Hillary Clinton gives evidence to a Congressional committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Go to your entrepreneur's dream and start today for 1 euro per month on Shopify.nl. Stel je voor dat je in de zorg niet nog harder werkt, maar slimmer. Omdat je medewerkers zorgdossiers kunnen bijwerken vanaf hun telefoon. En zo meer tijd hebben voor hun cliënten. Ontdek onze slimme technologie op kpn.com slash slimmerwerken. KPN, voor een beter werkend Nederland. Hello and welcome to NewsHour live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesby. The former US Secretary of State, former First Lady and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is the latest to face the US House Oversight Committee as part of their investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It's a closed session, so no cameras are allowed in the room, but shortly before her hearing began, Mrs Clinton published her opening statement online. In it, she denies any knowledge of Epstein's crimes. In fact, she says she didn't even know him. One of my colleagues has voiced up part of the statement. The committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not. As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that. Well, earlier in the day, James Comer, Republican chair of the bipartisan committee, explained why questions have to be asked. The American people have a lot of questions. To my knowledge, the Clintons haven't answered very many, if any, questions about their knowledge or involvement with Epstein and Maxwell. Again, no one's accusing at this moment the Clintons of any wrongdoing. They're going to have due process. But we have a lot of questions. And the purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein. How did he accumulate so much wealth? How was he able to surround himself with some of the most powerful men in the world? Was he an asset for our government or any other government? Our correspondent Neda Tawfiq is in New York and told me more about that rather combative statement from Mrs Clinton. She essentially is saying that they are not serious about bringing justice to the survivors and victims of Jeffrey Epstein, that this is all a political theatre. She says if they were, that the Republican members of the committee would have gone to the deposition of, for example, Leslie Wexner, who is alleged to have helped Epstein amass so much money. And she questions why they didn't but have turned up in large numbers here to her deposition. She also questions in her statement why some members have been able to give sworn statements in the way she tried to do and did and were spared having to sit for a deposition, whereas her and her husband have been compelled under the threat of criminal contempt. So this is a very combative statement, questioning the motives of the committee and reaffirming that, you know, her statements over and over again, that she has nothing of value to offer this committee because she didn't know about Epstein's crimes or ever meet him. So this is a closed session. There's no cameras allowed, which is different to what we've seen before. Why was that decision made? Well, look, the Clintons wanted this to be a public hearing. Ultimately, the committee said that they were going to record the session and that they would, what they called a standard practice, release that after the fact, along with a transcript. Now, the negotiations back and forth took a few months. You know, it's these are kind of negotiations that continue without real clarity, kind of behind the scenes what's going on. But the Democrats on the committee have come out to say that they still want this to be public, that, in fact, when the former president Bill Clinton testifies tomorrow, it should be public because they believe this has been an unserious questioning, on Syria's deposition that they compared to a clown show. And very briefly, as you say, Bill Clinton, former president, up tomorrow. Any insights as to what he may be saying or he may be asked? Well, it's really interesting because Hillary Clinton is really only mentioned in the Epstein files when it comes to her run for the presidency in 2016. You compare that to Bill Clinton, who actually traveled on Epstein's jet with several trips in the 2000s and was seen photographed. So there are going to be more specific questions to Bill Clinton, who as well has also denied any wrongdoing. The BBC's Neda Tawfiq there in New York. Well, the senior Democrat on the U.S. Congressional Oversight Committee investigating Epstein has accused the Department of Justice of withholding files that contain allegations of sexual abuse of a girl by Donald Trump. Robert Garcia has spoken within the past couple of hours and demanded the release of the missing files. We want to understand right now where the missing FBI files are. These are files that accuse the president of the United States about serious, serious accusations around sexual abuse. And the fact that they're not in the files and have been apparently either removed or discarded is incredibly concerning. And so we're calling on Attorney General Pan Bondi to immediately release those files. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia there. Well, President Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein case. Robert Garcia, though, says he's written to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, demanding the files be released. