Artemis II successfully flies by Moon's far side

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts Hello and welcome to News Hour Live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kezby. Coming up on the programme today, we're getting reports that the terminal for much of Iran's oil exports on Kharg Island has been hit by several U.S. strikes within the past hour or so. The Iranian state news agency and multiple U.S. media outlets are reporting that we're keeping a close eye on events and will bring you the latest. President Trump has also been posting new threats on social media in the past few minutes, including saying that a whole civilisation will die tonight unless Iran agrees to a deal. We'll have more on that to come. Also this half hour, the English football fan who's now watched a match at every league and non-league venue in the country. I've been to 5,805 football matches and that includes 2,688 different football grounds which embraces the entire National League system because I did the last non-league ground on Easter Monday at Forward Amity's. More on that to come, but first to some historic news for the whole of humankind. Because the crew of the Artemis 2 moon mission are homeward bound and due to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, splashing down somewhere in the Pacific Ocean later this week, their historic lunar flyby successfully completed. Their space capsule passed on the far side of the moon, putting it out of radio contact for about 40 minutes. It's the furthest humans have been into space for more than 50 years and this was the moment they lost contact with planet Earth. And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you from the moon. Houston copies, we'll see you on the other side. Well it was an anxious 40 minutes for the control room in Houston as the astronauts went behind the moon no longer visible from Earth and then contact was restored. Houston, integrity, calm check. Integrity, we have you loud and clear, humming. Houston, we have you the same and it is so great to hear from Earth again. Well following their record achievement, the world heard from Canadian space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen aboard the spacecraft. Yeah from the cabin of integrity here as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation in the next to make sure this record is not long lived. The crew spent much of the night recording impressions of what they'd seen on the other side of the moon including this description from Artemis pilot Victor Glover. This was his description of what's known as the terminator, the dividing line between the illuminated and dark hemispheres of the moon. There's just so much magic in the terminator, the islands of light, the valleys that would look like black holes, you'd fall straight to the center of the moon. If you stepped in some of those it's just so visually captivating that the terminator is the most striking thing that I've seen so far. Victor Glover also recorded what it was like to see a spectacular solar eclipse. It is bright and the earth shine is very distinct and it creates quite an impressive visual illusion. Wow, it's amazing. Well Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell is one of the only people, only one of three to have been to the moon twice and he recorded this message for the Artemis 2 crew just about two months or so before he died last year in August and the message was played to the astronauts. I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon and play the groundwork for missions to the Mars, for the benefit of all. It's a historic day and it will help busy you'll be but don't forget to enjoy the view. Well the Artemis 2 mission as I say is now on its way back to Earth with thinking it will re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime around Friday, Eastern time. Quite an emotional day then yesterday for the crew, the ground team in Houston and space watchers everywhere but what have we learned from all of this? I'm delighted to say we're joined now live by Dr Nikki Fox, NASA's head of science. Welcome to the programme. Thank you so much. Well congratulations on the mission. What are the big takeaway scientifically speaking? Oh golly, I'm not sure I even got my head around what they are right now. I'm sure there's going to be so many. I'm dying to go in this morning and take a look at some of those high resolution images that we've downloaded overnight. I've seen a couple of them online this morning that look really spectacular but I think for me it was the benefit of having humans in these missions. Obviously we do amazing missions at NASA. We send spacecraft into areas that humans couldn't go, the atmosphere of the sun, distant planets but actually to hear Victor describing some of those observations that he was making with his eyes and the ability to do quick comparisons across the lunar surface that you can do with a human because we have amazing eyes that are linked to amazing brains and we're powered by curiosity. That sort of ability as he described the terminator and you heard that in the clip before and intellectually I think of it as a straight line because there's a straight line between dark and light but when you're actually looking at the lunar surface with all of the craters and the different