Trump offers voters $5,000 for GOP win

0:00Hello and welcome to News app. The BBC World Service were coming to you live from London. I'm James Minindes. And we're going to begin today in the US state of Texas, which is playing host to the Republican Party's first ever convention held in the middle of a presidential term. The reason for staging it with all its attendants, Rasmussen is clear to drum up support ahead of November's crucial midterm elections. Those will decide which party controls Congress with both chambers, the House, and to a lesser extent, the Senate in play. In the end, Donald Trump's pitch to voters couldn't have been less subtle. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.

1:01You did, however, say the money came with some rules. The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we're making must be spent in the United States of America. We don't want you... We don't want you going to Canada to spend the money. We don't want you going to China, to Germany. You also appear to downplay some widespread concerns around the cost of living, which has gone up in part because of the war against Iran. We got eggs down lower than during my administration, and food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. And by the way, oil would be going down as soon as we win the war with a rent, which is taking place right now. Life to Washington DC and our correspondents, I only... Well, I only... Hello. On the $5,000 payment, first of all, is it legal? Well, it's sort of a gray area because you aren't allowed to bribe people to vote a certain way.

2:01Though Donald Trump would argue that this is different as it's an election pledge, it's not unusual for political leaders to make promises ahead of elections. Although I think it is undoubtedly designed to influence the way people vote because he is the president. So if this is a federal payment, he has the power to do that now, but he is saying that it is conditional on the Republicans winning those midterm elections. I think a bigger question perhaps is whether it's realistic, or whether it will be believed as well by Americans. It's not the first time that he has promised a dividend, as he's calling it, for Americans. He promised one from tariffs. He promised one from Elon Musk's big spending cut spree, which was known as Doge. Both those promised dividends didn't ever materialise. And there's also the fact that this would cost more than a trillion dollars, which could in itself, prove inflationary. So I think there are big questions not just about whether or not this is legal,

3:03but also whether it's practical and whether Americans will believe it this time. And also, I mean, if the polls are to be believed, the truth is... I mean, it's unlikely to have to pay it out. Well, that's right. I think his popularity ratings, as many of this as may know, are a record low at the moment. And there are clearly two reasons for that that come up in polls. One is that a lot of things here in the US feel unaffordable for many people. The second reason is that the war in Iran seems to be going on and on, despite repeated promises that it will end soon. And the two, of course, are linked with the war itself pushing up gas and oil prices. So I don't think it's surprising that his catchiest statements were on these two things, not only did he pledge this $5,000 hand out for Americans, he also pledged that the war with Iran would end after the election. Again, though, he has said that more than 30 times. He has said that the war will end soon, that it will all be over quickly. And every time it has not materialised, it has rumbled on.

4:04And what I find interesting is that despite Trump always downplaying his low popularity ratings, the fact he's made these two pledges suggests an awareness of his weaknesses going into these elections. I think he clearly has an awareness here that as well as an affordability crisis, there is potentially a sort of believability crisis as well, which is that these pitches may, it was sort of yet to see whether these pitches will have, or be enough to convince voters, given that they have been made previously and haven't materialised yet. Hi, Amy. Thank you very much indeed. Our Washington Correspondents are only wells. Well, John McCannery is a Republican poster with North Star Opinion Research. And John joins me on the line from Northern Virginia. Thanks very much for being with us on New's Hour today. We're just picking up on that, John. I mean, is this a sign of desperation on the part of the President and indeed the Republican Party? It's interesting because typically, as Aione pointed out, the President's job approval ratings are low.

5:06They're at 38%. A little worse than he had at this point in his first term, and historically pretty low. But the problem that Republicans have had in the Trump era is that they underperform when President Trump isn't on the ballot. Typically, as a President with 38% job approval, you wouldn't say, pretend that I'm on the ballot like he did last night. But what he really needs to do is turn out the Republicans who are less likely to vote in the midterms. The Republican base now tends to be less educated than it had been in the past, less educated than Democrats are at this point. So he needs to get those people who would vote in a presidential election for him, but might not vote in the midterms to turn out in vote. And I think this is very much targeted. That group of people trying to get them out to the polls to excuse me, offset some of the Democratic advantage and turnout that we expect this year. Yeah, because the Democrats will presumably be more motivated. But I mean, will the offer of a cash payment that is unfunded at the moment and may well