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice said it was looking into whether the documents should have been made public. Their absence was first flagged by the independent journalist, Roger Sollenberger, who's been telling my colleague, James Menendez, how he noticed they were missing. Well, I discovered a couple of things. The first thing is I discovered that there is an allegation against Donald Trump of child rape in the Epstein files that was told to the FBI by a woman who the DOJ also describes and identifies as a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. I first found this allegation on the slideshow. It was an internal presentation that the FBI put together last summer, just after Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's accomplice in prison. And they put together a very comprehensive slideshow. And then on page 18, you have these two allegations against Donald Trump that are right at the top on a list of prominent names of many people in the Epstein files that we would all recognize. The first two are Donald Trump. And the first one is this allegation, which it cites the woman herself making to the FBI directly, not from a tip. And that was when the light went off for me. I said, oh, wow, they must have interviewed her. That's citing her. That's never been reported before. And I looked into it. It turns out there are four formal interviews with her that the FBI did in the summer of 2019, shortly after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest. Now, the big question in my reporting, and that was confirmed this week by New York Times, NPR, different outlets, is where are three of four interviews? We only have one of them. And it appears that the Justice Department has been withholding three of them, which adds up to about 53 missing pages from this woman. Right. So these were these were long interviews that the FBI conducted with this woman. Yeah, the first one is nine pages, right? And there's four and some handwritten notes as well. And that accounts for 53 missing. So a total of about seven times as many pages as was provided with the release of the Epstein files, which again was done under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It's a federal law that Donald Trump signed. And how did you discover that they were missing? I mean, they just simply, when you searched for them by what their case number, they just didn't appear. Yeah, I'd been looking for a specific document, actually. It's an index of files and interviews, evidence that the Justice Department shared with Ghislaine Maxwell as part of the discovery for her trial. And I'd seen emails about this document, but I couldn't see the document in the files. I didn't know where it was. And then I found a website that had a searchable archive that captured some old documents. And I found it there. But at the time, it had been removed from the Justice Department's site. And what that document told me was that this woman was interviewed indeed four times. It has all the dates next to her case number. And it also told me that those four interviews were all given to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now seeking clemency from Donald Trump. She has four interviews, and we have one interview. And what, she could potentially release them at some point? It's really unclear. We just know that she has them. The Justice Department, though, in response to questions, has put out a statement that forces us to pick and choose from a various group of options of the reasons that they could be withholding. Now they have put out a statement yesterday saying that the Justice Department is going to review to see if these records were withheld improperly. The interviews contain very serious allegations, as you suggested, very serious indeed. Now she gave the interviews in 2019 and the abuse, the rape that she alleges took place in the early 1980s. And they are just allegations and they're allegations that Donald Trump has vehemently denied. But are you able to tell us what she told the FBI, a little bit of what she told the FBI? Yeah, again, these allegations have not been verified. And we do not know nearly enough about what she has said, you know, to speculate on the validity of the allegations. That's one reason I think we should have the rest of these notes, right? But what she did say was that when she was between 13 and 15 years old, between 1983 and 1985, she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. And in that same time period that Donald Trump had forced her to give him oral sex, she bit him and he hit her and kicked her out of the room. That allegation appears in a lawsuit that she filed against Jeffrey Epstein's estate later in 2019. After she had spoken with the FBI, she joined a lawsuit with a number of other women anonymously. And that allegation appears, but it does not name Donald Trump. It just mirrors the same allegation. The woman has been identified in other reporting as that same woman. But as far as we know, she refused to cooperate with the FBI. That's another detail that's in these emails. There's an internal FBI note that says she refused to cooperate. Yeah, well, that was going to be my next question. Why weren't these allegations pursued? And as you say, she didn't want to cooperate. Why was that? We do not know why she stopped cooperating. We do know that the civil settlement ended before it went to trial, and she's reported to have received a payment from that civil suit. We don't