features there and he talked about some of them looking like black holes, some of them having these really jagged, sharp edges and kind of getting to see the moon through his eyes in real time was really quite spectacular. Yeah the detail has been amazing hasn't it? You mentioned the images there and as you say there's only a few that have come down but they do look quite a lot more detailed than anything we've had before because obviously there were those space trips to the moon which finished in the 70s. I guess the key thing would be to kind of look at what new discoveries have been made in this mission. Well I think also you know that's more than 50 years and so imagine the improvements that we've made with our imaging equipment instead of you know a handheld camera out of a small window we actually had a full planned observing campaign for the crew. They had their cameras, they had their images but they also had their own eyes looking and describing in real time what they were seeing and so you know I am really excited to get to see some of these images. One of the big things I think we got in real time was the fact that the astronauts could see the different colors on the far side of the moon. You know Christina described where the new craters were formed. They were so much brighter than anything surrounding them. Victor talked about seeing browns and blues and dark grays which you know we weren't sure that you would be able to see with the human eye because obviously when we take our images we can do a lot of image processing and really bring out the colors and the contrast but it was really exciting to hear him actually talking about the colors he could see and that was a big check mark for us. OK you can see the color with the naked eye. Yeah really fascinating stuff. I mean even though everybody's celebrating their achievement already people are looking ahead to the future because there are hopes that future missions could land on the moon again with manned spacecraft possibly even on the far side. What could be some of the challenges with that and how does this mission build towards that? So you know this is obviously Artemis 2, Artemis 1 the uncrewed mission that tested out the SLS rocket. Now we have this historic mission with first time having a crew in this new spacecraft, first time having humans are in the lunar vicinity for 50 years and so you know this is definitely for me it's kind of the next big check mark in the progression that we will do of these missions now. So next year having the Artemis 3 rendezvous with the lander in low Earth orbit checking all of that out then Artemis 4 going down to the lunar surface to the south pole of the moon in 2028 hopefully Artemis 5 even in maybe even in the same year and then really getting into high gear of building a moon base that will actually support a sustained presence because that's the goal. It isn't just about a quick visit to the moon and then bring back some rocks this is about actually going and staying and living and working on the moon. So much science that we can do on the moon which obviously I'm really excited about but it's also you know going to be a place that we actually do all the work, retire all the risks so we can then send crews on to Mars and that will be a really spectacular imagine turning you know looking around and I can't wait to hear somebody describing the red planet to me. Well now we know that they're on their way back now everything seems to be going quite well. Re-entry we think is going to be on Friday probably in the Pacific well that's the plan anyway. That's not without danger though is it? What kind of complications are there to watch out for? I mean you know we'll be monitoring everything there's always risks you know this is again this is the first time we've had crew in this spacecraft Artemis 1 the spacecraft splashed down beautifully so we're just looking forward to seeing that, seeing those parachutes open and then a nice soft landing in the ocean. You know actually it was interesting hearing what the conditions are like you know the waves are pretty choppy out there so you know there's a lot for the crew to actually still deal with but they are the best of the best of the best and I know that they are excited about coming home although I will say yesterday during one of the chats with them they were saying how quickly the mission had gone by and that they weren't quite ready to come home yet they would like to stay by the moon for a little bit longer. Yeah Nikki I mean it does seem to have been quite an emotional journey and they did speak quite emotionally about their experiences there in space what they were seeing but also what it meant for people watching back home. What is it about space do you think that makes us feel like that? Honestly I think it is because it gives you the perspective you know when you see them when you see what they're saying particularly images of Earth I mean it gives you that perspective of space is vast, space is huge you know and I think it's easy you see these amazing images from the James Webb Space Telescope or from Hubble and you think oh my goodness you know the universe is so beautiful but it's when you kind of do that zoom in and like that's the little dot that you are and I think you know particularly for me an inspirational image