Global News Podcast - Amazon glitch 'resolved' after massive outage

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Amazon has resolved the technical glitch that brought down thousands of apps and websites and disrupted online banking, social media websites and Amazon's retail operations. Also, an interim report says a defective cable caused the funicular crash that killed 16 people in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon; part of the White House is being demolished to make way or President Trump's new ballroom; and the ghostwriter of Virginia Giuffre's memoir speaks to the BBC as Prince Andrew comes under further pressure about his connections with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

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Color as medicine. But look a little closer and you'll see something else. Fakes. We believe it's the world's biggest art fraud. There are thousands of fake Norval Morso paintings. Beneath some of these forgeries, assaults, abuse, and even an unsolved murder. I want my pain back. I know you kill that boy. Forged. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and in the early hours of October the 21st, these are our main stories. Amazon says a glitch that took thousands of apps and websites offline on Monday has been resolved. An interim report blames a defective cable for the finicular crash that killed 16 people in Lisbon. Part of the White House is being demolished to make way for President Trump's new ballroom. Also in this podcast, what future does Hamas have in Gaza? I want the end of Hamas. I don't want them to remain in Gaza. I don't want them in government. And I I don't want them in security.

And we hear about the pioneering project that's helping opioid addicts in Las Vegas get clean. Chit Amazon Web Services on the East Coast of America rippled around the world on Monday, bringing down thousands of apps and websites. It affected more than 2,000 companies disrupting banking and social media sites, as well as Amazon's own retail operations.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate the market in what's known as cloud computing. But critics say this outage is proof that something needs to change. Here's Ed Amaroso from the cybersecurity analysis firm, Tag InfoSpore. We live in an era right now where we are very dependent on the cloud providers, so we need them to be at the top of their game, and today Amazon was not. Amazon says the issue has now been resolved. Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, told me more about the problem. A nightmare for Amazon as well as all the users out there and even businesses who run their websites using Amazon Web Services.

It stems from something called the DNS, shorthand for the domain name system, which helps Amazon Web Services direct users to an app that they tap or a link that they click on. This morning, Amazon couldn't direct traffic like it normally. does. They had to spend the bulk of today resolving those underlying issues. And what we saw was this spike of outages, but then another wave of outages later because the company actually had to throttle parts of its own system to address the root cause. And how has this been affecting consumers and businesses? This has affected countless businesses, countless users trying to log on to everything from social media apps like Snapchat to banking services, airliners. have been affected by this. It's really hard to contain the impact of this once the problem

is out there. And it comes down to a problem that they had of the data system in northern Virginia. And I think that initially they were really trying to find the root causes but may have addressed the symptoms. And so that's why they had to take the system down temporarily because they hadn't addressed what was fundamentally causing this issue. So really frustrating for customers, but what kind of reaction has been from people inside the industry? Well, among technologists, and I don't mean to downplay just how difficult a day this has been, but there's been something of a collective yawn because so many technologists are very familiar with DNS. And it happens all the time. These outages actually are very common. It's just that we

don't often know about them. And that's actually a good thing. You know, one thing I've been hearing from computer scientists is that it's Amazon's fault here. They've resolved this issue, but it's also, there is some responsibility with the app developers on the other end of this equation who really should have backup systems in place in case Amazon Web Services or whatever cloud computing service they use drops the ball in the way that happened today. That was Lily Jamarley. A new UN report says there are 61 active conflicts in the world, the highest number since 1946, the year after the end of the Second World War. And as conflict and military spending rises, so do the risks and suffering faced by women and girls.

And that's a raising some of the progress in gender equality made in previous decades. Sarah Douglas is one of the authors of the report. She's been speaking to my colleague, Priya Rai. This last year's Secretary General's report showed an alarming increase in all kinds of different issues for women and girls living in conflict zones. In 2004, 676 million women and girls live within 50 kilometers of a deadly conflict, and that's the highest number since the 1990s. Also very alarmingly in the last two years, 23 and 24, the number of women killed in armed conflict, the proportion actually quadrupled compared to the previous two years. And we also saw

sexual violence and conflict rising by 87% just in two years. The report also talks about an increase in the number of conflicts that are happening. So in some ways are these numbers whilst completely not okay? Are they somewhat inevitable or what is it you're trying to say about it? Well, I think it's both. Of course, the number of conflicts has increased dramatically in the last few years. But also we're making the point that women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of conflict and also have certain levels of cruelty specifically directed against them.

