Trump's 'big decision' on Iran

0:00Hello and welcome to NewsHour Live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesby. On the programme today, a six-year-old Chinese girl has broken the women's world record for solving a Rubik's Cube. She was consistently under five seconds. I've got my cube here and I'm told I've got to the end of the hour to solve it. Just though, to the United Nations General Assembly, which got underway in New York today and regular listeners to this programme, we'll know that the world faces no shortage of crises at the moment from seemingly never-ending wars to global economic instability, climate change and now the spectre of uncontrollable artificial intelligence or superintelligence as President Trump said today he wanted to rename it. As we'll hear, there were some various glum warnings from speakers about the effectiveness of the UN as a global body that can improve

1:00any of those things. But French President Emmanuel Macron, taking to the stage in the past couple of hours, warned against despondency, saying that the world should choose the UN over what he called the law of the jungle. Meanwhile, at the heart of his 37-minute speech, President Trump took the opportunity to justify his war with Iran. Imagine such a vile regime wherever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield. This was the reality we had to confront, a reality that far too many preferred to ignore. They all ignored it. Many presidents and many others just wanted to ignore it. They were unwilling to do anything about it, but they knew the problem. After giving Iran every chance for a deal, I took action to ensure that neither the United States nor any nation is tall, would ever have to face such a nightmare, such a catastrophic problem. As a result of Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of the Enneviar now lying at the bottom of the sea,

2:08likewise their Air Force is gone, their radar is gone, their anti-aircraft equipment is gone, their missiles and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone, their economy is gone, the only thing that isn't gone is inflation, which is destroying their country. Well, the President went on to muse upon his options now in the conflict with Iran. I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?

3:10But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election, because it doesn't make sense for them not to. Well, the BBC's Netta Fikis at the United Nations in New York and I asked her if there'd been any reaction to Mr. Trump's speech from the Iranian delegation. The Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Ranshi actually left the hall after the Secretary General spoke and before Donald Trump spoke, so didn't want to kind of be there present during President Trump's speech. And we know that the Iranian President Masood Pzezeshkian is currently on his way to New York and that he wants to come to provide an opportunity he said to firmly defend Iran's position. And then in the past, Iran has said that they want to deal in respect that they won't be swayed by Donald Trump's threats, because this is rhetoric, of course, that Iranian officials have grown used to as Donald Trump tries to kind of exert this maximum pressure believing it will help his negotiating position.

4:15And it was interesting there for him to suggest that Iranian officials believe the midterm elections are going to sway things. But for the Iranian delegation, it's also important to note that they've actually met with US officials. It was a three hour long meeting, at least from President Trump, and his special envoy Steve Whitkopf. They've described it as a very good meeting. And we'll see if President Trump does meet with the Iranian President. It's something he says he's open to, but there is nothing confirmed on that. Yeah, you mentioned the midterms there, Nedda. And there was quite a lot of domestic issues mentioned in Mr. Trump's speech. But what else did he raise in terms of global issues? Well, certainly he again took a hit at the United Nations, something he has done in the past. He has talked about how the US is going to firmly control the Western hemisphere. Of course, the US seizure of the former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a raid on his compound in Venezuela.

5:20That raised a lot of eyebrows here at the UN. Many believing it was against the UN charter. But President Trump in his speech saying that he will not hesitate from using military action in the Americas to secure the Western hemisphere. Again, talking about the strikes on boats in the waters of Latin America, something that a UN report has to cry as a crime against humanity, but which Donald Trump says is confronting drug trafficking. And then he also spoke Rebecca about AI. And this is so interesting. He of course somebody who loves branding. President Trump even changed the name to super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence and made clear he is against regulation. That's the BBC's net at our feet speaking to us a short time ago from the United Nations in New York. Well, the tone of many of the comments today has been rather subdued in his speech. Brazil's president Lewis and us, you know, Lula da Silva said that in action of the UN Security Council was a failure to fulfill its role and was holding everyone else hostage.