is the pale blue dot from Voyager 1 and you know just thinking about that tiny little dot everything that you know every person that's ever been in history has lived on that little blue dot. Right now we don't know of another place in the universe that sustains life that's one of our goals NASA always is searching for life elsewhere but so far our planet is the only one that we know with the extraordinary responsibility of maintaining life and our relationship with our star and the distance being so important and I think that when you sort of you realize like that's us that's Earth and it's so beautiful and then you know you look out into the heavens and you think hey that's how far the moon is but that's how far Mars is and then you know that's how far the universe expands and I think it's just a very sometimes it's a humbling experience I think Christina described it as humility. Yes we must leave it there thank you so much Dr. Nicky Fox there live from NASA coming up later in the program. US rapper Kanye West he's been banned from traveling to the UK for a music festival in the next couple of months. We'll find out why and have reaction to that decision just made in the past couple of hours other headlines as we've been hearing President Trump has warned that an entire civilization will die tonight ahead of his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will be returning to that story and reports from Iran say a rail bridge has been attacked after Israel told Iranians to stay away from the entire train network. You with news hour live from the BBC I'm Rebecca Kesby now the Cambodian government has said it will eliminate the international scam business within its borders by the end of April after pressure from countries like China and the United States. Scam compounds built by powerful local business figures but run by Chinese crime syndicates have proliferated in Southeast Asia defrauding people all over the world of billions of dollars. By some estimates they account for half the entire Cambodian economy. Our correspondent Jonathan Beale was taken by the Thai military to a scam compound captured during Thailand's border war with Cambodia last year offering a rare close up glimpse of this lucrative and abusive business. We are standing at the entrance to the casino complex. At a now deserted crossing between Thailand and Cambodia, Rear Admiral Surasank Kongsary describes what he's about to show us on the other side of the border. Both sides of the casino complex has a scammed centres. The Thai military captured two casino complexes there from Cambodia last December. What they found was a warren of buildings where workers brought from all over the world had been running online fraud schemes. We really didn't anticipate that we would find such a large scale scam centre operating out of this facility. So we're walking up inside. These are really big buildings. Several stories high. There's just mess and rubbish everywhere. Bottles, beer, plates still with food encrusted in them. And there would have been, judging by the size of it, thousands of people working here. Every room has got its own reconstructed scenario to persuade victims to part with their savings. In this one there are two very convincing looking Vietnamese police hats. You can see piles and piles of documents with lists of hundreds of phone numbers on them. These are all Vietnamese phone numbers and there are so many of them. Just so many. So this is a room full of makeshift booths with soundproof foam. There are perhaps eight chairs to a row that just a few months ago were packed with human beings. And there's a quite convincing backdrop from the Brazilian federal police. And judging by the Portuguese language here, this room was targeting Brazilian victims. Every time we would hear a bomb, even the building sometimes would shake, would vibrate. Later we managed to contact Wilson, a young Ugandan man, who was working in that scam compound when the fighting broke out. He's now in the Cambodian capital trying to get home. He described an unforgiving regime run by his Chinese bosses. You're supposed to get someone who would deposit at least five thousand dollars. Failure to do so, you are put into punishment. Some people were electrocuted. After years of denying the problem, the Cambodian government has this year been raiding dozens of scam compounds in response to rising international pressure. Prime Minister Hun Manet wants the world to believe he's sincere. The scam network, what we call the black economy, is destroying our honest economy. So this is the reason why we need to clean this out. But the complex we saw, like so many others in Cambodia, wasn't owned by a shadowy criminal network, but by a prominent business figure with close ties to the ruling family. Jacob Sims, a transnational crime expert, believes there are good reasons for skepticism over the government's claim to be shutting the scam business down. This is likely the largest industry in Cambodia's history, structurally embedded at the highest levels of Cambodia's political economy. The crackdowns are real, but they're tending to target low-level criminals. They're very unlikely to produce meaningful disruption. Already there are reports of scam workers from closed compounds being moved to lower profile locations in Cambodia to continue