Speaker 1: All right, it is time for the UK Report, Gavin
Speaker 1: Gray waiting to bring us the latest news from the
Speaker 1: UK and Europe.
Speaker 2: Morning Gigi, Good morning, Sja. How are you this morning?
Speaker 1: Very very good, very very good. Indeed, okay, let's start
Speaker 1: with your top story. And following a warrant issued by
Speaker 1: the ICC, the International Criminal Court, of course, a man
Speaker 1: from Libya who is suspected of committing war crimes and
Speaker 1: crimes against humanity has been arrested in Germany.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. So the name of the man is
Speaker 2: Khaled Mohammad Ali l excuse me, Hisshiri, and he's commonly
Speaker 2: known as Albuti. But he was alleged to have been
Speaker 2: a senior official at a prison complex in Tripoli, Libya,
Speaker 2: where thousands of people were detained, and while there, he's
Speaker 2: suspected of having committed or ordered or overseen crimes including murder,
Speaker 2: torture and rape over a five year period from twenty
Speaker 2: to fifteen, and there is no record of him commenting
Speaker 2: on these alleg So eleven arrest warrants have been issued
Speaker 2: by the ICC in connection with alleged war crimes and
Speaker 2: crimes against humanity committed in Libya since the killing of
Speaker 2: Muhma Gadaffi, the long term leader there of course, plunging
Speaker 2: Libya into civil war, and since the overthrow are there
Speaker 2: with Gadaffi in power for six years, six decades. Rather,
Speaker 2: Libya split into areas controlled by different militias and is
Speaker 2: currently divided by two rival governments. And the accused Hashiri
Speaker 2: is part of the Special Deterrence Force aligned to the
Speaker 2: Interior Ministry of the internationally recognized government, So he is
Speaker 2: part of the international recognized government and therefore this arrest
Speaker 2: warrant is extremely of interest. But certainly what goes on
Speaker 2: in this jail, what goes on in this prison complex,
Speaker 2: sounds to be very very unpleasant. Indeed, I suppose we
Speaker 2: shouldn't be surprised about that. The country is in a
Speaker 2: massive state of flux, and it looks like he's going
Speaker 2: to remain in detention until arrangements are made for him
Speaker 2: to be surrendered into the custody of the International Criminal
Speaker 2: Cord and then extradited to face justice in the Hague.
Speaker 2: I dare say it'll make fascinating reading but also deeply
Speaker 2: unpleasant reading at the same time.
Speaker 1: Next up, the Ministry of Defense, British Ministry of Defense
Speaker 1: isn't expected to give any compensation to some thousands of
Speaker 1: Afghans whose personal details were leaked. Just give us the
Speaker 1: background to this.
Speaker 2: This has been dominating the news agenda, not just in
Speaker 2: the UK but across Europe. In a data leak by
Speaker 2: one unnamed official from the Ministry of Defense who has
Speaker 2: probably made the most costly mistake in terms of email
Speaker 2: leaks of all time, he thought he or she thought
Speaker 2: they were sending about one hundred and fifty lines of
Speaker 2: data about people who were in Afghanistan who had said
Speaker 2: that they had helped British forces in Afghanistan during the
Speaker 2: war there and were now trying to get to the UK,
Speaker 2: saying they were in fear of their life. However, instead
Speaker 2: of sending just a few dozen lines, he accidentally sent
Speaker 2: several thousand lines of data and information, and it included
Speaker 2: the names and addresses of those Afghans who were trying
Speaker 2: to claim asylum who now fear, of course that they
Speaker 2: will be killed by the Taliban for colluding with these
Speaker 2: allied forces. Many were translators, many had helped the British
Speaker 2: forces in their battle of course against the Taliban, but
Speaker 2: also had we then discovered a couple of days later
Speaker 2: released information about Security Service personnel, the identity and their
Speaker 2: names some of the most carefully protected identify tease here
Speaker 2: in the UK, and had also given out the names
Speaker 2: and addresses of some of those in the SAS, again
Speaker 2: another highly secretive organization. So then we learn that now
Speaker 2: the government is ruling out here payments to those whose
Speaker 2: lives might have been put in danger by this leak,
Speaker 2: but have not received any help coming to the UK.
Speaker 2: So a real mess here. It's estimated to possibly have
Speaker 2: caused twenty billion South African randsworth of legal suits in this.
Speaker 2: We don't know who the person is we leaked it.
Speaker 2: We don't know if they are still in a job
Speaker 2: or not. Either way, this has shown absolute incompetence at
Speaker 2: the top level. I'm afraid of the Ministry of Defense
Speaker 2: and it's made some very very depressing headlines this week.
Speaker 1: Next up put a prison in North London, Pentonville Prison,
Speaker 1: which allegedly held some prisoners for longer than their release
Speaker 1: release date had stipulated and was found to be cockroach infested,
Speaker 1: has been put into special measures. I know what that
Speaker 1: means when it comes to kind of ofsted and schools.