6:24The Turkish president, Rizip Type, at a one took a similar stance saying that the UN had become unable to fulfill its duty. The United Nations established eight one years ago to maintain international peace and security is no longer able to fulfill this mission or more precisely it has been rendered unable to do so. Those in Palestine, in Lebanon, Sudan and in other crisis zones who have tied their hopes to the UN are deeply disappointed. Well, Richard Gowen oversees the international crisis groups work on geopolitics and global trends in conflict. He's in New York watching events today and this was his assessment of the mood and the general assembly. The UN High Level Week is always chaos and when you're in the thick of it, it feels like you are at the center of the diplomatic world.

7:24But I do think that coming into this week and throughout this week there is an underlying sense of nervousness. There is a feeling that the UN is an organization which seems to be stuck in a sort of open ended crisis. It's short on money. It isn't making an impact on the situation around the state of hormones or Ukraine and other major conflicts and people are starting to ask, well, what is this organization really here for? So I mean, were people encouraged though that President Trump actually turned up because some wondered whether he would but he did he gave a speech, he thanked the UN, I think, a couple of times we counted. It was a slightly different speech to the one he made last year when he was actually asking what's the purpose of the UN? Yes, I think Trump was marginally less negative towards the UN than he was in 2025. I mean, you could tell that a lot of his speech was really for a domestic audience anyway.

8:25He was concentrating on his narrative of US economic success and he has the midterms coming up. That said, we have seen some signs that the Trump administration over the last year has come to recognize that the UN is useful to it. Having been very, very hostile towards the UN originally, the US is starting to put money back into UN operations, where has it had previously cut budgets. It has acknowledged that UN relief agencies are the only entities that can deliver humanitarian assistance at large scale in conflict zones. And it's actually asked the UN to help it deal with a couple of crises like the breakdown of law and order in Haiti. So Trump is not a fan of the UN, but he is coming to appreciate it a little more. But in terms of actual power and influence of the UN, as you were saying, I mean, there are concerns about that. We heard from President Erdogan today of Turkey saying that the UN has become unable to fulfill its duty of preserving peace.

9:27And certainly in years and decades gone by, there would be articles being voted on on the eight wars that Mr. Trump likes to talk about that he's solved. Or there'd be discussions about whether blue helmet should be sent into any of these war zones. And none of that is even on the table anymore. It is worth saying that the UN does continue to have about 50,000 peacekeepers around the world in places like South Sudan and the Central African Republic. It does still oversee quite a lot of sanctions regimes. When people say the UN is paralyzed, I think that is an overstatement. But what is clear is that the UN has failed to grapple with a series of very major crises in the last five years in particular. That includes Russia's all out of Russian against Ukraine. It includes the war in Gaza and now it includes the war between the US and Iran. And so there's a feeling that in a very turbulent world when it comes to the really big crises and the crises that threaten to do large scale global damage.

10:31Yes, the UN is sort of missing in action. And of course, we've got the Xi Jinping meeting with President Trump later this week. He's not attending the General Assembly himself. What kind of message does that send? So I think the President Trump wanted to sort of show that Xi Jinping just wanted to talk to the US. It is creating a split screen moment later this week. On the one hand, you'll have the leaders of the world's two main powers sitting together negotiating in Washington. And then you'll have leaders and foreign ministers from lots of smaller countries continuing to give speeches at the UN. And I think a lot of people will reasonably look at that and say, where does power really lie? Where did decisions really get made? And Richard, you mentioned the issue of cash. Of course, that's been cut. A lot of the funding did come from the United States. And President Trump's policy is not to fund so many UN bodies. What kind of impact is that having on its ability to function?

