Expert panel calls for global action to control AI

0:00Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in Central London, I'm Tim Franks. Amid this turbulent world, the leaders of the world, a gathering in New York to, well, what exactly, deliver a series of speeches certainly, and Tony O'Kooter is the Secretary General of the UN is speaking right now. Donald Trump is due to address the annual UN General Assembly and just over an hour in a speech which may provide us with some indication of how Keeney is to tie up loose foreign ends ahead of midterm elections in six weeks. But beyond that, what are the themes, the preoccupations that unite or divide those world leaders, and have they anything interesting, useful or reassuring to say about global cooperation over artificial intelligence? That's something we'll look at in a bit more detail in a moment. First though, let's join our UN correspondent, Netta Taufik, who's just outside UN headquarters.

1:00Netta, what do you think, well, let's start with President Trump. What do you think we can look forward to there? Well, look, I think of course, President Trump, he is not just speaking to international leaders here. He is also addressing his domestic audience, which as you mentioned there is, you know, just ahead of the midterm elections in November, where his party is set if polls are to be believed to lose many seats in the House and potentially just hold on to the Senate or perhaps lose it by Slyne Margin. And so given that he has seen his ratings tank because of the war in Iran that he launched with Israel, we are going to expect to see him at this podium say that he has stopped Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, that it is Iran that is hurting not the U.S., that the U.S. still has leverage here. But what we won't expect to hear is a timeline on when this war will end, because that is what diplomats here are really focused on. You know, I've spoken to a number of diplomats and all of them say they want to know when they can get back to a sense of

2:05predictability for the Straits in the Red Sea, the Arabian Peninsula, when it can get back to business as usual. And so that is a key preoccupation as we look at fuel prices rising and impact it will have on food, medicine, everything else. Donald Trump will also continue taking a hit at the United Nations in his speech. He sees his efforts to not only delay payments for the U.N.'s regular budget, which he eventually did, but also cutting funding from several agencies and peacekeeping as a way to hold the U.N. to account. His critics would argue he's left the organization weaker. And so Donald Trump will be taking a victory lap, I think, in this. And it will be interesting to see how diplomats react to that. Yeah. And obviously there will be a whole host of other world leaders. The Palestinian President won't be there in person. He's been tonight a visa, but the Iranian President will be, which could provide a bit of an interesting, well,

3:05obviously a contrast, but also perhaps an interesting sense of direction in terms of how the Iranians view their conflict with the U.S. Yeah, that's right. I mean, again, in the speech, expect, you know, Iran's president to maintain that Iran is sticking by its demands, demands so far that President Trump has denied. President Trump has increased kind of financial pressure on Iran. Iran is seeking to have its funds unfrozen, you know, upwards of $20 billion that could certainly help the regime, the country there. But, you know, Donald Trump has floated the potential of meeting Iran's president. And now I think diplomats see that as unlikely at the stage, but it is interesting that he floated that because, you know, nobody is expecting a breakthrough. There's not one diplomat I've spoken to here who believes there will be a breakthrough on Iran, even Gulf countries through Amman, you know, on the street that shares the straight of Hormuz with Iran. They are trying

4:07to work on some kind of agreement on how the straight will work. Gulf countries are open to talks, but they know ultimately the United States has the power for any eventual deal. So it's more about incremental progress here, I think. We'll leave it there, but thank you very much for joining us live from the U.N. Well, as to the issue of artificial intelligence that large black box that many of us may slightly nervously be peering into, it was the biggest issue under discussion as this 81st General Assembly of the U.N. opened on Monday. That was what was built as a conference about global cooperation on AI. Professor Sonny Livingstone is director of the digital futures for Children's Center at the London School of Economics. She sits on the U.N.'s independent international scientific panel on AI. What did her panel have to say? The panel's message is really that AI is not inevitable, but it is clearly present embedded, being rapidly developed and seen as an enormous source of transformation and profit. So, you know, the drivers that are leading to its