Speaker 1: What does it mean from a prison perspective. Gg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, The Minister for Prisons will now set up a
Speaker 2: team to work urgently on the concerns addressed. Pentonville Prison
Speaker 2: in North London, Islington is one of the most the oldest,
Speaker 2: one of the oldest prisons that we operate here in
Speaker 2: the UK. It is therefore some would argue, not fit
Speaker 2: for purpose and despite investment, needs really radical overhor to
Speaker 2: bring it up to date, because of course the standards
Speaker 2: we used to keep prisoners in is no longer the
Speaker 2: standards deemed to be acceptable for today's prisoners. But worse
Speaker 2: perhaps than that, the data showed that one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty inmates have been held beyond their release date in
Speaker 2: the past six months. Why well, because the release dates
Speaker 2: have not been calculated properly. And you might say, well,
Speaker 2: what do you mean. Surely the judge says ten months.
Speaker 2: It's ten months, but of course for good behavior for
Speaker 2: other types taking part in learning courses, instruction courses, trying
Speaker 2: to get them a job afterwards, it makes that calculation
Speaker 2: a bit more difficult. But not only have some been
Speaker 2: held longer than they should have done, about one in
Speaker 2: five held longer than they should have been in the
Speaker 2: last six months, but also some have been released earlier
Speaker 2: sj than they should have been as well. So the
Speaker 2: Minister for Prisons, Lord Timpson, who runs a company basically
Speaker 2: copying up keys, and he's a big voice in the
Speaker 2: industry for employing former prisoners and trying to get them
Speaker 2: reintegrated in society. He's the minister in charge. I think
Speaker 2: many people think this is exactly his role in life
Speaker 2: that he should be. And there he is discovering that
Speaker 2: some prisons have been kept longer, some prisoners haven't been
Speaker 2: kept as long as they should have done, and described
Speaker 2: the state of the prisons from this watchdog report as
Speaker 2: really pretty awful, so frightening conditions and of course let's
Speaker 2: not forget in all countries when prisoners live in these
Speaker 2: terrible conditions and feel bad, they often take that anger
Speaker 2: out on prison staff. So something they're desperately looking into
Speaker 2: here in London.
Speaker 1: Next up, and something that's likely to put a smile
Speaker 1: on the face of the British taxpayer, well say, a
Speaker 1: smile on the face. The UK government spent nearly a
Speaker 1: third less on hotels to house asylum seekers in the
Speaker 1: year up to last March.
Speaker 2: Yes several more hundred arriving yesterday, We've had this extended
Speaker 2: fine weather and another several hundred arriving and it just
Speaker 2: doesn't stop across on the small boats. And that's, as
Speaker 2: I've reported before, led to all sorts of concerns about
Speaker 2: the infrastructure able to cope here in the UK. But
Speaker 2: whoever thought about putting them up in hotels, Well it
Speaker 2: has been incredibly expensive. The number of people now in
Speaker 2: hotels they're the ones coming across in small boats illegally,
Speaker 2: was thirty two thousand, three hundred. It's now below thirty thousand,
Speaker 2: so some interest, some improvement in the last six months,
Speaker 2: but not massive amount. But they're also as well finally
Speaker 2: getting room sharing underway. I mean, can you believe some
Speaker 2: migrants were just given a wonderful room on their own
Speaker 2: And we often are talking, you know, quite nice hotels,
Speaker 2: I mean hotels that would be beyond my price bracket.
Speaker 2: You think, you know, and you think, wow, what's going
Speaker 2: on here? Anyway? The average cost is now about one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten million South African rand aer day, but
Speaker 2: that has gone significantly on what it was, which had
Speaker 2: been roughly one hundred and seventy five million South African
Speaker 2: rand per day the previous year. The sad thing about
Speaker 2: is ESJY is not just the money. The sad thing
Speaker 2: is not just the fact that I think many migrants say, oh, hotel,
Speaker 2: free food, a living allowance. It makes it more attractive
Speaker 2: for them to come over. The really sad thing is
Speaker 2: this money is coming out of our international aid budget,
Speaker 2: aid that would have gone to good causes, starving people
Speaker 2: in Africa and around the world, and sadly that is
Speaker 2: not now happening as much as it was because we're
Speaker 2: paying for people coming across illegally.
Speaker 1: The government is also planning to lower the voting age,
Speaker 1: which currently stands at eighteen. If I'm not wrong, I
Speaker 1: remember being able to vote from the age of eighteen
Speaker 1: in the UK. Sixteen and seventeen year olds in the
Speaker 1: UK would also be able to vote if these plans
Speaker 1: are given the green light.
Speaker 2: Yep, and I think they will be given the green light.