know what the terms of that were. We really don't know hardly anything about where this went. But we do know that the FBI took her seriously enough to consider cooperating with her offering it seems to cooperate with her on a criminal investigation That independent journalist Roger Sollenberger speaking to James Menendez Well, the Department of Justice has denied deleting any material and said it's only withheld documents for specific reasons, such as those linked to ongoing investigations. And I should repeat that President Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing connected to the Epstein files. Contacted by the BBC on Wednesday, the Department of Justice referred to a statement it made after the January release of the Epstein files saying that, quote, some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the statement says, the claims are unfounded and false. And if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponised against President Trump already. That statement there from the Department of Justice. There is a BBC Live page on this. There's not a great deal of detail at the moment because it is a closed session, but Democrats are apparently pushing for the full transcript to be released publicly within the next 24 hours. Coming up on the programme, could building houses from wood instead of concrete lower carbon emissions. We'll hear from an architect in Portugal who says yes. The whole house was made of cross-laminated timber panels. I basically cut the furniture from the walls. So think table, cut from wall becomes window, which lights the table. So the off-cut is the furniture. And now I've brought it here. More on that to come and our headlines. Afghanistan and Pakistan have exchanged heavy fire along their border after the Taliban said it launched military operations against Pakistani army positions. Both sides claim to have inflicted casualties. And as we've been hearing, former American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is giving evidence to a congressional committee investigating the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This is Rebecca Kesby with NewsHour live from the BBC. Now the BBC has uncovered video footage and numerous eyewitness accounts of the killing of a 14-year-old Palestinian boy by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank last November. Jad Jadalla was shot at close range but tried to run away before collapsing. Most shockingly, the footage appears to show that the child was left with no attempt to administer first aid at any point. It is a distressing story, but the BBC's Joel Gunter, who worked on the investigation, has been giving us the details. What these videos show is that this 14-year-old Palestinian boy, Jad Jadala, was shot at very close range by a soldier from the Israeli military. He then ran a few metres and collapsed. After that, bystanders were filming discreetly in the camp. And that shows, I think, what is quite shocking about this story, which is that Jad lay on the ground for a considerable amount of time. We believe it was at least 45 minutes. And he lay there while a significant number of Israeli soldiers stood around him. We counted 14. And it appears as though during this period, Jad was bleeding to death. He did eventually die. Before he did, he appears to make several attempts to get their attention. But the Israeli soldiers appear to ignore those attempts. Well, what is so harrowing about this footage that you've been looking at is that Jad is clearly alive. And as you say, trying, it looks as if he's trying to communicate with them. And you've been speaking to some of the medics that tried to attend the scene and to try to help him. What did they tell you? Two ambulances were dispatched to the scene. A first one dispatched shortly after the shooting incident and arrived on the scene within eight minutes. was blocked by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint, the paramedics said. They then called for a second ambulance to attempt to get to the scene from a different direction. But they said that that was also blocked. We tried to advance several times, tried signalling them to let us reach the child, but we were completely blocked. And that's one of the paramedics you spoke to, Hassan Fouca, there. Joel, you also managed to speak to Jad's mum, who also went to the scene. And I can only imagine how she must have felt trying to get through to her son. And she was also blocked. What did she tell you? Yes, Jad's mother, Safa, told us that she tried to get to the scene where he was laying on the ground in the alley. She tried to get into the ambulance that arrived on the scene quite forcefully, hoping that they would be able to take her to her son. Unfortunately, of course, they were also blocked. So she was, as you say, forced to just watch on. So you've clearly put your findings to the Israeli authorities. What is their response? How do they explain what happened? So they told us that Jad was a terrorist who had, in their words, attempted to attack the force. They had said in a previous statement that he had thrown a rock or a piece of concrete either towards or at the soldiers. When they gave a direct statement to us, they didn't repeat that part of the accusation against him. We do of course have this footage which we have used in our report that shows one of the soldiers entering from out of frame from behind a wall and dropping an object next to Jad as he's lying