5:13development are in full flow and very unlikely to be stopped, but that's human drivers, developing technology. That's major corporations, a powerful government who are promoting and assuring that it moves forward, that it moves in a particular direction, and that it moves at as rapid as pace as possible. And you know, the panel doesn't make recommendations. It offers the evidence. Is that the evidence is such that the developments are now outpacing safety and that it is vital that we pour slow down, identify and put in place far better protections warnings, transparency about what does go wrong and ways of mediating those so that AI doesn't develop hell to skelter, but develops in a way that is really under human control and management. I'm not disputing the principle of what you're saying, but I wonder about the feasibility of it, given, I mean, you talk about cooperation we've heard here on the BBC from the UN Undersecretary

6:18General, who's especially involved in the emerging technology, I'm in deep-sing gills saying, you know, the importance of this meeting is that every country has a seat at the table on AI governance. But there is a big political problem here that, you know, two of the major countries that are driving this, the US and China, well, the US is led by an administration and President Trump, who seems to think that there isn't much need for regulation. And obviously, it doesn't feel as if the US and China are particularly in a place to cooperate on global governance, that your intentions may be good, but it could seem a little bit unlikely. I think what I can say is that there is clearly lots of evidence that just moving headlong into a state of kind of geopolitical competition is not proving successful and there is going to be enormous anxiety and pushback, which will affect the bottom line, which will matter for the way in which countries take up and adopt AI.

7:20But one of the panel's other messages is very much that situations extraordinarily unequal and becoming much more so vast sues of the world are being cut out of both the kind of benefits of AI and also are kind of increasingly at risk from systems that they don't have control over. So, you know, this is extremely difficult situation. It's not a straightforward one of, you know, taking the money and running. And in terms of the disproportionate harms, I mean, you are director of the digital future for children's centre at the London School of Economics. Do you think that the children are particularly exposed to the potential disadvantages that come with increasingly powerful artificial intelligence models? I do. And I draw attention to children because they didn't choose and have no control over the way in which AI is being embedded in their homes, in their schools, in the apps that they use every day. And they often approach it with curiosity and fascination and some pleasure. It is also ringing considerable harms.

8:25And I would highlight harms of forms of persuasion and manipulation in terms of the information they receive, inequalities in terms of bias and discrimination. And, you know, some very direct risks, especially with cat bots in the ways that children can be persuaded to do very dangerous and harmful things. So, yes, everyone needs to be alerted this, but this is if you like not so much safety with the systems, but safety with the effects of poorly designed systems as they are beginning to reach the population and have these disproportionate effects on those who are more vulnerable or less prepared. Professor Sonny Livingston speaking to me from New York. Russian attacks on Ukraine are it seems only wreaking more and more damage. The reason Russia's new jet-powered drones which are much harder to shoot down. Kiev is now in a race to develop weapons that can counter them. The BBC's Upload, U.S. joined Ukrainian air defense units fighting against this new threat.

9:30Emisal shoots into the sky, living a long white tail behind. Seconds pass very slowly. Yezhenia destroyed. Reforets a Ukrainian soldier having spawned in a distance, a blank plume of smoke from the explosion. His unit has successfully shot down a Russian jet-powered drone. These new drones are much harder to intercept, so for now Ukrainian forces primarily use fighter jets or Western-provided air defense systems to stop them. They might be very effective, but far too costly to use against a much cheaper threat. Soldiers from the 96 Air Defense Brigade show me their drone interceptors regarded a breakthrough technology just a year ago. A bullet-shaped device held the Ukrainian military to shoot down up to 95% of Russian drones,

10:38but it's simply too slow against the new type of threat, says the crew commander, Madzi. The speed of jet-powered drones is 300 to 500 kilometers per hour, which is twice as fast as our interceptors. This is a like a cat and mouse game. We are inventing something Russia is trying to invent contradiction and vice versa. Andryi Gritsynuk, the head of Brave One, Ukraine's main defense technology alliance. And right now, more than 20 companies are building very fast drone interceptors on different levels of readiness, and out of them, six companies members of Brave One already deployed to the combat and have effective idea. To deal with new threats, Ukraine is also trying to convert all the weapons they no longer make.