11:35I mean, it's been felt very acutely, Antonio Guterres. The current government is going to be going to Secretary General has had to cut jobs and then he's had to enforce some unpopular measures like insisting that UN staff don't fly business class so much. But it also has a real impact on very vulnerable people around the world. The UN has had to cut the number of peacekeepers it has in some violent places like South Sudan. It has also had to reduce the number of people that it is delivering humanitarian aid to, I mean, by tens of millions, in fact, of people. It's very easy to look at the UN and think this is a bloated bureaucracy as the US likes to say, but it is also serving some of the world's neediest populations and they are getting less food. They're getting less protection than they were before. So, it should go on there from the International Crisis Group and Richard mentioned there the importance of the sideline meetings at events like this. It's often where the real business happens. We know that President Trump has been meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

12:41He's also just met the UK's latest Prime Minister Andy Burnham as well and apparently Mr Trump has described him as a man he can do business with more on that on the live page on the BBC website. Coming up on the programme, the British documentary TV series that has followed a group of people from the age of 7 to 70. Come 28 when I was married and having my children, you could see a sensibility sort of step in there and you realised what you said on that programme will stay with you for the rest of your life. More on that to come and our headlines this hour, as we've been hearing Donald Trump says his officials have had a long meeting with senior Iranians on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. President Zelensky has said Ukraine is ready for an energy ceasefire with Russia and a court in Sri Lanka has given sentences of 200 years to 15 men found guilty of involvement in the Easter Sunday bombings seven years ago.

13:47Oh, hang on. Oh, sorry. Yes, we're still live. I was just trying to solve this Rubik's Cube puzzle. I think I have to leave it to the end of the programme. But this 1980s classic is back in the news because a six year old girl, Yung Ji from Sichuan province in China, has just smashed the women's world record for the three by three by three Rubik's Cube. In fact, she smashed it twice in three days. Her new time is and I embrace yourselves for this number. 4.27 seconds to complete a Rubik's Cube. I'm delighted to welcome Jessica Frederick to the programme. She's a pioneering speed Cuba as they're called. In fact, she invented her own method, which has been adopted by many. And Jessica, you've been cubing for some 40 odd years, but what did you make of this young six year old performance?

14:52It's absolutely mind-boggling. Conga, choice, answer her. She's going to be even better. When you see her, it's like magic. She's doing it so fast and she's so small, just six years old. Yes, and it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable, especially the cubers from China nowadays. They are dominating speed cubing. If you look at the top six cubers, they're all from China. They are all very young. So it's a trend and it's unbelievable that a six year old girl can do it in 4.27 seconds on average. That is nothing short of a miracle, basically. I mean, apparently she does spend two to three hours a day training on the Rubik's Cube. Is that something that's normal for a Cuba, as you call them? I think she spends a lot more than that. Really? That's my personal guess. Tell me why? Because you become a great speed cuber only if you get possessed by the cube. If it spells the magic all over you and you can't do anything else, basically.

15:58So I think two to three hours is an understatement that's just my personal guess. So what is your advice then on even completing a Rubik's Cube to be completely honest with you? Because I mean, obviously she's doing it very fast. I just don't have the patience. I've been sitting with this thing now for half the program and I still can't do it. So what would your top tips be? My top tip is to have fun and do it the way you like to do it and that brings you joy. If it brings you joy to try to chase the seconds and become one of the best cubers in the world, then do it. If you just want to be able to solve it, you impress friends, do it. If you don't want to do it at all, don't do it. Well, I'm increasingly getting to that point myself, but I mean, would there be a trick to it or a system maybe that works? There is no trick to it. It's a lot of work. It's an incredible amount of work. An incredible memorization that you have to be willing to undertake to memorize probably over a thousand of algorithms to be able to be this fast.