on the floor after he is shot. The object appears to be heavy. The soldier then takes out either a camera or a phone and appears to take a photograph of it next to Jad. Now, Jad's family have told us that they believe this footage appears to show a member of the Israeli military essentially planting evidence next to Jad. They dropped a stone by his hand so they could frame him and make it look like he was throwing stones at them. Anyone who watches the video will see it. The throwing of a rock or stone under the rules of engagement for the Israeli military can permit them to respond with lethal force if they believe that their life is endangered. Now, Jad's parents have told us emphatically that their son, having viewed that footage, that they don't believe their son posed any kind of threat to the Israeli soldier who appears to shoot him at very close range. The BBC's Joel Gunter there and his full report is online. Let's turn now to the mystery surrounding the origins of the human eye. It's a puzzle that scientists, including Charles Darwin himself, have struggled to solve. But a new study suggests that our eyes evolved from tiny cyclops-like creatures and that we share these ancestral roots with other vertebrates. George Kafet-Zees is a retina neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in the UK and he worked with other colleagues at Lund University in Sweden and he's been telling us what he discovered. So to put it very simply, what our work is all about is if you look to our distant ancestors, 600 million years back, they all had like paired lateral eyes, and these survive in animals nowadays, in modern versions, in animals like spiders, butterflies, and squids. But our eyes are actually of different origin. So these paired lateral eyes in our own ancestor were lost, and we were left with only one median eye. So there goes the cyclops' entry point in this storyline. Right, so this has mystified scientists for years because they couldn't find the trace, I guess. What have you found out then? Exactly, so the conundrum in the field has been that the vertebrate eye and more specifically the retina, the neural component that sits at the back of it and talks to the brain essentially, has been shown to be fundamentally different from the invertebrate eyes and retinas. So if it is so well conserved within our lineage, so if you take your favorite, I don't know, shark or falcon or primate, and you look at their retina, they will look fundamentally similar. And it's because the pattern is conserved. But the moment you step out of our own lineage, then the eyes look entirely different. So how do we start having this new pattern emerge? So in our work, what we do is, first of all, we teamed up with colleagues at the University of Lund that are experts in invertebrate visual systems. And we have a common goal to answer how does the vertebrate eye emerge. So what we have done is synthesize not only our findings, but findings that span decades back and come from different subfields of visual system structure, function and evolution. And we propose essentially a trajectory of how different steps took place that led to us. You've solved the problem. Yes, you've solved the problem, solved the mystery. And what can you tell us about these cyclops ancestors? They sound weird. Right. So the reason these cyclops ancestors of ours lost their ancestral bird eyes is because they adopted a partially burrowed lifestyle. So they no longer had the need to actually navigate their environments. Burrowed? So they lived on the ground? Exactly. They were partially burrowed and they were filter feeding. They were avoiding their predators and they were feeding with plankton that went by. This is many, many, many years ago, isn't it? Just for context. Exactly, 600 million years. We cannot be very exact with placing exactly the time point, but it's a long, long time back. George Kefat-Ziz there with his research on our Cyclopean ancestors, which lived underground. So in the end, they didn't need to see that well at all. Luckily, we all crawled out of the dirt. and have become what we are today. Do stay with us. Lots more to come from NewsHour. You're easy to sell a beautiful web shop. You're ready for shopping? You're ready for Shopify. You're ready for your entertainment. And start today for 1 euro per month on Shopify.nl. You're ready to work in the technique not harder, but slimmer. Because warmtepompen can be used to be used to be used to be used to be used to be used to be used to be used to be used to repair. Find our smart technology at kpn.com slash slimmer werken. KPN. For a better work in Nederland. starting a business can be overwhelming you're juggling multiple roles designer marketer logistics manager all while bringing your vision to life shopify helps millions of business sell online build fast with templates and ai descriptions and photos inventory and shipping sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl that's shopify.nl it's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. America is changing. And so is the world But what happening in America isn just a cause of global upheaval It also a symptom of disruption that happening everywhere I Asma Khalid in Washington DC I Tristan Redman in London. And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to NewsHour. The more than 10,000 members of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences will be marking up their ballots today to