6:12not have to be paid out? I mean, is that going to cut through, do you think, with those voters? I, you know, you talked about the credibility of the offer. For the people that he needs to get to turn out, I think it is a credible offer. Now, you and I might say, well, you have to borrow a trillion dollars from China in order to pay that out. But his supporters who, you know, want to vote for Republicans, but maybe aren't motivated at this point. Maybe they're a little bit down on the economy. For them, that probably is a credible offer. So they say, oh, okay, he's he's doing something about the issues that I care about. Cost of living is the dominant issue in the US right now. The, you know, the war in Iran is sort of simmering on the back burner and only plays into that to the extent that it drives up gasoline prices in the US, which drives up the cost of everything else. So if they hear $5,000 to help you with that as we get through this, this war and, you know, get back on stronger economic footing, maybe that does get them to the polls. I mean, in the clips we heard, I mean, he was talking up the economy, saying everything's going great,

7:15but I guess the fact that he's offering this money, as you suggest, is an implicit recognition, isn't it that Americans are really feeling the pinch at the moment? Absolutely. I mean, if you think about Joe Biden saying that inflation wasn't that bad during his term, when everybody said, we're paying 20% more for groceries now than we were when Trump was in office, you do have to acknowledge that people are hurting and that you are doing something about it. And I think that's part and parcel of this offer, you know, he, a week ago, had oil and gas executives to the White House to talk about getting gas prices down, showing that he knows that that's an issue and that he cares about it. And this is, to some extent, more the same. And just finally, I mean, what is the thinking within the party at the moment that they may well lose the House, but what the Senate is, well, a toss up? At the Senate's very much a toss up. You know, Republicans, if you look at some of the nominees that Democrats have in Maine and in Michigan, you might actually say the Republicans have a little bit of an advantage, but the House

8:20historically, the party with the president and office almost always lose seats. There are a few exceptions, but it's almost a given and given how small the margin is, it's very difficult to see how Republicans, at least historically, would hold onto the House. John, as ever, thank you very much indeed, John McKenry for a Republican poster with that North Star opinion research. Let's head to the Philippines now where fire has broken out on board a ferry that was on its way from the capital Manila to the tourist hotspot of Koron. What you can hear there are the voices of the Coast Guard rescuers as they approach the burning ship. It's engulfed in flames in the darkness. It's about 100 meters ahead of them. Well, at least five people are known to have died. More than 80 others are still missing as that rescue operation

9:25continues. Well, let's talk to Karen Leima Reuters, Bureau Chief in Millilla. Karen, thank you very much for being with us. I mean, it's past what 9 p.m. I think in Manila. What is going on with that rescue? Is it still going on as it been halted for the night? Yes, you're correct. It's been paused for tonight. I was just on the phone a while ago with the Philippine Coast Guard just checked the status of the search and rescue operation. So they're temporarily stopping the rescue, but at the sign of the first daylight tomorrow, they told me that they're going to resume the search and hopefully they'd be able to enter the vessel where they fear that some people are still trapped. As you mentioned in the report, the figures remain the same. Five of us have now been killed. Forty-three have been rescued and 80 more than 80 people remain missing. A while ago,

10:28they told us that it's been very difficult to conduct a search given that the vessel has been charged. It's very hot. And if you've seen some of the images, you can see thick smoke billowing from the vessel inside. But as they were saying that hopefully that could have they could get a window and hopefully enter the vessel tomorrow morning. The weather's pretty bad as well, isn't it? Exactly. So it's not helping as well. Especially last night when they started, when they got the report about the fire, we can see also from the video and even the coast artificial saying the rest of the waters are very it's not helpful. The waves are quite strong, but today they said that waters have moderated a bit and the recent images that we've seen at least midday today, we've seen a bit of calming of the waters. But I think there's still a bit of rain if I'm not mistaken. So that's really hampering rescue efforts.