17:07It's like a magician, you know, like when you see a slide of hand, when you see a magician manipulate cards, they are doing tricks. They are amazing you. Your mind is completely blown because you have no explanation for what's happening. It looks natural, but it took years and years to practice. Speed cubing is the same. You need to be possessed somehow by the cube. You need to feel the inner engine to keep doing it and keep doing it and the motivation to just get faster and faster and faster. And that's intangible. You either have it or you're done. Apparently there are Cuban conventions as well as all these competitions as well. Has it changed much over the years? Because I mentioned this is a kind of classic 1980s toy, but it was actually invented in the 70s, wasn't it? It was invented in the 70s and it took off right around 1980. It was the first world championship in Rubik's group in Budapest in Europe.

18:07This is where I went to. I was representing Czechoslovakia at that time. The cube is completely different. We went through multiple multiple generations. Nowadays they are made in a way that allows certain type of twisting to cube, certain type of handling that you would not be able to do back in 1980s or 1970s. Because those cubes were hard to turn. The difference between a speedcuba today and back in 1970s, 80s, let's say, is that there was no internet at that time. And every cubeer had to also invent their own system or their own version of a system to solve and to be fast. Well, while I've been speaking to you, Jessica, I've continued with my quest and I nearly have a whole side of orange, though not entirely finished, but give me another 25 years and maybe I'll be able to complete the whole thing. Don't underestimate yourself. That was Jessica Friedrich, their professor at Binghamton University on the east coast of the US, who's considered one of the pioneers of speedcubing. I can't do it.

19:15I have nothing I'm making it worse and I'm going at the pace of a snail. You'll listening to News Hour Live from the BBC. Now drone warfare has developed considerably over the course of the war in Ukraine. Now Russia's new jet-powered drones are causing a problem in August alone. Russia launched around 2,800. That's up from about 350 in June. Until recently, Ukrainian forces had developed ways to successfully intercept most Russian drones. But these jet drones are much faster and have far more sophisticated capabilities to evade interception, making them difficult to shoot down. As the BBC's Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rasulov explains, Kiev is now in a race to develop weapons that can counter this latest threat. Abdul-Jalil has been with Ukrainian air defense units.

20:17A missile shoots into the sky, leaving a long white tail behind. Seconds pass very slowly. Destroyed, reports a Ukrainian soldier having spawned in a distance, a blank plume of smoke from the explosion. His unit has successfully shot down a Russian jet-powered drone. We can't do this! These new drones are much harder to intercept. So for now, Ukrainian forces primarily use fighter jets or Western-provided air defense systems to stop them. They might be very effective, but far too costly to use against a much cheaper threat. The first time I saw this video, I saw a commuter. Soldiers from the 96 air defense brigade showed me their drone interceptors regarded a breakthrough technology just a year ago.

21:18A bullet-shaped device held the Ukrainian military to shoot down up to 95% of Russian drones. But it's simply too slow against the new type of threat, says the crew commander Mazzy. The speed of jet-powered drones is 300 to 500 kilometers per hour, which is twice as fast as our interceptors. This is like a cat and mouse game. We are inventing something Russia is trying to invent the contractions and vice versa. And right now, more than 20 companies are building very fast drone interceptors on different levels of readiness. And out of them, six companies, members of Brave One, already deployed to the combat. And how effective are they? We have already a number of successfully destroyed shahead and the banderols.

22:21So we see that the drone is positive. The BBC is Abdul Jalil, Abdul Rasulov, there with Ukrainian air defense units. And President Macron has been speaking about Ukraine at the UN General Assembly. He says Ukraine must be defended more than ever as winter is coming. He's just been making those comments in the past couple of hours. And there's more details on what else he said on the website. Welcome back to NewsHour. President Trump's tariff wars have hit the toy industry. The US Trade Body, the toy association, wants tariffs on imported toys scrapped altogether. It's pressing its case ahead of Thursday's meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping. The BBC's Sam Fennick has been following the money behind a $30 toy.