choose next month's Oscar winners for Hollywood's biggest night of the year. For the first time, Norway has secured a nomination for the most prestigious award, Best Picture. The film, Sentimental Value, is set in Oslo, and it's already won at Cannes, the British Academy Film Awards, the BAFTAs, and it swept the boards at the European Film Awards too. who the director of the film, Joachim Trier, has collected many of those awards, and Tom Brook caught up with him in Berlin. Well, I don't know, man. I'm very happy that people care about films from Norway. It didn't used to be like that. Meet Joachim Trier, the director of Sentimental Value. His profile has been boosted by the success of his modestly budgeted Norwegian family drama, which has picked up an impressive nine Oscar nominations and numerous other accolades. My father is a very difficult person. It's the story of a family in Oslo, the relationship between two sisters. And at its centre, it details the estrangement between one of the sisters, an actor played by Renata Reinsler, and her film director father, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård, who's trying to reclaim his former glory. Why didn't you want to do the role? I can't work with him. I guess I am interested in behavior more than I am in telling stories. I'm interested in trying to get into the head of people. Joachim Trier told me of the genesis of sentimental value. What is different with this film as opposed to with the previous ones, I think is that I made something which deals with very fundamental issues of communication and discommunication in family, between siblings, parents and children. Things that I imagine are more universal almost than anything I've done because it's about two sisters, grown-up women, who's trying to deal with their father, who has been quite a narcissistic, difficult character, quite avoidant. And they're trying to reconcile. So many people see that as an allegory of dealing with men in power or men that are of that generation that don't know how to have that more intimate type of communication. This film was made in a collaboration between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and the UK. And everyone came along to tell a story about a family grappling with lack of communication. So that's my experience and that was a good one. But what Joakim Tre is perhaps most excited about is how his film has travelled to audiences in distant lands to become Norway's most successful film globally in history. I come from a country of 5.5 million people, and it's not to be taken for granted that a film from Norway travels like this. So we're grateful for the... It's a very impressive achievement, isn't it? At the moment, everyone's really struggling in Norway as well because the arts funding hasn't really increased. We're having that fight too, but anyway... Sentimental Value is the first Norwegian film ever nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. But quite apart from the Oscars, Joachim Trier has already given audiences a piece of well-crafted cinema with a very resonant, tenderly told human story that seems to touch people quite deeply. Tom Brook with that report. You're listening to NewsHour live from the BBC. I'm Rebecca Kesby. Now, is this the last chance for diplomacy to resolve the nuclear standoff between the United States and Iran? Negotiators for the two sides have been meeting in Geneva today for a third round of indirect talks, just as President Trump's armada, as he calls it, continues to grow in the Gulf. It's the biggest buildup of US forces in the Middle East since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It includes two aircraft carrier strike groups, dozens of fighter jets and support aircraft, and thousands of personnel. Well, for Iranians, it's an anxious time. Earlier today, Zada Zib Akulam, professor of political science at Tehran University, described the nervousness. Millions of Iranians, including my own family, did not sleep last night because everyone is so desperate, so anxious, so nervous. Because everyone is asking that, will there be a compromise? Will there be an agreement? Or will there be a war? And you simply would not believe that the people are storing water, bread, sugar, etc, etc. Because they fear that if the talks don't get anywhere today, it will be a war between Iran, United States and Israel. Well, Mr. Trump said in his State of the Union address this week that he hoped diplomacy was possible. But is it clear what he's demanding for a deal? And are the Iranians likely to comply? The BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, is following the talks in Geneva, which have broken up for the day. So what is the mood? Is there any optimism there? Well, we've heard so far, Rebecca, from the Omanis, who announced that this round of talks in Geneva has ended. He spoke of significant progress. Then we heard from the Iranian foreign minister, the top negotiator, Abbas Arraqchi. He also spoke of the progress and he announced that there would be technical talks in Vienna. That, of course, is where the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world's nuclear watchdog, is based, and that there would be another round of political talks next week as well. Often in these kinds of negotiations, you have to, in a sense, follow the frequent flyers. But if there is a commitment and there's a date for another round, that gives a sense that there is a momentum. Contrast