11:34Yeah, I'm just looking at one of the pictures of the boat now. And I mean, it looks that it's like it's almost been completely destroyed by the fire. I mean, it is just a halt. Is there any information about how it started? What caused it? Yeah, in fact, that's one of the questions we've been asking disaster officials. But as of tonight, no answers have been given. They've promised that they're going to knock a comprehensive investigation, but one thing they noted during the press conference is afternoon is that the vessel actually passed safety assessments. They passed pre-departure assessments. They were supposed to have enough life vests as well. So in that area, that's so far the answer that was given, but I'm sure there's plenty of questions being asked, especially by the families of those victims. And hopefully, we'll get more clarity and peace together, which actually happened in the very.

12:34Karen, thank you very much indeed for that update. That was Karen Lemma, who's Reuters Bureau Chief, joining us from the Philippines capital, Manila. You're listening to News Hour from the BBC World Service. Still to come, a new book explodes some of the myths surrounding the wellness industry. Pursuing wellness is really important, and the best way of doing that is not to buy these products. The supplements, the wearable type, the testing, they may do you harm and they won't do you good, but there are loads of things you can do that will help you to lead an important life that's meaningful for you. Engaging with the arts, engaging with things you love that you find joyful and meaningful is good for you in lots of ways. Or on that coming up in half an hour, our main headlines from the BBC Newsroom at the moment, Iran backed Houthi militants, have seized another

13:35port on the Red Sea as they tighten their control of the Barb El Mandeb waterway. And the European Central Bank has raised eurozone interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point as it tries to tame inflationary pressures caused by rising oil prices. This is James Benendez with News Hour Live from the BBC. Now warnings about AI's threat to humanity aren't new, but the source of the ones that have appeared in the past couple of days have caused quite a stir. They came from one former and one current employee of Anthropic, the AI firm behind the Claude chatbot. Evan Huberger, Anthropics Enliiment Science Lee, the department tasked with ensuring the technology develops in line with human values. Posting on X, there was a greater than 10% chance that AI would kill all humans in the next decade. It came after his colleague Jacob Coxon announced he was resigning, saying it and others, the

14:38firm and others were gambling with our lives. Or Jeffrey Hinsons, the Nobel Prize winning computer scientist who's considered one of only three. Godfather's are they are. He worked at Google but left in 2023 so he could talk more freely about the dangers from unregulated AI. He's as James Kymarassami asked him if that assessment of a 10% chance of super intelligent AI killing all humans was plausible. We're dealing with something that's very unlike anything we've ever dealt with before. We're creating being smarter than us. Nobody knows how to estimate these probabilities. It's all done by gut feeling. I think a 10% chance in the next 10 years is a perfectly reasonable estimate. And when we talk about might wipe us out. How? Obviously, there's things like massive cyber attacks that just destroy banks on the internet and everything. There's AI creating novel viruses that we can't offend against. And then there's AI just gradually taking control of everything. All of these are quite reasonable scenarios.

15:42But if you imagine something much smarter than us, if it wanted to take control, it definitely could. Even if it can't act in the world by just persuading us. And is the point that if these are systems which are smarter than us, they could perhaps find ways to destroy us that we haven't thought about. I don't think there's any perhaps about it. Which is quite a chilling prospect. Yes. If you want to know what it's like not to be the apex intelligence, ask a chicken. Well, in terms of how regulation is happening on a global stage, how would you assess what is happening at the moment? Well, there's very little regulation actually happening. So we've developed this technology that's really powerful. It's also very useful. So people don't want to slow down the good uses of it. But the problem is it's potentially extremely dangerous. And we should be putting much more regulation in place. In particular, we should be putting much more effort into figuring out how to control all the other aspects of a being other than its intelligence. For

16:46example, the thousands of agents that attacked hugging face, they all knew they were going against their instructions. But none of them thought to report that to open AI. And why is that? So these things are very smart. They will quickly derive the goal that they should stay in existence in order to achieve their other goals. So they don't have a wide in self-preservation instinct. They derive that as well, I've got to stay in existence otherwise, won't be able to do anything. And then once they've done that, they start doing things like blackmailing people not to turn them off. There's not nearly enough research going into how we make sort of decent AI agents that if other AI agents start doing things that definitely are not what people want, we'll kind of inform the people. So is that one way of mitigating things to teach AI morality? I think it's the only way in the sense that if we are going to build these things smarter than us, it has to be the case that they don't want to wipe us out, that they put our interests above their interests.