Speaker 2: It's a government plan and the government has a big majority,
Speaker 2: so I can see happening in term for the next
Speaker 2: general election and another three bit years on. And what
Speaker 2: does it mean. Well, here in the UK it had
Speaker 2: been eighteen years old to vote. However, you can get
Speaker 2: a job at sixteen, You can therefore pay taxes, You
Speaker 2: can join the army at sixteen. Eighteen is our minimum
Speaker 2: age for voting at the moment. Eighteen is our minimum
Speaker 2: age for getting married, drinking alcohol, and standing as a
Speaker 2: member of parliament. So by reducing the age of voting
Speaker 2: to sixteen, we'll have people voting for something that they
Speaker 2: actually can't take part in themselves, if you like, but
Speaker 2: because they're too young to be somebody to be elected.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a little bit of muddle thinking here.
Speaker 2: But also, SJ, there's a great deal of fears of skullduggery,
Speaker 2: shall I say, because younger people in this country tend
Speaker 2: to vote left of center. A what is the nature
Speaker 2: of our government car currently left of center? And therefore
Speaker 2: plenty of people beginning to think, hmmm, is this a
Speaker 2: little way in which they're hoping, perhaps to spend longer
Speaker 2: in government than they might ordinarily be allowed to a
Speaker 2: sixteen and seventeen year olds only make up three percent
Speaker 2: of the population, SJ. But you know, this could have
Speaker 2: a reasonable vote share in some areas where there's a
Speaker 2: very tight margin of majority. So let's see what happens
Speaker 2: if it goes through. There's certainly a bit of opposition,
Speaker 2: but at the same time many people think, no, they're sixteen,
Speaker 2: they're young adults, they should be allowed to vote.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting one for me as somebody, as a
Speaker 1: person who grew up in the UK. I've never thought
Speaker 1: and maybe this has changed. I haven't lived there for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. But more I'd never have thought of UK
Speaker 1: youth as being particularly politicized. And I think that's because
Speaker 1: when I then came back to South Africa, our youth
Speaker 1: is very politicized for very obvious reasons, comparatively very politicized.
Speaker 1: So I can't I don't know. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting and as you say, given where the current government
Speaker 1: sits politically, yes, maybe there is a reason why they're
Speaker 1: trying to bring this in. But yeah, I'm just not
Speaker 1: sure that I can't envisage that there's a large group
Speaker 1: of young people champing at the bit for this to happen,
Speaker 1: because I've just never viewed that the UK youth is
Speaker 1: being politicized, and honestly, I don't think they've had to
Speaker 1: be in the way that youth and other parts of
Speaker 1: the world are now in very good Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: fair enough. Felix Baumgartner. That is a name that I
Speaker 1: don't know. Tell me about him.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you would remember somebody who once broke
Speaker 2: the world record for the highest skydive. He jumped in
Speaker 2: a sort of webbed suit from the edge of space, right,
Speaker 2: and he did that. He's done some extraordinary stunsing flying
Speaker 2: across the English Channel with an oxygen tank strapped to
Speaker 2: his back and a parachute for landing. That was back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and three. In twenty twelve, he broke
Speaker 2: the world record and the sound barrier for the highest
Speaker 2: ever sky dive, jumping from a balloon thirty nine kilometers
Speaker 2: in the stratosphere. And he was known as a real daredevil.
Speaker 2: But sadly, the fifty six year old has now died.
Speaker 2: He fell to the ground near the swimming pool of
Speaker 2: a hotel while flying over a village, and that was
Speaker 2: in Italy, and the reports immediately suggest actually this isn't
Speaker 2: a stunt that's gone wrong. He actually may have suffered
Speaker 2: a medical issue mid air, and that's why he died.
Speaker 2: The extreme sportsman, known as Fearless Felix for his adventurous stunts,
Speaker 2: has done all sorts in the same years at the
Speaker 2: world record for the highest parachute jump when he launched
Speaker 2: himself from those famous petronous towers in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
Speaker 2: Did all sorts of amazing things, some of them I
Speaker 2: frankly don't fancy at all, including one of the world's
Speaker 2: lowest base jumps from the hand of Rio de Janeiro's
Speaker 2: Christ the Redeemer statue just ninety eight feet. Launching yourself
Speaker 2: from that I wouldn't fancy. But anyway, Yes, sad that
Speaker 2: he's died, no doubt. More details about why he died,
Speaker 2: but talk of a medical issue mid air.
Speaker 1: How terribly sad he I'm just reading here he broke
Speaker 1: the world record for the highest sky dive by jumping
Speaker 1: from the edge of space, jumping from a balloon more
Speaker 1: than thirty nine kilometers in the stratosphere. That can't be right,
Speaker 1: can it, Kevin?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, I remember I was actually live reporting for
Speaker 2: the BBC and we delayed the feed by seven seconds. No,
Speaker 2: in case it all went very wrong. No really, Yes, yes, he.