11:42Soldiers from the BILOT-SERKWA Air Defense Regiment are driving their anti-aircraft missile system called OSA in the cover. This giant Soviet armored vehicle on wheels is a lucrative target for Russian drones. It helps to defend Ukrainian cities from air strikes. The problem is that there are massive shortages of ammunition for OSA. However, Ukraine has developed a new type of missiles that can be used by this old system, and they are fast enough to shoot down Russian jet-powered drones. Vladimir, a crew member explains. The new missiles performed well. The first launches were not very successful, but then they were improved, and now they work even better than Soviet missiles. Ukrainian engineers believe that it's only a matter of time before they effectively shoot down jet-powered drones on a regular basis. But the challenge of this war is to predict and

12:45prepare for future threats that do not exist yet. And that was the BBC's Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rassal of reporting for us from Ukraine. You're listening to news air, live from the BBC. Coming up on the programme, we'll speak to Tony Walker, one of the subjects of seven up. It's one of TV's, well, in fact, it probably is TV's longest running documentary series. A seven, you see me as a kid, excitable shoot from the hip. Fourteen when I was under the auspices of being a apprentice jockey where it was regimental. I was a bit monosyllabic there. I was a yes-no answer. Then after I left the racing at 21, I became sort of immature, same I thought at that particular time. It seemed like everyone had that sort of age sort of going through that process. The picture of the life told in real time, you can hear more from Tony and the series producer Claire Lewis in 30 minutes.

13:59This is news air live from the BBC, I'm Tim Franks. We began the programme wondering what world leaders might have to declare and possibly even decide at the UN General Assembly. Well now the leaders of the G7 group of leading industrialised countries have made their own joint declaration calling on the Iran-backed Houthi militants to end their offensive in Yemen and their attacks on Saudi Arabia and an end to strikes on civilian shipping in the Red Sea. Their call came as Britain said it would provide what was described as defensive military support to Saudi Arabia in its escalating battle against the Houthis. I'm joined now by Swoleon Patey. He was among many other prime diplomatic postings. He was at the UK's ambassador to Saudi Arabia between 2007 and 2010. Swoleon, welcome to news air. Let's begin with that just briefly if we can with that British announcement. How significant do you think it is? Well it's more significant politically than militarily. It's a limited refueling capacity for

15:04Saudi jets that will allow Saudi jets to stay in the air for longer and thereby have the opportunity to shoot down any missiles or other projectiles coming from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. It's significant politically because the Saudis have asked for help from an ally which they'd already done with the United States and the United States refused. So it's important for Britain to support Saudi Arabia in this. We have our own national interests at stake. We have a national interest in freedom and navigation through the Babel Mandab straights and the Red Sea. As the Prime Minister said it is contributing to cost-elementing increases. So it's a sensible decision. But also presumably just on Britain there's also the national interest in terms of Saudi being the largest buyer of UK weapons. It's presumably there's some self-interest there.

16:04A bigger state support market by far. I think we're already supporting Saudi Arabia. We sell them the Typhoon fighter jet which they're using and we have support systems in place and anti-missile systems. So yeah they're a big market. Do you get a sense? I mean this is a very sort of airy question to ask you but do you get a sense of what are these the Saudis are after in terms of support from their allies because I just wonder whether it's clear if the Saudis know what their strategy is against the Houthis. How to beat them back? Well the strategy has been to de-escalate and they reached an agreement with the Houthis in 2022 and they've you know the previous attacks on the Houthis in which the UK and the US took an active part when we were supporting the UN-recognized government in the South. They've been trying to de-escalate. They would like the Houthis to stop firing missiles at ReAD and their oil installations. I think they're probably prepared to accept Houthis governing part of Yemen. I suspect Yemen's