that with the first two rounds of talks this month, where the two sides left and said, well, we will meet, but they gave no sense of when that would actually happen. The Iranians have also said that they believe that this round of talks was the most serious that they've ever had with the Americans. But we have yet to hear from the Americans. I should also add, finally, I did speak to a Western diplomatic source in Geneva who described these talks as a reprieve. In other words, diplomacy is working. For now, the threat of war is only in the background. Right. So some cautious optimism then, Lise. Just remind us of the key sticking points, though, why it is so difficult. One of the most important points in these discussions, which, as the Iranians wanted it, are primarily about the nuclear file, is Iran says we cannot accept zero enrichment. We will not give up our right to enrich uranium. President Trump, as you know, he has often said there can be no enrichment of uranium. There has to be zero enrichment. But there's talk now in these discussions of a symbolic level, a very, very low level commensurate with a civilian nuclear program, even a suggestion that Iran could suspend nuclear enrichment for a few years. The second issue is what to do about that 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. There have been demands that that stockpile should be removed out of the country. And we're not sure whether Iran is ready to cross that line. Lise Doucette in Geneva. Well, there was an Iran nuclear deal, of course, struck in 2015 by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPOA, and President Trump announced the unilateral withdrawal of the US from it during his first term in office in 2018. He described it as the worst deal ever, but can he now get a better one? Elliot Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former US special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration. And I asked him whether he was confident Mr. Trump could get the deal he wants. Is diplomacy going to work? I'm pretty dubious about it. The president, secretary of state have said they want zero enrichment. They want something on missiles. They want something on support for terrorist proxies. Because Iran has said, no, we have a right to enrich. Missiles are not on the table. Proxies are not on the table. So I don't see a meeting of the minds as very likely. Do you think the president has been clear about the deal that he actually is offering? Or has there been, you know, elements that have changed, which actually makes it quite awkward for the Iranians? There's been a bit of a change in that you've got the president saying something. You've got the secretary of state saying a little bit different things. I don't know what Whitcoff said at the table. So I would say that the Iranians have probably, though, through Whitcoff and Kushner, gotten a pretty straight line on what's desired. OK, that doesn't sound very reassuring, though, in terms of, you know, whether there are clear boundaries set for these discussions. I mean, many would be quite critical, actually, of President Trump and say that this entire crisis was actually unnecessary because there was an Iran deal, an existing Iran deal struck in 2015, which, of course, the president pulled the United States out of. That deal, had he not pulled us out, would have been dead by now anyway. It was a time-limited deal. And that is one of the criticisms that very many Republicans and some Democrats made of the deal. It was nukes only and time-limited. Well, now it's 2026 and we really don't want to deal with another agreement that is time limited and does not go beyond the nuclear question. So in terms of where this leaves the president, though, he's built up what he's calling an armada in the Gulf. It's the biggest show of American hard power in the region since the US led invasion of Iraq. Has that boxed Mr. Trump into a corner? I mean, is he going to be obliged to use that hard power because he's moved it all there into the region? Doesn't it make war inevitable? I wouldn't say inevitable, but it does make it more likely. Remember, this is what happened in the case of Venezuela. There was a very large buildup starting in September that reached its peak really around Christmas. And then a week later, on January 3rd, the president did act. You cannot keep this amount of military hardware there for very long. So there's a significantly better than 50-50 chance that there will be a military strike within the next few days. If it doesn't happen in the next few days, I think it's not going to happen. And what do you think would be the targets and the aims of these strikes? How do you see it unfolding? The president said during his State of the Union message that he thinks Iran is rebuilding its nuclear program. I think that would be the first target. And the second target would be ballistic missiles and particularly missile launchers. I think the president's likely to pass a message to Iran to say that that's the limited military target and that strike will be over in one day. and that if they strike back by killing Americans, they'll regret it. And the hope would be, of course, that if there is a strike, like last time in 2025, it is over very quickly. Former US Special Envoy there, Elliot Abrams. Well, let's take a look from the Iranian perspective now. Sayed Hussein Musavian is a former diplomat and nuclear negotiator I asked him first why is Iran holding