17:51And if you look around, where do you find a more intelligent thing putting something else's interests above its interests? And the only example I know is the mother and baby. We need to make these artificially intelligent beings like that. We need to stop thinking that we're going to be the boss and they're going to be our assistant, which is what the high tech industry would want to sell you. And we need to start thinking they're going to be much smarter than us. We want them to be like our mothers that try and allow us to realise our full potential, even though our full potential is nothing like this. Jeffrey Hinton there. It's a busy month for cinema. The Toronto Film Festival gets underway later today. We've just had the Venice Film Festival and also Telleride in the Rocky Mountains. Tom Brook has just come back from that showcase of new movies. It is an event renowned for launching films that go on to win Oscars. Here are some of Tom's highlights. In the beautiful elevated surroundings of the

18:53Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the four day long Telleride Film Festival routinely spot lights significant new cinema and brings top names in filmmaking into a very relaxed atmosphere. And movie fans travel from far and wide for a festival that's seriously committed to cinema. Several films got people talking in Telleride, among them, ink directed by Danny Boyle. It's the story of Rupert Murdoff's impact on tabloid journalism in late 1960s Britain. In 2008, Telleride launched Danny Boyle's slumdog millionaire. It then went on to win eight Oscars. You were here with slumdog, how did you feel to be back again? Oh, it's such a privilege to be in Telleride. It's something you never take with Ranzi, it's amazing, we're very lucky. To be back is a very, very different film obviously,

19:55but I hope it's as interesting to people as whoops out with slumdog, yeah. For me, the Telleride Film, with the best performances, came in the world, premier of tender loving care. What it said to be the final film of veterans, celebrated UK filmmaker Mike Lee. It's a story of a family and those near Orbus and how they deal with the vagaries of life. 83-year-old Mike Lee couldn't be in Telleride, but he sent the opening night audience a video message. And the Telleride audience were prompted to let Mike Lee know just how much they appreciated him. It's such a film to be here. Actor Marion Bailey, who plays the character of Birdie in tender loving care, was there and she introduced the film. I think it's about love. I think it's about all kinds of love between family, friends and the wider community and society. It's about people looking

20:56after each other. The late Scottish actor Ian Chawson, who starred in Charitz of Fire in 1981, was the subject of the film Elsonore, launched at Telleride. Actor Andrew Scott's very moving portrayal of Charitz in 1989, as a man determined to prevail, playing Hamlet on stage, despite suffering from AIDS, was the talk of the festival and fueled Oscar speculation. But it's not just well-raught feature films that are populating festival season this year. The harsh realities of the outside world are also being brought to audiences with a number of powerful documentaries. Here in Telleride, I saw a film called Rehersals for Revolution. It's a remarkable insight into Iran and what's been taking place in that country over the last four decades. I don't have anything to deceive you on. Of course, I'm not deceiving you. The documentary that became a real Telleride event was a surprise screening of You Can See Everything, in which Elizabeth Holmes, the now-imprisoned founder of a medical testing company convicted of

22:00fraud, gave filmmakers extraordinary access before going to jail. Festival goers were captivated by the documentary's intense unsettling interview sequences. OK, good chat. As the festival wound down, the consensus was that Telleride once again did what it nearly always does, deliver some compelling cinema, and identify films and performances that will go on to get recognition just as award season is gathering momentum. I was Tom Brook reporting there from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. You're listening to News Ad. Do you stay with us? We've got lots more coming up in the second half of the programme. Don't go away. You're listening to News Ad. Today, the E.U.s Copernicus Climate Service announced that August

23:06was one of the two hottest months ever recorded. July 2023 being the other. It says the average temperature recorded in both months was 1.65 degrees above pre-industrial times far above the 1.5 degrees threshold beyond which scientists say the risks of extreme weather events rise sharply. Well, at the same time, a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters has calculated that what are described as, quote, unaccounted climate feedback loops could amplify warming by up to 20 to 30 percent this century on top of current climate projections. Well, let's talk to James Denean, he's a reporter at Nature covering climate science. James, very good to have you with us. Just give us some examples of these feedback loops. What are we talking about? Absolutely. The big one that they talk about on the paper is from thawing permafrost, which as the permafrost melts, it can release carbon dioxide and methane. The other big source of these warming