their fraud schemes. With no other industry offering such rich rewards, it will be hard for Cambodia's elite to give it up. Jonathan Head with that report. Now to a man who really puts the fanatic in the title football fan. This weekend Tony Inchenzo reached his lifetime goal of watching a match at every single league and non-league football ground within the football pyramid of the English game. It's taken him decades to do it. I caught up with him earlier and I asked him how many matches does he think he's seen? I've been to 5,805 football matches and that includes 2,688 different football grounds which embraces the entire National League system because I did the last non-league ground on Easter Monday at Forward Amateurs. How did it feel then when you crossed the line and you could tick off that last match that you had to complete the set? It was a great sense of satisfaction personally and a great sense of relief as well because there can be little hiccups along the way. I was just so relieved yesterday at Forward Amateurs that the game went ahead and it was a lovely sunny day. You are the expert really in the fan experience aren't you and lots of people listening they might save up to maybe go to see the big clubs play, maybe watch on TV but make the case for why it's good to go to smaller clubs. Non-league football has got three main benefits as far as I'm concerned. The first one is accessibility. You can go and watch your local non-league club. You can drive down there, park outside, turn up 10 minutes before the game, pay your admission, wander around the ground, stand or sit where you want and afterwards you can rub shoulders with the players in the bar and chat to the players. So that's the accessibility. Then there's the affordability. So the affordability is very, very important. If you want to watch a Premier League game in London, it's £100 a ticket these days. For example, at non-league level you could get a drink, a burger and enjoy your whole day out for probably less than £10 or £12. So that's affordable for working class people who might bring a couple of kids along with them. Then for non-league clubs, the other important aspect is the community involvement of the club. Because these non-league sides, it's not just about the first team, but they run several youth teams, girls teams, ladies teams, disability teams and they have a huge reach out into the local community, which in a town that might have a population of 30,000, it embraces nearly everybody in the town. So those are the main aspects of why I love non-league football and why people are turning to it because they can't afford to go to Premier League matches anymore. Yeah, and you have travelled up and down and right across the country in this endeavour of yours. I guess it gives you a really good picture of the modern UK. Well, I've seen places that I would never have probably even heard of if it wasn't for football. A case study would be Mausel, FC. It's spelt Mauspole, but it's pronounced Mausel. Down on the western tip of Cornwall, it's a fishing village of 600 people, but their football club there is climbing the leagues and doing really well. It was a pleasure to go down there. I've been to Cornwall, up to Northumbria, across the Cumberland, down to Devon and all over the country, the Isle of Wight, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey. Fantastic places to visit and meet all the people along the way. There's lots to do and I don't want the hobby to finish, so I'll continue to set myself new challenges, even if it's going to all the county league clubs. That's Tony Inchenso there, the world's biggest football fan speaking to us earlier today. And it does sound as if he really does love the game. Thousands of matches he's seen all over the country and he's been at it since the 1970s. He told me he's getting his young daughter involved in the passion as well, so it's going to go on to the next generation. Do stay with us. More to come from NewzHour. Welcome back to NewzHour. One of Australia's most decorated soldiers has been arrested and charged with war crimes. Ben Robert Smith served in the SAS, Australia's Special Forces, and was awarded the highest honour for bravery the Victoria Cross during an operation to hunt for a Taliban commander in Afghanistan. Now though, he faces charges of the unlawful killing of unarmed prisoners, amongst others, and he's previously denied any wrongdoing, but our Sydney correspondent Katie Watson gave us the details. Ben Robert Smith was arrested at Sydney Airport early Tuesday morning. He's been charged, there are five charges of war crime for murder and I'll just break them down. So there's one charge of murder, one charge of jointly commissioning a murder and three charges of aiding a betting, counselling or procuring a murder. Now, there was a bit more context given an earlier press conference. Authorities said that the alleged victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time. They were detained, unarmed and under the control of the Australian Defence Force and they were also shot either by the accused or by subordinate members in the presence of or acting on behalf of the accused. And all of these charges, they related three incidents between 2009 and 2012 when he did serve in Afghanistan. So Ben Robert Smith was the recipient of