violations of international knew man tear -- humanitarian law. how should governments respond to that? >> first, no one is surprised at this. every dimension of the russian invasion of ukraine is in violation. the attack on infrastructure and here of course we see it again. systematic torture of ukrainian prisoners and the way to do this, the way to respond internationally is to condemn it universally and unanimously. and as necessary to levy
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sanctions against the russian military and the russian government. but this has to be condemned in the very loudest voices we can bring to bear and the systematic torture of prisoners of war and systematic torture of individuals out of combat, if you will, cannot be tolerated and we have to condemn it with the loudest possible voice. >> looking at where things are at the moment russian forces have retreated from the demask village and the first village captured since last month. ukraine is fighting for so much land in that region or maripol, do you think they're maximizing their forces to make progress against russia? >> i'm very reluctant to offer the wisdom of their operations. it's important to offer the ukrainians in this counteroffensive are up against a very difficult complex series
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of obstacles by the russians, thousands of square kilometers of mine territory complex obstacles of tank ditches, wire, dragon's teeth. and what they're looking for as they have disbursed their forces on various axis in their attacks against the russians, they're looking for a breakthrough. and i look leadership on how to dispose those forces and ultimately to seek and deploy those breakthroughs. but i think what we can see is the broad general strategic direction of the ukrainian counteroffensive is pointed towards the southeast. and very likely they'll get to the see of resolve and turn to the southwest and to try to cut off some of the land bridge into crimea. that seems to be the strategic direction they're pursuing but we'll have to see as time
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unfolds. >> on that point about strategic direction and also firepower as well, do you think ukraine is receiving enough support from u.s. governments from other governments? >> well, the ukrainians will say there's no end to the amount of support that they need and in truth of course we, the united states, and other countries have given an enormous amount, in the tens of billions of amount of support to the ukrainians. it's not just a matter of the quantities of support the ukrainians are looking for, but it also is the kind of support they're looking for. and as we have seen, other countries, the u.s. in particular, and i really applaud u.k.'s effort here, has given the ukrainians long range capability with the storm shadow missile. and the french of course have now given a long range missile for precision and strike and precision and engagement. we're hearing the united states is very close to making a
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decision on our version of a long range artillery rocket. that gives the ukrainians the capacity and we want it to this be case, that there is no single square centimeter of ukrainian territory either in ukraine itself or on the crimea peninsula that is safe for the russians to occupy. we want to make sure the russian rear areas, their command posts, their logistics depots, their troop concentrations and the movement of lee gistics to the -- logistics to the front and all that is at risk at any given time and to give the ukrainians weapons to threaten all those military capabilities of the russians makes it far more difficult for the russians to wage the kind of activity and wage the kind of operations they'd like to, to ukrainian territory or use crimea as a
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safe haven and further military operations. so are we giving them the right things? i think we have given them plenty at this point and there is still more to give and it's not just a matter of quantity, it's a matter of quality and capability as well, and we're considering every response or every request the ukrainians ask of us. >> general, if i can ask you about another topic then about afghanistan, you commanded the forces there and yesterday marked the second anniversary of president biden's withdrawal of u.s. troops from there. we've seen the taliban breaking down on freedoms there particularly of women. have all the gains made there been lost now? >> you certainly can make that case. when i talk to families of members of the u.s. military who perished in the war, the one point i tried to make is that for the 20 years that the united states and our allies were present on the ground in afghanistan, the people of afghanistan, in particular the
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women of afghanistan, had a future. they had a potential to be a part, a key part of afghanistan and to join the world community. when we departed in 2021 and the taliban re-entered the presidential palace in kabul, that was i think an enormous setback for the afghan people and the taliban, of course, as you properly have said, have systematically stripped away the rights of women in afghan society. there were young afghan women who were born after the invasion, after the united states and our allies were attacked on september 11, 2001, there were young women who were born in the after math of that who have known nothing but freedom and opportunity and education and the potential they would be key players in afghan society and international society and that's been a huge setback, seeing those afghan gains stripped away systematically by the table.
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>> we'll speak more about that again but leave it there for today, general john allen, thank you for joining us. >> pleasure to be with you today. it always is. >> responding to north korea's first official confirmation that u.s. soldier private travis king is being detained there, it's been one month since private king, serving in south korea at the time, voluntarily crossed the border into the reclusive nation. north korea's state media say king allegedly fled to the country because of poor treatment and racism he experienced in the u.s. army. the u.s. state department cannot verify those comments but earlier this month private king's family said in an interview with u.s. media said he did experience racism during his deployment. i'm joined now by the spokesperson for private king's family, jonathan francs. jonathan, thank you for being here. i just want to start off with that statement that was released by north korea and it says at
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least in part travis king confessed he decided to come over to the dprk as north korea is called, as he harbored ill will or ill feeling against inhumane mall treatment and racial discrimination within the u.s. army and expressed his willingness to seek refuge in the dprk or another country and say he was disillusioned at the uneven american society. u.s. officials can't verify the claims and it is north korea but we have to be a bit skeptical and i want to see what you make of that statement. >> good evening and thanks for having me. i don't know exactly what to make of that statement. there are parts that didn't make a lot of sense. and you know, i would hesitate, i would caution folks against taking this at face value. the north koreans have a long history of trying to exploit racial disparities in the united states and you know, we not having heard from travis, we don't know.