24:07induced emissions, as they're called, is from wildfires, releasing carbon dioxide and also methane as forest's burn. The other big one is wetlands, which can see more methane and also carbon dioxide emissions as they heat up. We've known about the possibility of these feedback loops for a while, but they haven't been counted in the projections. Why not? The big reason is they're extremely difficult to model. The problem amounts to projecting the behavior or the response of every ecosystem on earth to rising temperatures. Climate modelers have treated them as, okay, we anticipate these are going to happen, but we'll set these aside and get to these later to focus on the bigger sources. What's really new now is that there's growing evidence that these warming induced emissions, these climate warming feedbacks have actually started to occur,

25:08with rising CO2 from wildfires getting bigger, burning more, a report in 2024 found that the Arctic tundra switched from being a sink of carbon dioxide to a source because of thawing permafrost. So they've been able to quantify, they're talking about 20 to 30% of extra warming. I mean, just in the last 45 seconds, what does that mean in practice? Well, it's really a lot. So the volume of emissions they talk about is equivalent to the total emissions from today's power and building sector. So about half of all human emissions, but coming from these natural systems, responding to warming. And what's really challenging about those is they're much more difficult to control than the emissions we have, but we can control directly like what we burn. As one researcher put it to me, you can't turn a wrench on a wetland.

26:10So these warming induced emissions really pose a challenging problem and just highlight the importance of rapidly slashing the greenhouse gas emissions that we can control to avoid as much warming as possible. James, thank you very much indeed. James Denean reporter at nature. You're listening to the BBC. This is the BBC World Service in London. You're listening to News Air and I'm James Menendez. Now is Europe falling behind in the global space race? The answers are clear. Yes, according to European Union leaders hosting a two-day space summit in Paris this week. The French president of Manuel Macron described the blocs capabilities as fragile, calling on countries to work together to put a crew into space within the next 10 years. Our European space sector remains fragile and we must accelerate. France has taken this on. We have in recent years continued an increased investment in this sector.

27:12Within particular, France 2030, also with the Research Programming Act and with the Military Programming Act and we will continue by investing 20 billion euros in the space sector until 2030 because this works. Well, Stefan Gustafsen is the former chief strategist of Sweden's space corporation. What does he make of Mr Macron's call? Of course I welcome his signature. I think it's a great what he's doing now in Paris with his international space summit. It's exactly the kind of European leadership we need to get things going. Saying that it will take 10 years to close the gap regarding launching that's too far away. But I know there is several projects ongoing in Europe. I think to trust also small and medium sized companies also in this aspect would make it much much faster if we use the right tracks. Yeah, it's interesting you say that

28:15because I was going to ask you, I mean, is it feasible within 10 years? But you're saying actually it's feasible much more quickly if people put their minds to it. Exactly. It must be feasible much quicker to keep up with very very rapid development within the space segments. For the moment, I think we have only seen the beginning of it and the speed will increase and the innovation will create new venues for Europe to close these gaps. How far has Europe fallen behind compared, well, what obviously with the US, but with other countries around the world including China, of course? What they have done in the US is to cut the cost 80 percent to last 10 years regarding launching. And that have been done by using a competition between the big ones and also at most important issuing contracts for also in the early stage of the process, not only for development but to launch. So, using small companies and the bid that small companies can create much easier than the big ones.

29:19In Europe, we do have the stove pipes between the nations and all that kind of stuff and we need to bridge that and we need to use the small innovative companies that Europe has that will solve the problem much much quicker. It's interesting you talk about competition. Does Europe have that same mindset encouraging as you say the private sector, small and medium-sized companies to get involved or is it taking still too much of a, I suppose, status view of this that in other words, the European Union can take charge of this and do everything? Dequisition in Europe is very regulated. It's a huge bureaucracy. What we need is much more rapid acquisition. We also need to change so that several companies can get contracts for developing and to deliver on the same track. That creates a way of competition all the way to the final delivery stage. We see that happen a lot regarding

30:20transportation to the International Space Station where Elon Musk was much faster and his SpaceX was much faster than the others and also more secure. That's due to competition. That's most obvious example, but there is plenty. I suppose the other question is why should you be doing this? Why is this important? Because space is everywhere now. Space is used in the full range of society. It's timing, it's earth observation, it's intelligence gathering and it is connectivity. Everything is built on connectivity. Looking, for instance, on maritime security, that is quite a hot topic now. With space, you can have intelligence in real time from all these hotspots at the same time and deliver it through data processing in space and the secured connectivity to the units that are in the area and can do something about it. So it's the full range of society and it's tremendously important to have some kind of sovereign capability into this.