out on a deal Actually the main issue is not for the US is whether Iran would seek for nuclear bomb or not But for Iran, the issue is whether the US would respect the rights of Iran on their non-proliferation treaty or not. That's why the main gap is about the non-proliferation, whether the non-proliferation treaty NPT is going to be criteria for a deal or not. If yes, the US should respect the rights of Iran for peaceful enrichment, like other countries like Japan, like Brazil, like Argentina, like Germany, Netherlands, many other members of NPT, they have peaceful enrichment. But if the US is going to discriminise Iran from its legitimate rights on their NPT, I'm afraid Iranians are not going to accept it because they are not going to be singled out, discriminised as the only member of non-proliferation treaty to be deprived from their legitimate rights on their NPT. Okay, understood. And Iran does say that it doesn't want a bomb, but it does persist in making near weapons-grade enriched uranium, which those other countries you mentioned don't. The USA is never going to back down on this issue of this enriched uranium to that degree. And isn't it time for Iran to compromise? because otherwise it's facing, you know, a very serious potentially military action from the United States. I understand you. First of all, we should remember Iran already compromised on their JCPOA nuclear deal that they were going and for three years they were enriching below 5%. They didn't have any 20% or 60% enrichment. They didn't have any excessive amount of stockpile, high level enriched stockpiles. But the U.S. actually withdrew from the deal. This is number one. Number two, in the current negotiations since April 2025, Iranians have said they are ready to dilute the stockpile of 60% enrichment to go to below 5%. Therefore, Iran would not have any high-level enriched uranium. And second, they have made it clear that they are ready to continue peaceful enrichment under 5%. And they have no intention to go beyond to high level enrichment. Iran is ready to make a deal. But the Americans need assurances, don't they? And I mean, we've just been hearing from one man in Tehran, but we know that we're hearing this from elsewhere in the country. Iranians are terrified that there could be military action. some sort of war. And this is on top of, well, the country's in chaos, isn't it? There's an economic crisis at the moment, a water crisis. You had that uprising in January, thousands of people were killed. This is the last thing people want, isn't it? Isn't it about time that the government did think of the population and struck a deal to ensure peace? Of course, the Iranian economy is in extremely bad situation. Of course, the Iranians, they never wanted war. They were negotiating. They agreed on many important principles in April 2025. The US bombed Iran while their negotiations were on their way. That's why Iranians, they have said that they are ready to go to the highest level of transparency measures as objective guarantees that Iran will never go for nuclear weapon. This has been the same Iranian position. And that's Sayyid Hussain Mousavian, their former diplomat and nuclear negotiator for Iran, speaking to us shortly before we came on air. This is Rebecca Kesby with NewsHour live from the BBC. Next to Japan, where the birth rate has fallen again. It dropped 2.1% last year. It's the 10th year in a row the birth rate has gone down and it's a concern for the authorities because eventually a low birth rate leads to labour shortages, bigger social security bills and fewer working people paying tax. Not good for the country's debt. So could it be a demographic time bomb and why is it still happening? Demographer Paul Morland is the author of the book No One Left, Why the World Needs More Children and he's been explaining the issues. It's been a very long problem in Japan. They've had below replacement fertility since the late 60s, early 70s, but it's also happening all over the world. So the big global phenomena appear to be, for poorer countries, urbanisation, rise in income, rise in education. For richer countries that have already had that for years and years, something about a breakdown in the relationship of younger people, expectations of material security before entering into relationships. So there are both cultural and material phenomena. And in Japan, particularly as well, there's an absence of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, which have traditionally slowed the fall in the birth rate. And there are characteristics of Japanese society, such as the position of women, which seem to have made it a particularly difficult problem in Japan, persistent, long-running and profound. Well, that's right. I mean, plenty of Japanese feminists argue that the government actually doesn't make it very easy for women to have children. You know, there's lots of inflexibility in the workplace. Lots of women have to give up their jobs when they have babies. Childcare is very expensive. Are the authorities trying to help in that regard? Well, the authorities have made some steps in that direction, but I think it goes very deep culturally. And we've seen that in Europe, for example. In the countries in Europe which have been most successful at supporting women in the workplace while having children as well, and what comes to mind particularly is Scandinavia and France, they've had traditionally higher fertility rates than