Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on the Pope's body being moved to St Peter's Basilica

Pope Francis' body has been moved to St Peter's Basilica, in front of crowds of worshippers. 

The late pontiff lies in a simple coffin of wood and zinc, wearing a red robe with a rosary in his hands. 

The Pope's coffin will remain there following the Liturgy until his funeral on Saturday.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says crowds are coming in to pay tribute - and tens of thousands will be expected to come through in the coming days.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, it's courts to seven and Devin Gray as
are UK correspondent.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey Gevin, hi there?

Speaker 1 (00:05):
So have they moved the body already? Pope for antist's body?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Would you to get that now? In about another quarter
of an hour. So the crowds have already begun to
arrive at Saint Peter Square. They are allowed in a
short time ago. And so the Pope's body that has
been laid out of his residence Casa Santa Marta, where
he lived for his twelve year papacy, is now to

(00:30):
be moved in at the top of the hour, really,
and that'll be taken to Saint Peter's Basilica amid high
ceremony and the funeral, of course we now know would
take place at the Vatican on Saturday. So we now
have three days for people to pay their respects. And
indeed it is said that tens of thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are making their way to

(00:53):
the Vatican City in order to pay their respects to
the pope. Of course, his death affecting one point four
billion baptized Roman Catholics. And now you know, while all
that ceremonies underway, Heather. Of course we also get the
debate the College of Cardinals meeting in the conclave in
the Sistine Chapel in order to look at their vote
for preferred candidates, and big questions here. Perhaps with eighty

(01:15):
percent of them appointed by Pope Francis himself, which is
very rare, perhaps electing a pope for the first time,
they may go for somebody who's not European. They might
go for an Asian or an African pope, and that
is a decision that will be made over the coming days.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Now, listen, what's the point in publishing the nationalities of criminals?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, because it's been a very contentious topic here in
the UK. Currently, if you are sentenced to twelve months
or more in prison and you are a foreign national,
you are then subject to automatic deportation. I say automatic
because there's an endless line of appeals one feel sometimes
which prevents this from happening. And the Home Secretary of

(01:58):
the government has the power to deport people receive a
shorter sentence if they decide that their presence in the
UK is not conducive to the public good. But exactly
how many foreign offenders are awaiting deportation with the answer
is nineteen thousand, and that's up from eighteen thousand when
the government's changed back in July, and this was a

(02:19):
pledge of the new government to get this system sorted out.
And so the government now saying yep, we're able to
publish this data for the first time about the nationalities
and the numbers of foreign criminals in the UK has
been welcomed by many and certainly by the previous government,
although one would also point the finger at them and say, well,
why weren't you doing this as well? It's long been

(02:41):
thought that because they aren't publishing the figures, they're trying
to sort of hide the truth from people to know
how many are in this country. That shouldn't be But
we're now going to get these figures and it is
expected that three nationalities for foreign criminals living in the
UK in the community are going to be topped by Albanians,
Roumanians and Poles, and are understood that most common offenses

(03:05):
were for the production of drugs, theft, robbery and acts
of violent assault.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Kevin, have you had a look at this tunnel being
built in Scandinavia.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I have. It's pretty impressive. So it's going to run
for eighteen kilometers. It's the fermh Belt Tunnel, and it'll
be the world's longest prefabricated road and rail tunnel. But
look at the timescale on this heather. The agreement between
Denmark and Germany those are the countries it's connecting, was
signed in two thousand and eight. There was then a

(03:37):
huge environmental protest about it, and the legal challenge eventually
was dismissed in twenty twenty. And now some seventeen years
on since it was agreed, they are a sort of
starting work on it. They have already done, to be fair,
some bits at either end. But this idea that you're

(04:00):
going to build something using prefabricated sections is what makes
this very very different. So that eighteen kilometers will be
the world's longest prefabricated road and rail tunnel be a
remarkable feat of engineering, because of course you've got to
link up by the millimeter the exact sections of tunnel
that you're doing. Each two hundred and seventeen meter long

(04:23):
and forty two wide chunk of this thing is going
to be with reinforced steel casting concrete. But most underwater tunnels,
including the fifty kilometer channel tunnel connecting France and England
borrow through bedrock beneath the sea floor. Here instead, ninety
individual elements will be linked up piece pipe piece like

(04:45):
lego bricks. Quite extraordinary, but it will slash travel times
between Copenhagen in particular and the rest of Europe.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Amazing what they can do. Hey, thank you for that,
Gavin appreciated. Gavin Gray, our UK correspondent.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
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