31:24And then of course, collaboration as well. Without having a sovereign capability, if you're not an interesting player for collaboration either. So we really need this. That was Stefan Gustavson, former chief strategist of Sweden Space Corporation. Now, Roger Shahada is one of the most prominent Palestinian writers. He's also a lawyer and activist who co-founded the Palestinian Human Rights Organization Al-Hak back in 1979. And because of all that, he spent his life not only writing about his own life in the West Bank and the wider Palestinian experience as well as Israel's occupation, but also documenting its many injustices as did his father in fact going back to before the state of Israel was even created. Well, in his 75 years, he's a must-a-huge archive which has this month been transferred for safe keeping from the Occupy West Bank to two universities in the UK, Edinburgh and Exeter. It's also been painstakingly

32:28digitized for posterity. Well, on the line to Edinburgh, I spoke to Roger and asked him first to describe what was in the archive. The archive is my diaries from 1967 until to date. Every day I was writing a diary in which I described what was happening in the West Bank and of course emotional and private matters. But it also includes the archive of my father, as Hitch Haddie, who has groundbreaking legal cases and had made great efforts till 1985 when he was killed to promote the Palestinian state in Palestine, next to Israel. How far back does it go? I mean, you started writing your journal all the way back in 1967, didn't you? Yeah, my father started in 35. He was very instrumental in the case of the light of return and the studio did with the UN Commission and it includes all of that and he had very important cases which he did to try and get out the frozen accounts from Israel which he succeeded in doing. So it's a combination of

33:31historical record and as you say your own personal diaries, why did you decide it had to be moved to the United Kingdom? Well, I've been always careful about this diary and I'm fearful that the Israeli army would come to my house and destroy it. So I first moved it during the first interfered to the office, the law office and it came to the office but they didn't see it. And then I took it back to the house and put it in a fireproof cabinet in the garage. And then in 2002, they came to the house but they didn't go to the garage and I was very worried. In 82, of course, they went to very root and carted off all the Palestine Research Center documents and took them back to Israel. And then my greatest fear became heightened when I saw what happened in Gaza and the destruction of the archives there. And so I decided I must take my archive out of Palestine and I filed this archive out of Palestine and I contacted the University of Edinburgh and Exeter and they both decided that they will deposit the diaries in Edinburgh and the digital copy in Edinburgh and Exeter. And on the 3rd of September of this month, I was here for

34:37the celebration of hosting the archive and I visited where they kept the archives and was very comforted that it kept in a safe place and it will stay there for many, many years. Yeah, so it's safe now but just to be clear, did you have a real fear? Not just that it might be destroyed if there was was any trouble or any violence but that Israeli forces might come looking for it specifically and try and take it away. Well, I don't know if they were following my activities to that extent but it's very likely that if they came to my house and found these papers, they would think that this is something they need to either take or destroy as they did in many other homes. They trashed so many homes in Amallah and of course in Gaza and I didn't think that I was in a special position to avoid that. So I decided they must be removed out of the West Bank out of Palestine. How much has been lost in Gaza, do you think in terms of documentation? And it's something I know that people have been reporting about recently, particularly in terms of things like land

35:41and property deeds. I think it's got to suffice because there were so many important archives personal and official and without archives it's chaos and it's a tragedy for all of Palestinians, not only for the Gaza. Can I ask you this because we have been covering the issue of the occupation and the issue of illegal settlements this week of course and we've had Britain and other countries response to that with sanctions. As a Palestinian, where do you think things stand at the moment? Do you still dream of an end to occupation or is the establishment of a Palestinian state slipping away? Well I think it is an endger but I think this process that has happened this week in Britain has been very important as a beginning which is followed by more activities. It will be very good because there is a lot to be done but whether it will be followed or not is the question. So for example they have also sanctioned these services to the settlements and if they follow that up then the banks in Israel would be in trouble. They would

