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Vincent McAviney: Europe correspondent on UK giving sovereignty to Chagos Islands · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Vincent Mecavini is at UK Europe correspondent. He's with us
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  Speaker 1: this morning. Vincent, welcome to the show. Good to have
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  Speaker 1: you back.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me about this secret secretive islands in the Indian Ocean.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, a bit closer to your part of the world.
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  Speaker 2: The Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean have been used
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  Speaker 2: by the UK for the last fifty years. They've had
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  Speaker 2: sovereignty over them. They were given that by Mauritius and
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  Speaker 2: the UK has operated a military base there on Diego Garcia,
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  Speaker 2: and this involved moving off the Chegossian people who are
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  Speaker 2: relocated here to the UK and have a long time
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  Speaker 2: protest on this. But this military base, now used jointly
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  Speaker 2: by the UK and the US, is a top secret facility.
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  Speaker 2: It's used for US long range bombing. It's seen as
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  Speaker 2: a critical point for their sort of global power projection,
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  Speaker 2: particularly in Southeast Asia and with a sort of resurgent China.
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  Speaker 2: But this deal has been announced now because of ongoing
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  Speaker 2: protests that the UK will hand back sovereignty too Mauritius
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  Speaker 2: of the islands, but they'll be able to keep control
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  Speaker 2: of Diego Garcia and that special US UK military base
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  Speaker 2: for Navy ships and as I said, long range bombers
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  Speaker 2: for at least the next ninety nine years, in a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a landmark deal for Kirstama's new government.
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  Speaker 1: And also this morning the flights that are coming out
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  Speaker 1: of Lebanon for UK citizens they're going aheit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. There have been evacuation flights charted in
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  Speaker 2: part by our Foreign Office to get British people out
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  Speaker 2: of Lebanon, but it's unclear how much longer they'll be
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  Speaker 2: able to operate going in and out of the Beirut Airport.
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  Speaker 2: So what we believe is going on now, and we
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  Speaker 2: have some confirmation, is that there's been an increase in
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  Speaker 2: personnel at a UK military base in Cyprus that's aquitary
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  Speaker 2: an RAF base, and they're looking to potentially evacuate via sea.
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  Speaker 2: They would deploy ships from the Royal Navy and get
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  Speaker 2: British people who are no longer able to fly out
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  Speaker 2: if they decide to go given the war now with Israel,
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  Speaker 2: they'll take them out by boat and then bring them
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  Speaker 2: to Cyprus. We know already that earlier in the week
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  Speaker 2: military assets, navy vessels in the Mediterranean, and we think
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  Speaker 2: planes from Aquitari that base in Cypress. We use to
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  Speaker 2: help defend Israel when it came under that huge bombardment
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  Speaker 2: of rockets from Iran, and the UK government is saying
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  Speaker 2: that it will continue to defend Israel should it come
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  Speaker 2: under attack again.
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  Speaker 1: All right, thanks so much for that. That's Slincton mcavinnie,
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  Speaker 1: Europe Correspondent.
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• 2:43
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• 2:46
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