17:12on the way to being divided into two countries. It is de facto at the moment. So they're trying to de-escalate. They want the Babel Mandab straights open. They want freedom and navigation through the Red Sea. They'd like the Houthis to stop attacking them and that's their interest. Now if the only way they can achieve that is by responding to Houthi attacks and that's what they'll do. Although I mean up to now the considerable firepower that Saudi Arabia has had doesn't seem to have been able to stop the Houthis, certainly most recently in their tracks. Well the trouble is the Houthis are almost similar to the Iranians and the IOGC in Iran as they have a capacity to absorb punishment and are quite resilient and they're not subject to any democratic control. So the fact that thousands of Yemenis are having to flee doesn't impinge on their ability to rule the country. So they're very resilient. It's a very mountainous territory. There aren't that

18:14many military targets easily accessible to hit. So it's quite difficult. They're quite a difficult group to defeat. Absolutely. That's why in the end it'll be negotiations. Sir William Paytie, former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Thank you very much for joining us. Now to one of the other questions of the day, did the Dutch invent golf? The question along with some overheated headlines has been sparked by the joint purchase by two Dutch museums of a 17th century painting. The artist was Hendrik Avacamp and his painting is called Kulf Players on the Ice. That is Kulf with a sea. Judith Niesen is the head of collections and research at one of the museums, the Maruits House and the Hague. She described the painting to my colleague, Julian Morica, before moving on to the thorny subject of who invented golf. It's a

19:18wonderful piece of art. It's a wonderful painting. So what you see is a frozen river landscape with a cityscape in the background and all kinds of activity is going on. So people are skating in the background, slaying on horse, horse-letts, latches and everything. So it's very active, but there's also a kind of a silence because in the front of the painting there are five people standing near actually the fewer and two of them are Kulf Players. And to the other side, there are two fishermen who stopped with their activity. They were ice fishing and also they're all watching the Kulf Players starting his game. So to say, you give us some lovely detail. Before we will be struck by the word Kulf rather than golf. What's the significance of Kulf in this context? So but it's called with a sea and that's very different from what later it becomes known as Kulf with a K. So Kulf with a sea is very close to the Kulf game as we know it nowadays. So it's

20:24actually often played with two to four people and described by long drives that you were able to make long drives, which you can make on the ice as you can imagine. And if you look at the Kulf ticket, it really looks like what it is now, you know, it's only it's that the stick itself is wooden, but the hat is from iron was then already from iron. And the interesting thing is the whole discussion is here. It's it's one of the earliest depictions in a painting of this game and the painting is really the subject is golf. Yeah, and that's very special. And that takes us to the key question, which has been speculated upon in the British press today. The simple headline did the Dutch invent golf? What's the answer to that? Being Dutch, I would like to say yes. Well, we do have quite a lot of Scottish listeners, I should point out. I know, I know, I know. So we can never never be sure, but there is already mentioning of this game in the 1300s, which is quite early. And what you can say is that given the amount of images we know already from

21:28the 1617 century of this game, at least it was really popular in the Netherlands. And maybe even more popular than it was in Scotland. However, so we tend to say it was invented here and there is a whole variety in the way it was played already back then. Right. You're treating this very carefully. And I see why you said we tend to say we invented it here. So you don't want to make a firm pledge on that. Well, you know, I'm talking to the BBC, of course. And I need to trust carefully. No, but what I can imagine is it was really popular and given the amount of images we know on tiles, on drawings, on prints, in this painting, it is the subject of the painting. You can imagine that it was really, it started out the game of golf as we know it nowadays. It started out in the Netherlands. However, and I need to say this, we can never be sure. And you can also think of that could have been a sort of crossover, because we now think we were far away from one another, but actually even in

22:34that time in the 17th century, it was quite easy to get to England and Scotland and back to the Netherlands again, as it is now. And I was sir Judith, I thought she's probably called Yudith Nesan, head of collections and research at the Married's House in the Hague, and she was speaking to Julian Warwicka. You're listening to News Air. Welcome back to News Air, National Football Competition, resumes in Europe this week, but it's not the game itself that's so much in the news, but rather the international politics around the game, at least when it comes to one of the fixtures. That's Sunday's game between Israel and Ireland, because the Irish National Broadcaster RTE has decided to scale back coverage of the fixture massively, because of the opposition to Israel participating in sporting and cultural competitions. Colleen Duffy is a sports journalist working for the Irish language publication on poor pair. Colleen, welcome to News Air. What is the RTE coverage going to