the Victoria Cross for conspicuous gallantry in action. He was an incredibly well known figure in Australia. I think he's even got his uniform in one of the museums over in Australia. But then there have been allegations against him in the press as well and that led to a very highly publicised court case as well. Can you tell us about that? He left the Defence Force in 2013 and then several years later he sued some newspapers over allegations that he committed war crimes. It was a long process, a lengthy process and an expensive process. In 2023, a defamation judgement found that he had on balance of probabilities killed several unarmed Afghans. Now, he appealed that but he lost that appeal against the federal court. And so what we now have this arrest what a year later. But of course these allegations are not being tried in a criminal court which has a higher burden of proof. Right, so what he faces now would be criminal charges. If he is found guilty, I guess the punishment would be pretty bad. Can you tell us about that and also if his defence team are saying anything at this point? So we've not heard from the defence team. You know, he's in custody for the evening. He was meant to be at a court hearing on Tuesday afternoon. It's been pushed back to Wednesday morning on it. It's a bail hearing. But it's a big penalty. So the maximum penalty for war crimes of murder is life imprisonment. And so, Katie, it does seem from the the charge list you read out that there could be other people implicated. Is this going to have a bigger impact more widely in Australia? Yes, so in 2020 there was an investigation that was known as the Brereton report. So that found credible evidence that Australian soldiers had unlawfully killed 39 people in Afghanistan. And there was a recommendation that 19 either former or current members of the Australian Defence Force were investigated. That's the BBC's Katie Watson speaking to us earlier from Sydney. You're listening to News Hour Live from the BBC. I'm Rebecca Kespie. More now on those reports of new US strikes on Kharg Island in the northern Gulf. The island is crucial to Iran's oil export industry. It's a few kilometres off the mainland, but the vast majority of Iran's oil for export passes through Kharg Island because it has deep natural ports which allow the oil tankers to dock and load up on oil. It has already been hit in this conflict. And in the past couple of hours we've had multiple news reports from both the US and Iran that it's coming under attack again. President Trump has also been issuing more on his deadline for a deal, fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz. It's supposed to run out later today, but within the past hour the president has taken to social media again another aggressive post. He writes, quote, a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. At the end of the post he writes, God bless the great people of Iran. Well, I'm joined now live in the studio by the BBC's Jaya Ghol from BBC Persian. Jaya, thank you so much for coming in. What do we know in terms of the attacks that are happening at the moment? Well, we know numbers of explosions have been heard in Tehran in different locations and even the report came in as synagogue, belonged to Jewish community in Tehran also has been hit severely. In the same time we know a bridge, that railway bridge in Rehshahar, not far from Tehran also has been targeted. A power plant was damaged severely, but I think in Shiraz there was attack and explosion and attack has been seen and heard on numbers of cities around the country. But I think the most important is, as you mentioned, the Khark Island, one of the most important 90% of Iranian crude oils are being exported there, which means all Iranian oil by pipe is being transferred there for the deep water. You just mentioned that super tanker can duck and transfer Iranian oil. Iranian economy is heavily relying on that island and also island has been heavily defended. There is a lot of installation and also some of those ships have been attacked in the past few weeks, has been targeted from that island. It seems to me today the US has been attacking. They say it wasn't the oil installation, there has been a military bases, has been the target of recent attacks. Yeah, that's what we're hearing as well. We're keeping an eye on it, but Jai, while we've got you, the latest comments from President Trump, a whole civilization will die tonight. I mean, how are Iranian people going to take that comment? I think, quite frankly, if you talk to many people, even sometimes the family members back in Iran, if we can manage to talk to any of them or friends or somebody we know, some of those people have a starling or neighboring countries can pick up signals. At the beginning there was a conflicting feeling. Many thought, OK, this attack might remove the leadership, the commander of Revolutionary Guard, who's suppressing the people may bring about change, bring back the Iranian civilization. But right now, many people, what they see from President Trump targeting civil infrastructure, they think taking back Iran to stay in stone age definitely affected so many people. So many people are extremely worried about their future, about the economy. And even some artists has been campaigning. We should go have a human shield around