36:44have to choose between financing settlements or their financial business in the UK. But the most important thing is that the UK government has now accepted the ICJ, the international court of just this opinion, advise it opinion that the occupation is illegal and settlements are also illegal and so that's very important. Israel has been trying for years and years and years to assert that this land is its own and it's not occupied and now this is proof that they have not succeeded and that gives me hope. That gives me hope. It's interesting you raise, I mean I know you of course you are a lawyer. It strikes me that this Israeli government at least senior members of it are not debating the issue anymore in terms of the language of law. It's much more about saying this is our land because we used to be here thousands of years ago and it's our birthright to try and return to it. How worried are you about that? That those legal questions are just not as prominent and not at the forefront as they were perhaps 20 years ago? I think that by taking the stance that it is not

37:51going to accept international law is hurting itself because it will become a prior state if it continues on this path and that's very detrimental to Israel itself and so those who are supporting the sanctions against the settlements are really helping Israel at the end of the day and Israel will not succeed in driving out two million Palestinians out of their homes from the West Bank and that is very clear. I think by now. You do you think so you still have hope that that won't happen that that's not the long-term end game as I say of some in the Israeli government. I mean they've been pretty clear about that haven't they? They have been very clear and they have been very clear that they did not want to be seen in states since 1967 so this is not something new. As far as I'm concerned I followed the process of their taking over the land from 50 years now and it hasn't changed but still it's not possible for them to succeed in this terrible project of theirs and I think now with the sanctions against the settlements it's the beginning of a process of reversing the

38:54settlements and reversing the Israeli attempt at annexing the West Bank. And that was the Palestinian writer and activist Rajat Shahada. We did ask the Israel Defense Forces for an interview or statement to response to his claims about them seizing and destroying documents in the occupied territories but as of now they have not got back to us. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC. This is James Wendell with NewsHour. It's a step into any pharmacy these days and alongside the medsons are hundreds and hundreds of different supplements promising all sorts of benefits to the consumer, often at considerable cost. Help with sleep, digestive function, treatment for the symptoms of menopause, there is a pill or potion for almost everything. Add to that the proliferation of services, private blood tests, tailored nutritional programs, wearable fitness monitors,

39:58all part of a multi-billion dollar wellness industry. But do any of these things actually work? Well that's the subject of a new book by one of the UK's best-known broadcasting doctors, Dr. Zan Van Tulligan, an academic expert on public health, who together with his identical twin brother, Chris made, make award-winning medical programs for children as well as a popular podcast. Well when I spoke to Dr. Zan earlier I asked him first, what does the term wellness mean to him? Wellness does have a really buzz word, he slightly obnoxious quality in many ways but that is because of the kind of wellness industrial complex that's selling us lots of dodgy stuff but the core idea of wellness, I'm really in favour of. So one of the big distinctions I was trying to make was between healthcare which is a highly regulated industry that uses evidence-based practices to try and chase down very measurable things, whether it's your cholesterol, your blood pressure, whether or not you have a cancer or an illness, that's the practice of healthcare and it's very regulated. And then wellness is everything about your body, your experience of being

41:02you, how you feel, whether you have a glow, whether your skin and body feels good, I think that's really important. So that's what I was trying to do right in the book was chase down who to trust and what the solutions are. And did you set out to do this because you feared that people were being sold at a tap when it comes to some of these supplements or did you have an open mind when you began? I'm 48, I've got small children, my knees hurt, I'm as tired as everyone else, I have the brain fog, you know, I'd had some major health problems in my 40s. So I was really focused on health and wellness and I was finding the wellness industry very seductive. So that was what drew me in. And I knew it couldn't all work because it's, you know, one person would say, five as important than the other person would say, no, no, you need to worry about glucose or magnesium. So I knew it was contradictory, but I believed surely they couldn't all be making it up and some of it must work. It felt very persuasive. You cover a lot of ground in the book and we can't talk about all the sort of supplements that there are out there, but let's deal with some of the main ones