23:38look like, do we think? Thanks very much Tim. Well, I suppose firstly we have to say neither of the games are going to be played in the jurisdictions themselves. The whole match for Israel is going to be in Hungary this weekend. Ireland's home game, of course, in Serbia, not in Dublin. Ireland's association says it's not going to provide tickets to supporters, Cedar Game either, so it'll be behind closed doors. RTE will show the game's life, but it's going to be unusually bare in terms of coverage. There's not going to be a studio presenter or pundits. There's not going to be an RTE match commentator. It's commentary from the international feed, and it's taking no advertising or sponsorship around the broadcast, something which RTE relies heavily on in terms of its funding, and it says its broadcast contract will close it to show the games, and that's how it shows and to meet their subligation. Right. I mean, clearly, you know, this is a contentious issue, and there will be people around the world who will either think that, you know, RTE and Ireland

24:42are taking a principle stance or that they're, you know, being entirely unfair towards Israel, and they shouldn't mix sport and politics and all the rest of it. What do you think the feeling is among Irish football fans themselves? Well, for money in Ireland, these are much more than football games. You know, Ireland has a longstanding tradition of solidarity with the Palestinians and the Warren Gaza has certainly sharpened the question as to why Israel is still playing international football. The Football Association or the FBI, they're the buddy that run the Irish team and its members have voted overwhelming last November to seek Israeli suspension from European competitions, but with these fixtures coming up and with the fixtures in play, they voted 75 to 32 in July to play them, and that's the central split. You know, people can agree that Israel should be suspended and still disagree about whether Ireland should refuse to play while UEFA allows it to compete. And the players and the manager also have been left dealing with

25:42a decision. Manifield, I've been made by football's governing bodies too, and there's a huge pressure in terms of RTE's workers' union, SIP2 to boycott the broadcast altogether as well. So, Sons will support their in terms of scaling back the coverage also. And as I mentioned, there are two, lots of support coming from a lot of quarters for the decision by RTE as well, and also backing the fact of playing these games behind closed doors. Colleen Duffy from on pauper, thank you very much indeed. This is NewsHour, it's coming to you live from the BBC World Service with me Tim Franks. Donald Trump has long been the master of setting and dominating the news agenda, so what should we read into his banning of three major US news outlets? CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House. The president said their right to publish

26:46and broadcast was not in question. What is? He said is their right to enter the White House grounds, given that there are hostile operations, a threat, even, Mr. Trump says, to national security. The three outlets are suing to have the ban overturned. But there is also the question as to whether this is just the president deciding to open a new front to change the conversation from some other difficult issues as the US heads towards midterm elections. More on that in a moment. First, the issue at hand, it was the president in the mayor of New York, Soren Mamdani, taking questions and reporters at the mayor's official residence, Gracie Manchin. Mayor, do you first? What's your response to President Trump banning outlets from the White House grounds? Did you challenge him at all about this in your meeting with him? Historians and legal scholars have called it textbook authoritarianism. And Mr. President, are you banning outlets like MSNOW, CNN, and Politico in order to distract from the Iran war and high gas prices?

27:47Now, I told the president that we're going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in as everyone no matter the opinion or the critique that we engage. Now, I'm just president. It's interesting because they said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me. So I wasn't very worried about that. Look at all that press. Look at all that press, Mr. Trump said, and he then went on to expound, expound on his distaste for a number of news outlets. If you look at CNN and its fake news, if you look at MSNOW, I don't even know what MSNOW is, I guess it's the MSNBC, what it used to be, or MSDNC, as some people call it. That's Democrat National Committee, but it's just by its news. And I think that these outlets have an obligation to be fair. And if they're fake news, I really think I have an obligation not to allow them into another very special house. This is a special house, Gracie mentioned. Well, the White House is the most special of all houses. I have to say, and I don't even think the mayor would argue with that.