23:22A box full of brightly coloured plastic. In an American toy shop this sells for $30. Turn it over and there are three words on the back, made in China. That's true of nearly eight in every ten toys sold in the United States, according to the US Toy Association. This one starts in a factory in Dongguan in southern China. Workers are popping tiny plastic pigs out of a steel mold. The company MyHox says that about half of its customers are American. Melanie Wang from its sales team explains how the toys get made. After we got in class from our customer, we get design from then. Then we will make the prototype for them. And we will make a mold for the toys. And after confirmed it, we will production this toys for our customers.

24:23Jay Forman runs basic fun. It's based in Florida and makes popular toys like Tonka trucks and care bears. So the cost that I pay, of course, they're all stays in China. If a toy sells for $20 in the United States, likely 15 of that is kept within the US. It's kept by my company, the transportation company, the retailer. Then there's the tariff. It's charged at the American border. The Chinese factory doesn't pay it. The company bringing the toy into the US does. Rick Waldenberg runs learning resources, a family toy firm near Chicago. Well, we paid 100% of the tariffs, so let there be no doubt about that. So we paid the full brunt of the tariffs and we just had to figure out how to balance the books on the toy. In April last year, the tariff on goods from China reached 145%. The White House said tariffs would cut America's trade deficit and bring factory jobs home.

25:26Rick Waldenberg didn't think the tariffs were fair. His company took the US government to court, and in February this year, the Supreme Court agreed with him. It said the tariffs had been unlawful from the start. Within days, a new tariff replaced the old one. This year's Christmas toys have already left China, with this year's tariff in the price. The toy association wants next year's to come in duty free, and the companies that import most of what they sell to American shoppers will be hoping that trade and tariffs are at the top of the agenda when Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meet later this week. That's the BBC's Sam Fennick there on the impact the tariff wars are having on the toy industry. Here's the news. Now you might remember the student protests at universities across the United States around the conflict in Gaza after the October 7th Hamas attacks and following Israeli military response.

26:32at the University of Columbia in New York, rival groups of students, ideologically clash over US policy in the Middle East. And the university's own links with Israeli companies and fellow universities in Israel. Pro-Palestinian groups argued that such links effectively supported the Israeli government's policy on the Palestinian territories, and they demanded the UNI cut financial links. But some Jewish students said they felt intimidated by the angry protests, and in 2025 the demonstrations at Columbia caught the eye of the newly reelected President Donald Trump, who at one point cut $400 million worth of federal funding to the university accusing Columbia of failing to protect Jewish students. We may also remember that in March 2025, one student, Mahmoud Halil, who'd been very active in the pro-Palestinian movement, and is Palestinian himself, though married to a US citizen, was detained by officers from the Department of Homeland Security, leading

27:36to further protest near Columbia University. I think it's that's a precedent that puts a lot of immigrants and activists in danger. My concern is that our students don't feel safe expressing themselves freely on campus. It's a mechanism of putting fear in the students, and if you're getting quiet because of it, then they're winning. While Mahmoud Halil was held in detention for 104 days, though he was never officially charged with a crime, and he still faces deportation. He's also in the process of suing the Trump administration and Columbia University, and I asked him why. I'm trying to seek accountability really for the days that were stolen from me for the 100 and four days, but also, you know, I met my son in detention and this administration. It's best not to allow me to hold him, so I'm really seeking accountability. 18 months after my detention, the Trump administration has not even brought one evidence that I

28:38committed any crime in the United States, and that's why I'm taking them to court. The next step is we're going to the Supreme Court, because this is an issue that would impact tens of thousands of immigrants in this country. Yes, as you mentioned there, your wife was heavily pregnant when you were taken into detention and then had a baby while you were still being held. We have contacted Columbia University, obviously. They didn't want to give us an interview, but they gave us this statement. They say, creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported and safe is fundamental to who we are as a university. It's also a responsibility we take seriously. Columbia is committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise. Do you response to that? Columbia failed to protect me and dozens of other students from whether Trump's slowest

29:40actions or the actions of the pro-Israeli groups. The university ignored my repeated requests for help up until the day I was taken by ice in Columbia student housing. So really Columbia, I would say, laid the groundwork for my detention for allowing the Trump administration to go after me. They prioritized the safety concerns of a subset of students over other students. So as I explained in my lawsuit at Columbia, I was targeted by groups and individuals and Columbia rather than protect me or even be neutral. They harbored these groups in ways that allowed them to continue to dox me. You'll know that the criticism comes back the other way that a number of Jewish students also spoke of feeling intimidated by the large pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the campus. They said they heard anti-Semitic chance and that there was anti-Semitism as well involved.