those civil infrastructure, hopefully prevent Israel and the US not to attack them. Jai, good to see you. Thank you so much for coming in. Jai, a goal there from BBC Persian. Well, as he mentioned there, this language coming from President Trump has been increasingly aggressive in recent days. He's talked about raining down hell on the country if a deal isn't made. Under the Geneva Conventions drawn up after World War Two, the deliberate targeting of any civilian structure does constitute a war crime. But it is a gray area because anything with a dual use may be deemed as a legitimate target. To get some clarity on this, I've been speaking to Michael Schmidt, who's an emeritus professor at the US Naval War College. He served in the US Air Force as a judge advocate and a targeting officer. So you may have a civilian object in, let's say, a petroleum facility, a power generation plant, desalination facility, roads, bridges and so forth that are used by both the military and the civilian sector. In such cases, they qualify as military objectives, even if the military use is slight. However, once they qualify as military objectives, if you're going to attack them, you must take into consideration the incidental harm that will be caused to civilians and civilian objects. And you're obligated to do everything you can to minimize harm to those civilians and those civilian objects. Right, so when the President says every bridge in the country and every power plant will be hit so that it can never be used again, as a lawyer, does that make you uncomfortable to hear him speaking like that? It certainly does because there's not any doubt whatsoever that an operation of that scale and scope would be, first, a violation of the law of armed conflict by the United States. And second, a war crime by many of those involved in taking the decision to conduct such a strike. OK, so ahead of this kind of military operation, there would be target lists drawn up. What's the usual protocol with this kind of thing involving military lawyers? I know this is something you've done in the past. At what point would they be brought into contribute and advise? In the United States and my country, the lawyers are embedded throughout the entire process. And you mentioned before the responsibility after the event. Could we get to the point where individuals, you know, perhaps even fighter pilots that are responsible for dropping the bombs, let's say, on any bridge or power plant, could they be individually responsible for destroying civilian infrastructure and potentially be charged with war crimes? The answer is yes, but you have to be sensitive to where they are in the chain of command, what they knew, what was the granularity of the information they had in the event that you get an order that is manifestly, that is patently unlawful. You're obligated to refuse to comply with that order. I've been a military lawyer and worked with them my entire adult life. I imagine that what they are doing now is they're scrubbing those categories, petroleum, power, bridges and so forth, trying to identify those that clearly qualify as military objectives and putting them on the list and avoiding those that are not. I hope that's what they're doing. Looking at the rhetoric that we're hearing from both sides in this conflict at the moment, and particularly, I suppose, from President Trump himself, what are your thoughts going into this? Are you worried about what you're seeing now? I'm extraordinarily worried. I don't believe that the United States had a legal basis for conducting the operation in the first place. If the President's orders are carried out, as the President has stated, it would be crystal clear that that would be a violation of the law of armed conflict. That's Michael Schmidt, Emeritus Professor in Law at the US Naval War College. Now here in the UK, there's been a major row over the planned inclusion of this man at a music festival in North London this summer. Controversial US rapper Kanye West, he was booked to headline the wireless festival in July, but just before we came on air, the British government said it was denying him a visa to come to the country. They made the decision on the grounds that his presence in the country, they said, would not be conducive to the public good. His appearance was already controversial because of a string of racist and anti-Semitic comments he made, his use of Nazi insignia, including the swastika. He's even published a song entitled Heil Hitler. Well, since making those comments, he has expressed regret and he said they were made during a manic episode. He's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Earlier today, Kanye West released this statement, which we voiced up, offering to meet local community groups. I've been following the conversation around wireless and I want to address it directly. My goal is to come to London and present a show of change, bringing unity, peace and love through my music. I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in London in person to listen. I know words aren't enough. I'll have to show change through my actions. If you're open, I'm here. The words of Kanye West earlier today, we did actually speak to members of the Jewish community who rejected that earlier. But now, since being on air, we're hearing that the entire