Speaker 1: Jumped nine kilometers in the air.
Speaker 2: Yes, he took this huge balloon. I mean we're not
Speaker 2: talking an ordinary balloon, talking you know, right to the
Speaker 2: edge of space where he would have struggled to breed.
Speaker 2: He couldn't breathe, so he had this massive thing. And
Speaker 2: of course the speed he picked up when he threw
Speaker 2: himself out and by the time he got back down
Speaker 2: towards the Earth service amazing. I mean, it was an
Speaker 2: amazingly dramatic stump. Many people thought it was just a
Speaker 2: suicide mission, but no, he was. He was successful.
Speaker 1: I need to I need to look up more of
Speaker 1: that when we come off there. That has blown my mind.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think that was going to be possible.
Speaker 1: And then finally, the operators of one of Europe's most
Speaker 1: famous outdoor bathing ponds, I don't know what that is
Speaker 1: a facing court action over allowing trans swimmers into the
Speaker 1: lady section. First off, what's a bathing pond? Is that
Speaker 1: like a lido?
Speaker 2: Well it sort of isn't It isn't so. In Hampstead
Speaker 2: Heath in North London there are a selection of water ponds,
Speaker 2: so ponds, not swimming pools, but they allow swimming in them,
Speaker 2: sort of freestyle swimming, a wild water swimming. As of course,
Speaker 2: they monitor the quality of the water very carefully. It
Speaker 2: is split into a lady's pond, a men's pond, and
Speaker 2: a sort of kids play you know area, and a
Speaker 2: mixed one. However, a group calling Sex Matters, they say
Speaker 2: they're a human rights charity, are now saying they will
Speaker 2: take legal action against the owners, the operators of this
Speaker 2: pond that's the City of London corporation or the council
Speaker 2: over their stants because they are saying anyone who identifies
Speaker 2: as a woman can swim in the ladies pond. That's
Speaker 2: been their guidance since twenty nineteen. However, earlier this year,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court in the UK ruled that actually they
Speaker 2: said a legal definition of a woman should be based
Speaker 2: on their sex at birth, and of course that's different
Speaker 2: from you know, thinking you identifying as a woman. So
Speaker 2: this group, this pressure group, is saying, look, we are
Speaker 2: swimming in these waters and we don't think that these
Speaker 2: transgender bases should be allowed in and equally legally, I
Speaker 2: think now they shouldn't be allowed in because of that
Speaker 2: legal ruling. So they are saying, right, we're going to
Speaker 2: prosecute the operators. They're saying fifty pounds, what's that? A
Speaker 2: million South African around They're going for and trying to
Speaker 2: force the counsel into change in their hands. It's certainly
Speaker 2: something which has been extremely hotly debated in this country
Speaker 2: over toilet use as well, of course being another thing,
Speaker 2: public toilet use being something that many women in particular
Speaker 2: feel very angry that transgender people are allowed to use
Speaker 2: their toilets. Transgender people very angry that they are being
Speaker 2: They feel they're being excluded from both the men's and
Speaker 2: the women So it is a very very good talking
Speaker 2: point and one that's drawn a lot of problems for
Speaker 2: politicians here in the UK.
Speaker 1: There's so much I want to say on this. First
Speaker 1: of all, the fact that there's even a men's swimming
Speaker 1: pond and a women's swimming pond is ridiculous and bizarre.
Speaker 1: Imagine if every single swimming bath or lido or tidal
Speaker 1: pool in the world you had to have a men's
Speaker 1: one and a women's one. The world's gone mad. Just
Speaker 1: have one.
Speaker 2: Just get people.
Speaker 1: People are so obsessed with sex and weird stuff that
Speaker 1: they need to not be obsessed with that they get
Speaker 1: their knickers in a twist and to this lady's group,
Speaker 1: get a life. It may in what world are you
Speaker 1: worrying about who's getting into a pool to swim lengths,
Speaker 1: and this argument that people use of, Oh but men
Speaker 1: are trying, men are trying to access our spaces to
Speaker 1: come and attack us. They're not doing that. That's not
Speaker 1: what's happening. That the instances of trans people using their
Speaker 1: trans status to go and sexually assault or in other
Speaker 1: way harm the people, It's not happening. It's a total
Speaker 1: figment of your imagination. Be more worried about men who
Speaker 1: are attacking you than trans people minding their own business
Speaker 1: and going for a swim. Or I've got on my
Speaker 1: high horse there, Gavin. But it does my head in, Oh,
Speaker 1: it does my head in. Get a life, do something,
Speaker 1: Go and go and plant some daffodils in Hampstead Heath.
Speaker 1: And on that frantic note, we're gonna leave it there.
Speaker 1: So thank you very much. Indeed, we'll chat you again
Speaker 1: next week