30:42I believe that we must take anti-Semitism very seriously, just like all forms of bigotry. We must also acknowledge that when that claim is used as a smear to silence legitimate criticism of Israel. That's why I'm suing Columbia and actually I'm part of all these legal actions because what happened to me is weaponization of anti-Semitism, weaponization of the immigration law to silence me and to silence any criticism of the state of Israel. We take these safety concerns very seriously because all students, regardless of their background, regardless of their faith, should feel safe on campus and anywhere. Is it correct that you've not actually been charged as such? You were detained but you weren't exactly arrested. You weren't charged with a particular crime. I mean, I know the US government, this is via the Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed

31:44that your activism harmed US foreign policy. Would that amount to a crime? Is that why you still could be deported? That's what the government is claiming. I actually, in fact, Marco Rubio in his memo acknowledged that my activities and speech otherwise loful. So he acknowledged that what I said, what I did was otherwise loful. So it's really they went back to 1952 to a law that was created. In fact, to prevent Jewish immigrants from coming to the United States, now they're using it against me to get me out of the United States. And in court records, we found that this was the first time actually a US government uses such law to go after a permanent resident for their freedom of speech, basically. So you're right. I was never charged with a crime. This is what a court agreed with us that my targeting was likely and constitutional

32:50and based on that, they ordered my release. Your book is called No Land to Stand On. I mean, do you want to explain that title? No, land to stand on because you are Palestinian, but you were born in a Syrian refugee camp, I think, and you've moved through Lebanon and the United States as well. What does that title mean to you? But no, not to stand on it to me was more of a really idealization. As you explained, I was born and raised in Syria for 18 years. I lived there, but I was never really like Syrian. Everything I had had the word temporary. So my ID literally had the word temporary ID for Palestinian refugees. The same when I went to Lebanon and lived there and they had to renew my residency every year. And when I came to the United States, I felt that for one time in my life, I would have something permanent when I got my permanent residency to be then surprised that this

33:52government does not want me here. So it was really like a statement to me as a realization that I have no land to stand on, but it's also it encompasses the experiences of so many Palestinians who are exiled from Palestine, but also the immigrants in this country who also now struggling to find the land to stand on. That's Mahmoud Halil and we did ask for a response from the Department of Homeland Security, but are yet to receive a reply. Now four years ago, Poland welcomed millions of Ukrainians fleeing the full scale Russian invasion. Many Polish people even made room for Ukrainian families in their own homes and around one million Ukrainian refugees remain in the country, but according to opinion polls, more than half of Polish people questioned. Now say they want the Ukrainians to go back home. John Murphy reports. We give information for Ukrainian refugees.

34:52We have disabled people, we have disabled children to come to us for help. In Zamasht in Southeast Poland, Maria Król is showing me a laminated poster. She and her colleague put copies up over the border in Western Ukraine in 2022. We stop sleep by two months. So you didn't sleep for two months at the beginning of the full scale invasion? A lot of adrenaline. It was adrenaline. Very important word. Maria founded a charity more than three decades ago called Króksa Krochium or Step by Step for disabled children and adults. And our enemy is Russia. Every time is Russia. So we identify it. We've done with Ukrainian people because our common enemy. Before years on, her positive feelings about Ukrainians have changed. We had a lot of problems with Ukrainian people because they stayed no free days,