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>> have you heard from private travis king and do you have any sense of his condition and how concerned are you about his safety? >> we have not heard from him. and no reports on his condition, although the empathetic -- something about that statement suggests that perhaps to me at least perhaps he was being not treated terribly, but we don't know. and yes, his mother is terribly concerned and she wants her son back. >> can you give us any more insight into the way private king was felt he was treated when he was a member of the u.s. military because we heard hipts of that from the north korean statement and something similar from his family earlier. >> travis sent a text to an uncle indicating he was experiencing racism and he did not elaborate and we don't know from whom or what kind of racism. there's a lot we don't know.
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so i would not necessarily see our statement as confirming the north koreans in any way. >> private king, of course, he was in a bit of trouble with south korean authorities when he was stationed there and had been in south korean prison and being sent home to the united states when he decided to cross the border. do you have any sense how much those factors could have played into his decision to cross that border into north korea? >> i don't and hesitate to guess, but i will tell you he'd done his time in south korea. he was clear of the south korean courts and was just going home to texas to discharge out of the military. >> how aware do you think private king had been of the dangers he could face crossing that border? he was of course stationed in south korea but anyone that's an american military member could easily be jailed or put on trial if they're to cross at this very
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heavily militarized border between the two countries? >> i don't know what he knew or what he thought at the time because i never have gotten to speak tom. but certainly i would imagine that all u.s. troops operating in the rok, the republic of south korea, north korea are briefed of the neighbors to the north. >> we know president joe biden will host the leaders of south korea and japan coming up friday at camp david. what do you hope they might discuss when it comes to travis? >> i don't know that i have any expectation they're going to discuss travis. i know they have a lot on their agenda. certainly anything the u.s. government can do to facilitate him coming home is much appreciated and you know, as the d.o.d. said last night, they remain focused on that goal, bringing him home. >> and of course this has already been quite an ordeal for travis and his family. how is his family coping?
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>> they're overwhlmed, it is hard to become sort of involuntarily famous, when the tv people are showing up at your house, the phone never stops ringing, it's hard. and that's on top of the emotional burden of being worried about your loved one. i think they're coping with it heroically but it's difficult. >> jonathan francs, the spokesman for the family of travis king who we believe now has been confirmed to be held in captivity by north korea. thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> we are learning more now about other americans detained as well, two of them in russia, our partners of cbs news have learned anthony blinken spoke by phone with paul whalen today who has been detained more than four years and being held in a russian prison camp and this is the second time now the two have spoken. this follows confirmation on monday the u.s. ambassador on
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monday tracy met with another american wrongfully detained in russia as well. new details now from fulton county, georgia, where in a new court filing the district attorney is saying former president donald trump be arraigned september 5. he is facing 13 charges for allegedly attempting to overturn results for the 2020 election in that state. in the same filing, the district attorney willis is saying the trial should begin march 4, 2024, the day before super tuesday when many states submit their primary votes. before that trump has until next friday to turn himself in at the jail in fulton county. our news partners at cbs say he is in negotiation with authorities about that surrender and their sources say it's connected to happen next week. the u.s. president joe biden say he and first lady jill biden will visit the hawaiian island
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of maui monday after wildfires left communities in ruin and killed 106 people. mr. biden's announcement comes as the island continues to grapple with the aftermath of those catastrophic blazes. you see some of the devastation here in the historic town of lahaina. they are anticipating a long and difficult recovery effort. in a address josh green said 27% of the burn area has been canvassed by search and rescue personnel. as of tuesday night roughly 2,000 homes and businesses were still without power according to the state's main utility provider and does not include the more than 2,000 destroyed structures. five of the 106 victims have been identified with only two families being notified of their lost loved ones. let's get more now from maui, our north america correspondent is standing by. we heard the president now announcing he'll be making an official trip to the island on monday. how is that news being received where you are in maui?
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john: there's been some criticism of the speed of the response and think it will be very welcomed. i'm in the community of kula, a distance away from lahaina but the place burned in the same weather with the wildfires fueled by the offshore hurricane and there were homes and businesses hit in that same event and we've spoken to some of the emergency relief volunteers working here who say they have come, some of them, directly from ukraine with a similar skill set, of course, much of this looks, of course, like a war zone and it will be this recovery work the presidentened a first lady can see for themselves as well as the onerous and challenging work of recovering the bodies in lahaina where it's expected to
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continue into next week and beyond. >> we're also hearing a key road into west maui that would lead into lahaina would be opened. what would that mean for the residents there? >> much of lahaina has been completely out of bounds to the public and media since the disaster for very good reason. the work of recovering the bodies is ongoing. there's been some frustration that people want to get back to their homes and see the damage for themselves. there will be some relief that that access is being opened. but lahaina itself as a town remains out of bounds. >> the search and recovery effort continue there is. john, thank you very much. even among the destruction, the community is coming together to save what they can and that includes in the town of lahaina this iconic tree over 60 feet
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tall and planted over 160 years ago. the fire burned the tree but is still standing. the firefighters are trying to save the iconic landmark despite fears the damage could be irreversible. thank for you watching "world news america." narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪
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