wireless festival has been cancelled and refunds are going to be issued to ticket holders following the decision. Let's get the latest with Lisa Verico, who's a British music journalist for The Times newspaper. Lisa, what do we know? What a twisty tale this has turned out to be. The story just snowballed over the weekend and I think Festival Republic, the promoters, really should have put out something earlier. But this morning, some of the sponsors had pulled out of it, or at least were stepping back a bit from it. This morning, the promoter of Festival Republic said that it was still going ahead and that Kanye deserved forgiveness. We got that apology from Kanye. It was thought his visa had already gone through. And then the story came out about an hour ago that the Home Office had cancelled his application for a visa, which may or may not have been just applied for yesterday. Not sure about that. And then the whole festival was off. So you'd kind of maybe expect someone to appeal that. But I think there were just so many hurdles by now for the whole festival. Yeah, it did seem from people we were speaking to in the Jewish community that they did hold the organisers of the festival to account for this, for booking him in the first place as the headline guest. I mean, why was that decision made? I know. I mean, the Festival Republic have just put out a statement saying, as with every wireless festival, multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking Ye and no concerns were highlighted at the time. Which seems like a massive miscalculation now. Kanye played two stadium shows in LA over the weekend. And I have to say, there didn't seem to be much pushback over there. So maybe they just assumed that he apologised in January for his behaviour. Maybe they thought that that was going to be enough. Right. I mean, is there any danger for the UK government on this? I mean, there might be any backlash. They have come under criticism before for freedom of speech and online comments. Do we know if there's been much reaction to this decision? I think obviously Kanye wears fans and people who were desperate to go to the concerts are going to be massively disappointed. I think it's not that surprising. I was surprised with safety concerns if the festival was even granted a licence. And I think the reason there wasn't a statement over the weekend is just consulting with those stakeholders and maybe just by the end, it wasn't worth that. And there's a lot of cost to go into something at any stage along the way because a licence is not granted until quite shortly before the festival. So this could have been dragged on for months. And so maybe it's just better to let it go now. We're too late to rebook things. The tickets were on pre-sale from today. It's just it's all very last minutes of a strange story, but it's not the first time that Kanye has been banned from going to Australia. He was banned from a festival in Slovakia last year, so he's probably getting used to it. Good to speak to you, Lisa. Thank you very much for updating us on that breaking story. That's Lisa Verico, the British music journalist for The Times and as I say, Wireless Festival, saying that there will be refunds for anyone who'd already bought a ticket for that festival later in the year. This is Rebecca Kesby with NewsHour live from the BBC. US Vice President JD Vance is in Hungary today on the start of a two-day visit to back veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the country's upcoming parliamentary elections. The Hungarian leader is a key European ally of the Trump administration, and Sunday's election is being built as Mr Orban's toughest challenge in a political career that spans almost 40 years. He's won four elections in a row since 2010, but is currently trailing in the polls. Speaking at a press conference in Budapest a couple of hours ago, Mr Vance described Mr Orban as Europe's single most profound leader on energy security. What's going on in Hungary right now is that while, yes, energy prices are elevated, they're far less elevated here than they are almost anywhere else in Europe, and that's because the leadership of the man who's standing next to me. And I think that leadership can provide a model to the continent. While Balazs Hedvegi is an MP in Hungary's ruling Fidesz party, he's also Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's office, I asked him what he thought Viktor Orban is hoping to get out of JD Vance's visit. As you know, we're going to have our elections on Sunday, just a few days. Their support and the vice president's presence here in Budapest is a signal that we have some good friendship between the two countries, and it's an important political signal in the debates that we have before the election. As you say, though, there are only a few days to go ahead of the vote, and Fidesz is down in nearly all the polls by at least 10 percentage points. How are you going to persuade the public? As far as polling is concerned and pollsters, they have really become more and more an instrument of campaigning, rather than really having an objective picture about public opinion. There are polls that show the opposition in advance, and there are polls that show Fidesz in advance. What we concentrate on is really winning on Sunday. The opposition leader, Mr Maja, says