35:56but three years, four years, you know. So it's a period. A lot of problems like alcohol, with not with order and different things. So we are tired, a little tired after this support, because it isn't our duty, you know. So you've gone from quite positive at the beginning to quite negative now. Is that a fair representation? A little. A little. Four years ago, according to opinion polls, more than 90% of Polish people felt positive towards Ukrainians. Today, more than half have negative feelings about Ukrainians. Attacks both verbal and physical on refugees have increased significantly. Sometimes just for speaking Ukrainian, or even in a Ukrainian accent. This is the highest moment with aggression to Ukrainian people here. Important. Elena Kloszkowska is from Homo Fabre, a prominent Polish human rights NGO.

37:01I met her in Lublin, not far from the Ukrainian border. Who are you blaming for this sort of change of attitude from the love position four years ago? To this really anti-Ukrainian feeling. I think it started with the Russian votes, because they started a few years ago. Elena's referring to Russian-automized accounts, which are used for online attacks. So they are started, but our politicians saw that, okay, that works. People like it and put it. They love to prepare, you know, commentar with that back to your country. I think they catch the occasion and they use it. Their popular anti-Ukrainian rhetoric got a boost a few months ago, when Ukraine's president Zelensky named a military unit, Heroes of the UPA. Poland accuses the UPA of committing a genocide of ethnic polls during World War II. Maria Król, whose own grandmother and mother escaped from the UPA, is very upset.

38:04I do understand me, I'm a friend. So what are you afraid of? A question from Ukraine in the future. But others say much of the anti-Ukrainian feeling is being fed by Russian propaganda. Mikhail Fedorovich of Red's Futura monitors what happens online and on social media. He says Moscow's message is clear. Your Ukrainian neighbor has a better car. He is living a better life. He is earning loads of money. It was every day spreading little lies. Little fake news, this little disinformation. Right-wing nationalist parties in Poland are doing well in the opinion polls, ahead of parliamentary elections next year. Even if most Polish people still regard Russia as their main threat. It's the anti-Ukrainian message that's currently winning the day. John Murphy, then, you can hear more on this week's assignment here on the World Service Radio.

39:08The answer on has fallen out of love with Ukraine. Now lots of TV shows like to call themselves groundbreaking, but the series we're about to hear about now really did break new ground. And it's about to come to an end. Seven up first aired in 1964. It followed 14 British seven-year-olds from very different backgrounds. The idea was based on the Jesuit maxim. Give me a child until he's seven, and I will give you the man. Well, after the first program, a film crew returned every seven years to follow the same kids as teenagers and then as adults until now. And this is the final two programs with those still alive from that group. Now they're 70 years old. And it's the longest running documentary series in the world. This was the sound of one of the children, Tony Walker, talking in the program about finally fulfilling his life's ambition to become a professional horse jockey.

40:08My greatest for filming in life when I wrote it, Kenpton, in the same way, says Lester Piggert. I was a naive, wet-be-ion of years apprentice. All my years from seven, all my ambition is fulfilled in one moment. Well, Tony, in fact, ended up as a London Black Cab taxi driver, which is a job he still has. And he drove to the New Zara studio earlier today, along with Claire Lewis, who's been series producer of Up as it's now called and has worked on the project since it was 28 up. And they've been speaking to New Zara's Tim Franks, who first asked Claire what was the magic behind this recipe? The recipe for its magic started with the film of Seven Up. Because Seven Up was a completely groundbreaking film. And it was innovative in many ways. It was beautifully directed. It was a subject that nobody ever talked about. And it had just children talking. And it was the first film with no adults at all in it.