28:49And I think I have an obligation not to let fake news. They're very bad for the country, very bad for national security. So I have that obligation. So we'll see how it works out. We'll see how it works out. President Trump's nod towards a forthcoming tussle in the courts are the legality of his ban. And even from those who count themselves as sympathetic to the Trump project, there does seem to be an unease about his move to stop certain news groups and gaining entry to the White House. Chris Ruddy is CEO of the Conservative Cable News Channel Newsmax. This is historic. This is without precedent. However, there have been previous presidents, including President Obama, then wanted to kick Fox News out. And he got a lot of pushback. President Kennedy way back when tried to kick a newspaper out. So there's there are precedents of this. And I can tell you back during the bind years, now we had seats at the White House during the bind years and during the Obama years. And we were treated pretty well. Newsmax. And we would be considered opposition press. However, the Democrats in Congress tried to get Newsmax and Fox

29:51News de platform from cable systems around the country. We forget that, you know, that there was an effort to remove the president and other conservative voices from major social media, Twitter and Facebook and others. That's also a dangerous threat to press freedom. So we need to think about the presidents. That's why Newsmax. We have opposed efforts at the White House, even though I'm a long time friend of the president. We have opposed efforts to restrict the press. We oppose the effort to kick the AP out. We did not sign the Pentagon. The Pentagon had a ridiculous statement that they were asking the press to sign. So on those type of things, we will disagree. I hope the president reconsideres his decision. I know, understand why he might think that might be justified. But at the end of the day, the first amendment in this country has very broad support of both parties. And I think the president's would be ill advised to continue after making such a strong point. Chris Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax. Professor Lucy Dalglish teaches

30:56media law and ethics at the University of Maryland's journalist school. Professor Dalglish, thank you for joining us here on Newsmax. Just briefly to begin, how strong a legal challenge, do you think these three news groups have? I think what's what we would call over here a slam don't. It's pretty clear that this is a violation of the first amendment, the fifth amendment to the US Constitution. And as we've seen, actually, as we saw in the previous Trump administration, the court will not let it stand. And it violates due process of law under our fifth amendment. And under the first amendment, it's pretty classic retaliation for content that was produced. And it's also viewpoint discrimination. So I would expect it would not take Judge Kelly more than, you know, a day to issue a restraining order. Were it to wind its way up to the Supreme Court? How far

31:58do you think that Donald Trump's argument, which will presumably hinge on him saying, you know, they're a national security threat because they're a hostile operation. I don't want them, you know, on on my turf so close to me that the Supreme Court justice might say, well, you know, the president retains a certain flexibility in how he can interpret national security. Well, the problem with that argument were to get that far as there's been no procedure here. There's it's been very arbitrary. There has been no finding a fact or an outline of what laws or description of what it was they were doing to threaten national security. And the things the president said over the last several days just show he just doesn't like what they say. And he's on record saying all of that. So it would not he would not be successful at the Supreme Court as things stand now. You said that when this first appears before, Judge, you don't imagine that

33:01this would take much more than a day to overturn. I mean, I wonder if it would the whole process will be quite that rapid given that we heard from Chris Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax saying that he supported the Associated Press in their legal case against Donald Trump when he he banned the wire service from participating in media events in the Oval Office and flying on Air Force One and other such things because they refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Well, that legal case, I mean, that was started last year. It's still wending its way. I mean, it's different. Right. Tell me how it's it's different in this way. The president has a right to control access to his office, the Oval Office. He has the right to decide who gets to fly on Air Force One. These journalists have what is called a White House hard pass. In other words, they have been thoroughly vetted and there is traditionally the right for them not to wander all over the White House,

34:02but in certain areas. So they all have the permission to do that if they have a hard pass. This is not saying you don't get to come into my private office, you don't get to come onto my airplane. This is saying, no, you're out of the entire White House who cares about your press pass. I don't like you. So I'm going to treat you differently from all the rest of your colleagues. That is what is part of the problem here. Professor Lucy Dalgley from the University of Maryland, journalist school, thank you very much. We don't often talk about the small Central American country Nicaragua, but that says a group of UN experts today should change because they say that the Nicaragua and government of co-presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Mourillo have in their words weaponized and forced disappearance to crush, to send and control the population. One of those UN experts is Reid Brody and an American human rights lawyer and joins us now. Reid, thank you