that he's the anti-corruption candidate, and there have been quite a lot of accusations levelled at Fidesz and Viktor Orban personally that he's encouraged gerrymandering, manipulating constituency boundaries. In his favour, there's claims of voter intimidation, there's new film out, the price of the vote, talks of actual buying of votes. How do you counter those accusations? It's just usual campaign, you know, loudness and the usual kinds of accusations and statements that you hear in any campaign. Hungary is a stable democracy, and we have a very interesting and sharp choice now between a patriotic government, represented and led by Viktor Orban, and between another force which would like to follow the Brussels political line, which we believe would be a complete mistake. You say your party is the patriotic party, but of course there have been allegations within the past week or so that the Orban government is way too close to the Kremlin, the Polish Prime Minister, Lithuanian ministers as well, recently accusing the foreign minister of your country of relaying precise details from EU meetings to the Kremlin. I mean, that doesn't sound particularly patriotic, does it? Well, those politicians that you quoted are well known for their pro-war and massively anti-Russian position. The interest of the European Union would be to reach a quick end to this warfare to the east of us. That would require reaching a political deal with the Russian president, also involving the Ukrainians and maintaining Ukraine as a sovereign country. I mean, I'm sure those politicians you mentioned would say they're not pro-war. Mr Vance, of course, spoke last year about democracy in Europe, saying that the voters must be respected. If Mr Orban does lose on Sunday, will he immediately concede and give up power? Prime Minister Orban has always respected the outcome of every single action that he's taken part in. We believe in democracy and we're going to win on Sunday. That's Balazs Hidvegi, their MP in the ruling Fidesz party speaking to us earlier. What's the view, though, from the United States, especially within President Trump's MAGA base? Isaac Stanley Becker is a star-fighter at the Atlantic who focuses on US-European relations. He's currently in Hungary, covering JD Vance's visit, and I'm delighted to say he joins us live on the line from there. Yeah, Isaac, I mean, is there some political jeopardy for JD Vance being so fully behind Victor Orban, particularly if he loses this election? Well, I think you're right to be thinking about and asking about the domestic political consequences of this, because I think that's really more important than the significance of this visit to the actual voting in Hungary, where I think that whatever JD Vance says is likely to have little significance, where it has more significance is back home in the MAGA movement that JD Vance wants to lead into victory in the 2028 presidential contest. And Hungary has been this real model for that movement. And so the consequences of the election here are enormous. It's been this kind of foreign template for a certain vision, a kind of right-wing vision of seizing the institutions of the state, using them to advance a particular vision of a good life, and punishing those who don't comply with that, which includes leftists, intellectuals, sexual minorities, and immigrants. Can they really be comparable, though, because Hungary, whilst obviously an important country, is tiny. It's got a population less than that of the US state of Ohio, which is one of the least populated states. So, I mean, what's in it for Mr. Vance? Well, that's the thing that's kind of remarkable about this. You stand back and you realize this is a landlocked country, a fewer than 10 million people. It contributes negligibly to NATO, which is the ostensible measure that the Trump administration uses to determine which European partners are valuable to Washington. But because of this ideological symmetry, it's come to take on this really outside significance in the MAGA mindset. It's seen as this kind of the long-term global Trump descent. Okay, I think we can just hear you with this very difficult line, sadly. I know you're out and about. I mean, in terms of where this puts the US-EU relation, the EU has been very critical of Viktor Orban. They blame him for holding up the funding to go to Ukraine. Recently, there's been talk that there's been direct contact with the Kremlin, which various governments are across about. It does put the Americans on the totally different side to all of this to the EU. That's exactly right. We're seeing a kind of new convergence here between the US and Russia, who are on the same side of this election. Our raid on the other side are the leaders of most EU countries who quietly, at least not in the overt way that Vance is doing, are hoping for a different outcome. So it's just one more kind of dent in that US-Europe relationship that we've now seen for over a year since the start of this second Trump term. All right, very good to speak to you. Thank you so much for speaking to us live from Hungary there on JD Vance's visit to the country ahead of elections. That's Isaac Stanley Becker, staff writer at The Atlantic, bringing us to an end to this edition of NewsHour. From me and the whole team here in London, thanks for joining us.