countries like, say, Greece, where there's a lot of effort to educate women, and they're often doing better than the men at universities, and then they're not given the opportunities in the workplace. And instead of staying at home and breeding, as perhaps some traditionists might think, this is a recipe to lower your birth rate. The best way to get it up is to say, OK, it's fantastic. We've got women as well-educated as men. We've got a whole new phalanx in the workplace that we didn't have 50 or 100 years ago. All that talent, all that brainpower. How can we make sure we have that and take advantage of that and support those women to have the children they say they want to have? What about the issue of immigration? Because like in many countries around the world, that's been a politically thorny issue in Japan. But might that be a solution? It can't be a solution for the whole world if the whole world is going into a demographic winter. I mean, in Britain, for example, we had mass immigration from Ireland and Poland. Now they have very, very low fertility rates. They've caught up with us economically. They're not sending people to Britain in the same sorts of numbers. So it can't be a solution for the whole world. Certainly isn't a solution that the Japanese want. And of course, immigrants get old, their fertility rate tends to be low. And so it becomes something of a Ponzi scheme. It's been a luxury that some countries have been able to take advantage of over the last few decades. It can't be a long term solution. I noticed that South Korea, which has had similar problems, I think, in recent years, has managed to increase its birth rates over the past couple of years. What are they doing then that Japan could learn from? Well, first of all, the fertility rate in Korea is still significantly below that in Japan. They've ticked it up from 0.7 per couple to 0.8. And good luck, well done. That's a first step, but it's a tiny, tiny step. If you think as long as it's below 2.1, you're still building in ageing and population decline. It may be a dead cat bounce. It may just be a dead cat bounce. What does that mean? The idea, often in financial markets, something's gone down and then it slightly bounces before it goes down further. So it's not really a sign. It's too small, too temporary and too insignificant to be a real sign of a turnaround. I mean, this is what a turnaround would look like, but it's far too insignificant yet to think that it's going to be long term. Demographer Dr Paul Morland. Now, one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe is the construction industry. The making of cement and reinforced concrete accounts for around 40% of CO2 emitted on the continent, whereas airplane flights make up less than 3%. Research suggests that huge reductions could be made by building in wood. In Portugal, an influx of well-off foreigners and a shortage of houses and construction workers is driving an increase in ready-made wooden houses, as Alistair Leathead reports. On a little piece of land in remote rural Portugal, Professor of Wood Architecture Alex de Riker has big plans for his retirement. This is where the house will be above our heads, on stilts. It's a very steep hill and there's a couple of old cork oak trees. I want this wooden house to nestle amongst the canopies of these trees. An abandoned piece of land on Portugal's wild western coast is not where you'd expect to find the winner of Britain's top architectural prize. Alex de Rijka pioneered building in engineered wood. I did an experimental house for an exhibition in Oslo called Naked House, where the whole house was made of cross-laminated timber panels. I basically cut the furniture from the walls. So think table, cut from wall becomes window, which lights the table. So the offcut is the furniture. And now I've brought it here. Right, so that's the house that you're going to put up here. Critics say wooden houses are a fire risk, but Alex isn't worried, despite a wildfire near-miss a couple of years ago. Ironically, you know, wood is much better behaved in a fire than, say, steel. And steel collapses suddenly at 500 Celsius, whereas engineered timber, mass timber, just chars and protects itself just like these trees here. Professor de Raica is one of many new foreign arrivals to Portugal, buying up an abandoned plot of land. Locals have been leaving the countryside for decades. And with a shortage of builders, wooden houses are a good option. This is a two-bedroom house, 56 square metres. It's made of three different modules. We can step inside if you want. One of the biggest suppliers in Portugal is Jula. Amaro Santos showed me around the factory. The homes leave here 95% finished. So one of the main advantages is besides the sustainability, it's the certainty that we can provide to the customer on budget, on time, and with the quality that has been contracting with us. He says demand for modular houses is growing like a tide that can't be stopped. regulatory pressure to use biomaterials and the laws of demand and supply are driving a revolution here. And even the big construction companies are starting to see the wood for the trees. Alistair Leathead with that report from Portugal, bringing us to an end to this edition of NewsHour. Join us again tomorrow, but for now, from me and the whole team here in London. Thanks for joining us. Starting a business can be overwhelming. 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