35:08very much for your time. Why do you think that political repression in Nicaragua has got to this point? Well, let's remember that Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Mourillo were co-presidents hold total control over the state, the police, the courts, the prisons under the Constitution adopted last year. The legislature and the judiciary are no longer even independent branch of government, but are organs controlled by the two co-presidents. So there is a total absence of debate of criticism. I mean, there are no opposition parties left. There's no independent press inside the country. There are no critical non-governmental organizations, thousands of organizations have been shut down. There's simply no space today in Nicaragua for anyone to disagree. No space, but nonetheless he clearly is seeing and his henchmen are seeing enemies all

36:12around because the levels of repression that you're talking about in terms of political prisoners then being scooped up and mistreated. I mean, it seems to be only growing. Well, the the the reaches growing. I mean, all the main political opponents, I mean, let's remember that when they had elections in 2021, every serious opposition candidate was thrown in jail. And since then, they've all been expelled from Nicaragua and stripped of their citizenship as have, virtually all the leaders in journalism, in lawyers and the like. So now they're really going after people who may have expressed criticism in the past. And now people are taken from their homes without a warrant. Their families are told nothing, not where they are, not why, not even whether they're still alive. And this report that was released today shows that those are increasing.

37:17There are 161 cases since 2018. 29 people are still missing. And we found that the government is responsible also for the deaths and custody of at least eight people held for political reasons, including the president's own brother, Emberto Ortega, and the indigenous mosquito leader, Brooklyn Rivera. And yet this is a government, I mean, just a couple of months ago, Daniel Nortega said the country will hold no further elections to prevent the opposition from coming to power. I mean, it feels like this is a government that is just behaving in a totally aren't way. And frankly, is not fast about, you know, what anybody outside and with the greatest respect, a group of UN experts might say, even if your report is forensic, I mean, he seems to be untroubled by all this. Sure. I mean, his announcement that there would be no competitive elections anymore was in a sense just being honest. I mean, the, as you say, the conditions for outfree elections in

38:20Nicaragua just do not exist. Well, in which case, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt. In which case, how do you think the outside world can change the weather inside Nicaragua? Well, we have found reasonable grounds to believe the crimes against humanity have been committed. We've even published the names of 56 Nicaragua officials allegedly involved. And obviously, as you say, nothing is going to happen inside the country. There's no court. There's no prosecutor left that can hold anyone to account. So it has to come from the outside. And so we're calling on countries to further economic individual sanctions, not something that's going to hurt the people as a whole. Taking Nicaragua to the International Court of Justice for stripping people of their citizenship, going to the International Criminal Court when its transnational repression has effects in other countries like when they expel 122 people to Guadalmau. We'll have to leave it there, but thank

39:24you very much indeed for joining us. Rebrody. This is Neuesaar, live from the BBC World Service. Lots of TV shows like to call themselves groundbreaking. But the series we're about to talk about pay tribute to really definitely broke new ground. In fact, was quite possibly unique. And it's about to come to an end. The final instalment airs later on today on the ITV network in Britain. Seven up first aired in 1964. It followed 14 British 70-olds from very different backgrounds. The idea was based on the Jesuit maxim. Give me a child until he has seven and I will give you the man. After that first program, a film crew returned every seven years to follow the same kids as teenagers and then adults until now. This, the final two programs with those still alive from the group now aged 70. It's the longest running documentary series in the world. It's been called the Bia Tapestry of TV. This was the sound of one of the children, Tony Walker talking on the program

40:27about finally fulfilling his life's ambition to become a professional horse-jockey. The recipe for its magic started with the film of Seven Up because Seven Up was a completely groundbreaking film and it was innovative in many ways. It was beautifully directed. It was a subject that nobody ever talked about and it had just children talking and it was the first film with no adults at all in it and just children talking. And from that point of view, it was completely revolutionary and so I think the magic was partly because it was a beautiful film, partly because the kids they chose were magical and the relationship with the camera that they all have whether they're the shy ones or the talkative ones is extraordinary and it's a magical film. Tony, for you, I mean, looking back now on that sort of that arc of your life. I mean, from that moment where you were the cheeky,