41:09And just children talking. And from that point of view, it was completely revolutionary. And so I think the magic was partly because it was a beautiful film. Partly because the kids they chose were magical. And the relationship with the camera that they all have, whether they're the shy ones or the talkative ones, is extraordinary. And it's a magical film. Tony, for you, I mean, looking back now on that arc of your life, from that moment where you were the cheeky, chappy seven-year-old onwards, was it like for you seeing yourself captured in that way? I can still remember everything that happened on that day of Pu'am and Timu and Michael Abdubin researcher, taking us to the saturday morning pictures. I can remember distinctly going into the studio to argue and share in an all-in with all the kids. And it was an adventure that stayed in my mind even today.

42:11And that sort of 63 years later. You put a huge amount of trust in them in a way, because they're capturing your life in a way that will outlast any of us. I often said the Michael B. Gentleman, me and be truthful with me. And I've... Michael was the original director. Michael wrapped it up, always emphasized with him before it was cut. B. Gentleman, me and even that as if Kapodia I said to him prior to going into editing. I said just be gentle with me and make sure I come out with credibility. Like everyone else would want to come out with some credibility. Because you say things at the spur of the moment, which is it's in the fashion that's 15, 20 years ago. But when you come back to now, what you said in say 21 years ago is not in fashion today. Claire, can I ask you, Tony's talked about, you know, maybe how attitudes have changed and the things that people say have changed. You've been involved in this amazing project for 42 years.

43:16Do you think that documentary making has changed over that time? Yes, documentary filming has definitely changed. For example, when I joined the series, which was at 28 up, documentary filming was quite straightforward. I'd been a news reporter and making news films for TV and I'd been telling the truth and editing and going out and talking to people. And that was how it was when we made 28 up and 35 up. And then suddenly things dramatically changed after 42 up with the advent of Big Brother. Big Brother, the channel 4 Big Brother, the original absolutely changed the landscape for television. All of a sudden, normal people who might be your next door neighbors were all on the screen. And suddenly documentary filmmaking became different. People in documentary films begin to realise that they had a certain degree of power and control.

44:19And actually, it became very much more difficult to make truthful documentaries. People wanted to perform and they wanted to have scripts and that developed into the so-called reality TV. Tony, did you all sort of sense of what was expected of you change? Did you feel that it was just a bit of a laugh? It was just an enjoyable thing to do every so often. And there wasn't a sense of you thinking, I've now got a family, I've now got kids grandkids. I need to be a responsible... I am a rabbit. I mean, obviously, at 7 you see me as a kid. Excitable, shoot from the hip. 14 when I was under the auspices of being a apprentice jockey where it was regimental. I was a bit monosolabic there. I was a yes, no answer. Then after I left the racing at 21, I became sort of immature, same I've thought at that particular time. It seemed like everyone had that sort of age

45:19going through that process of being shy, being extroverted at certain ages. Come 28 when I was married and having my children. You could see a sensibility sort of step in there and you realised what you said on that program will save you for the rest of your life and the responsibility you carry not just for yourself or your family, but for the people you represent because there's things they're on visual that people can identify with. When I come 35, I lost my parents and everyone goes through that. There's sadness and gladness in various things. In my case, you know, I don't know, okay. And I feel I'm a white, I've got my credibility back. Yeah. That's all I really wanted. Do you think if the opportunity presented itself that you would have liked God willing to have carried on for it to be 77 or do you reckon 70 up is just a sort of good time? I remember Michael talking to us that he'd like to go on to 99

46:21with respect to Michael and other ways of wanting to as well. I mean, you must understand, I mean, all the production team, it's like a family to me. I've picked most of the cast up. I've picked most of the production team up, you know, in various ways of you. In the back of your cab. In my back of my cab, you know, it just driving around London and I often pick clear up now and again. You know, so everyone is sort of an arms length even now. London, Cabbie, Tony Walker and we also heard from Claire Lewis speaking to Tim Franksback being part of that fascinating TV series Seven Up. It's finished now because they're all 70. I've been trying to do this Rubik's Cube. I think I'm going to be 70 before I managed to do it. It really is beginning to make me feel old and aging me. But anyway, that's it. Thanks for listening.