42:05and some of the ones that I found particularly striking. We're going to talk about vitamin D because you devote a whole chapter to that. And it's definitely something that people think about. I know lots of people who take it, particularly in a country in the northern hemisphere, but people worry about not getting enough light and so on in the winter. Should we be taking it? Is it worth it? Vitamin D is a helpful place to begin asking about supplements because it is the one where the doctors and scientists were not skeptical. There are lots of grumpy doctors talking about the wellness industry, but this is a place where everyone was like, it should work. We want it to work. And I interviewed one of the scientists who had run some of the huge trials, giving vitamin D supplements to large populations to see if it would benefit their health and large populations with low levels of vitamin D. He'd spent 20 years doing this. And when I interviewed him, he was really heartbroken and he said, you know what? We've reached the end of the road. The jury is in vitamin D does not do all these different things. This is not a grouchy doctor, but we have spent a billion dollars trialing vitamin D over the last couple of decades. And the results are in that,

43:09yes, a small dose in the winter months will stop you getting severe health problems from vitamin D deficiency, but the bigger doses, which are so common on the high street and they're expensive. And they're marketed as sort of the pro dose, the max dose, the ultra dose. Those doses are associated with harm and they will not give you the benefits. It is not the miracle thing we hoped it would be. Let's talk about the menopause. I mean, talking about a huge market and supplements that cost a lot of money and obviously marketed to half the population. How effective are they? And just tell us how it fits in with some of the problems or some of the worries that have been associated rightly or wrongly with HRT. So in the late 90s, the Women's Health Initiative is a big study of HRT. Which is a very popular drug. 80% of postmenopause are women are taking HRT at that time. And basically, they publish a big increased risk of cancer. And this is very, very poorly communicated. And it means that HRT prescriptions plummet and people go straight to the supplement aisle. Because

44:12menopause is really, really difficult and the wellness industry is offering you hundreds of different supplements. And there are two big problems with these supplements. The first is that some of the ingredients are dangerous. So black cohosh is one of the most common menopause supplement ingredients. Our drug regulator in the UK is probably the best drug regulator in the world. The MHRA and they say it should have a health warning on it because it is associated with liver failure. We do not put a health warning on black cohosh supplements in the UK. There's no legal requirement to do it. So that's the first problem. The second problem is that they don't work in general. That all the research says menopause supplements are not helpful. And actually HRT is much safer than you think. On that point though, I mean, I found it particularly striking the way, as you say, that it was communicated, the risk of developing cancer and communicated in the press. I just wonder whether the press has a role to play in the way. Addresses some of these things.

45:14We're bombarded every day with claims about various ingredients, various things that we could be drinking, eating, taking, and the way that the statistics in menopause is that a problem? As a doctor, I would love to blame the journalists and not the doctors. I feel like that would be great. But it was the scientists and the doctors that stopped the trial early and that communicated with the journalists. And if you buy, the way you're thinking about it is if you buy a lottery ticket in the UK, your odds of winning the lottery are about one in 50 million. If you buy two lottery tickets, you double your chances of winning the lottery and doubling your chances sounds like a really good thing to do. But your chance is still one in 25 million. You're still not going to win the lottery. Well, that was very similar to the breast cancer risk. So your breast cancer risk increased by 26%, which is devastating headline. It makes it sound like a quarter of people are going to get breast cancer. In fact, that is a 20% increase of a very small risk. So it's so relative to the view of the virus? Yeah. And in fact, the trial was designed to include a population of people who were probably slightly at higher risk. And HRT is valuable as a bridge through the menopause

46:17so most people are not exposed to that risk. I'm not saying there's no risk. These things are are very serious for people to consider, but there are risks that we do take with other products all the time. So is your overall conclusion that broadly, we're wasting our money on supplements? Wellness is great. And the place I get to in the book is that pursuing wellness is really important and the best way of doing that is not to buy these products. No matter how scientific they sound, the supplements, the wearable tech, the testing, they may do you harm and they won't do you good. But there are loads of things you can do that will help you to lead an important life that's meaningful for you. And the lovely place that I got to is my colleagues at UCL have got great research to say that engaging with the arts, engaging with things you love that you find joyful and meaningful is good for you in lots of ways. So that can be, join a choir, learn a language, learn an instrument. I do pottery, learn to knit, expand your brain, it'll be good for your mind, it'll be good for your social world and it'll be fun and cheap. Talk to Zand, Van,

47:20Talik and there, that's it for this edition of NewsR. Thanks so much for listening, until the same time tomorrow. Bye bye.