41:30chapy, seven-year-old onwards, I mean, what was it like for you seeing yourself captured in that way? I can still remember everything that happened on that day of Pu'am and Timu'er and Michael aptor being a researcher, taking us to sat in one with pictures. I can remember distinctly going into the studio to argue and share and then all the kids and it was an adventure that stayed in my mind even today and that sort of 63 years later. You put a huge amount of trust in them in a way because they are capturing your life in a way that will outlast any of us. Well, I often said the Michael B. General, with me and be truthful with me and I've... Michael was the original director. Michaelaptor, I've always emphasized to him before it was cut, be gentle with me and even that as ifca bodyer, I said to him prior to going into editing, I said just be gentle with me and make

42:34sure I come out with credibility like everyone else would want to come out with some credibility because you say things at the spur of the moment which is it's in the fashion that's 15, 20 years ago but when you come back to now what you said in say 21 years ago is not in fashion today. Claire, can I ask you, I mean, Tony's talked about maybe how attitudes have changed and the things that people say have changed. You've been involved in this amazing project for 42 years as you mentioned. Do you think that filmmaking has changed? Documentary making has changed over that time. Yes, definitely documentary filming has definitely changed. For example, when I joined the series which was at 28 up, documentary filming was quite straightforward. I'd been a news reporter and making news films for TV and I'd been telling the truth and editing and going out and talking to

43:38people and that was how it was when we made 28 up and 35 up and then suddenly things dramatically changed after 42 up with the advent of Big Brother. Big Brother, the channel 4 Big Brother, the original absolutely changed the landscape for television. All of a sudden normal people who might be your next door neighbors were all on the screen. They were being filmed and suddenly documentary filmmaking became different. People in documentary films begin to realise that they had a certain degree of power and control and actually it became very much more difficult to make truthful documentaries. People wanted to perform and they wanted to have scripts and that developed into the so-called reality TV. Tony, did you, did you all sort of sense of what was expected of you change or were

44:39you, I mean, did you, did you feel that actually, you know, it was just a, I don't mean to downplay it, but that it was actually, it was just a bit of a laugh. It was just an enjoyable thing to do every so often and there wasn't a sense of you thinking, I've now got a family, I've now got its grandkids. I need to, I need to be a responsible runner. I am, you mean, obviously at seven you see me as a kid excitable shoot from the hip. At 14 when I was under the auspices of being a apprentice jockey where it was regimental, I was a bit monosyllabic there, I was a yes, no answer, then after I left the racing at 21, I become sort of immature, same I thought at that particular time, it seemed like everyone had that sort of age sort of going through that process of being shy, being extra, you know, extroverted as an ages, come 28 when I was married and having my children,

45:40you could see a sensibility sort of step in there and you realised what you said on that programme will save review for the rest of your life and the responsibility you carry not just for yourself or your family, but for the people you represent because there's things there on visual that people can identify with when come 35, I'll have some appearance and everyone goes through that, there's sadness and gladness in various things whether it's passing certain things academia or whether it's a driving test or whatever and you know whatever it is, there's sadness and gladness in this programme and in my case, you know, I don't know, okay, I don't know if I'm a white, I've got my credibility back and that's all I really wanted. Do you think that if the opportunity you presented itself that you would have liked God willing to have carried on for it to be 77 or do you reckon 70 up is just a good time. I remember Michael talking to us that he'd like to go on to 99 with respect to Michael

46:45and I've always sort of wanted to as well, I mean you must understand, I mean all the production team was gone by from the same man to the George and everyone else, it's like a family to me, I mean so it might sound cool, but it's true, I've picked most of the cast up, I've picked most of the production team up in various ways. In the back of your cab. In my back of my cab, you know, it just driving around London and I often pick clear up now and again, you know, so everyone is sort of an arms length even now. Tony Walker talking to me, as did Claire Lewis, key members of that extraordinary documentary series that's just about to come to an end. From all of us on News Air, thanks very much for your company.