And we've also seen, for example, that 58% of global maternal deaths took place just in 29 crisis countries. And at the same time, they are not the ones at the decision-making tables. So when it comes to your recommendations as a result of your findings in this report, one of them is around quotas for women to be participating in peace processes. Explain why you think that is one of the solutions. Sure. We've seen over the years that when women are involved at the peace table, at negotiating tables, peace agreements tend to be more inclusive and then also more durable.

This is because of the diverse perspectives that women in, Other groups would bring the peace table as opposed to only having the parties to a conflict at that table. We've also seen examples in Rwanda where when there was a majority female parliament after the genocide, they then enacted legislation that benefited women and families as part of the legislative package early on. And that trend has also continued. Women at the community level are still extremely active, you know, organized food pantries has been in the case in Sudan, that women are actually on the ground trying very much to organize services and deliver what the community needs, despite all of the

conflict and bombs falling around them. Sarah Douglas speaking to Priya Rai. It was an accident that stunned Portugal. One of the capital's most famous tourist attractions, Lisbon's Gloria Finicula, which had operated for 140 years, derailed last month and, crashed into a building. Sixteen people were killed, most of them foreign tourists. Now report by Portugal's Air and Rail Accident Investigations Bureau has issued a list of damning failures. Mark Lowen told my colleague Janat Jaliel Moore. It really details a litany of failures, so many different levels of Portuguese society. Principally, I think, with Karis, which is the company that runs the Lisbon public transport, which is found to have ordered and bought this cable

that is underground and works as a counterweight to the two carriages of the tram, allowing one to go up while the other one comes down, without it being certified for public transportation. The preliminary report says that it was bought in 2022 in a very shady acquisition process. There was no oversight by any kind of engineer. It was not technically right for that type of connection to the funicular carriage. It was not tested in advance before being installed. So Carich bears some of the blame, according to the preliminary report. But also the company that was in charge of maintenance and supervision of the funicular,

which Carish outsourced, that failed to do the proper supervision. It was not properly done. The finicular itself was given the all clear on the morning of the crash, but it's actually not clear whether the check was even performed. And this will further compound the shock that they felt over the initial accident, over what is a very popular tourist attraction. Yeah, I mean, I was sent out to report on the crash when it happened. I know Lisbon very well. I have family there. And the iconic yellow finiculars are really a symbol of the city. And then standing there at the bottom of the hill, right in the center of the city,

city and seeing the mangled carriage as it came down, the cable snapped and it hurtled, we're now told at 60 kilometres an hour, it took about 50 seconds to hurtle down the hill, killing 16 people, including 11 foreigners, four of the Portuguese who were killed, worked at a charity that was based at the top of that hill, and they used to go up and down the finicular almost every day. And it really left a hole in the heart of the city, a kind of gaping hole. People came to leave flowers there. I saw the Portuguese president coming to pay his respects. The Portuguese government called it one of the worst disasters in Portuguese modern history.

So the fact that clearly there were so many errors and mismanagement and mistakes along the way, well, I think, as you say, compound the devastation that the Portuguese and the foreigners felt. Mark Lowen. Donald Trump has brought his own unique style of interior design to the White House. He's already refurbished the Oval Office to reflect. his love of gold. And his pet project, a new state ballroom, is next on the list. Cruise have apparently started demolishing part of the East Wing, the traditional centre of operations for the First Lady and her team. Our North America correspondent, Peter Bowes,

has the details. Observers in the grounds of the White House over the last few hours have reported that the work is very definitely underway. They've seen demolition work begin at the East Wing, construction crews tearing down massive chunks of a covered entryway and some windows. Now, Mr. Trump said the East Wing is also being fully modernised as part of this overall project. And just to explain, he says that the ballroom will be a separate building. And of course, this goes to his long-held ambition to have a state ballroom at the grounds of the White House. but it is separate from the main executive part of the White House, which is where the first family live.

The East Wing is generally mostly housing offices, staff, and as you said, the offices of the First Lady, and it is connected via a walkway to the executive building where Mr. Trump and his family live, and the potential controversy, or let's just say confusion at this stage, is to what extent is the East Wing being demolished to make way, or at least. least to allow the construction of this ballroom. And where's the money coming from for this?

Because obviously this is going to cost, you presume, millions of dollars. It's certainly going to cost a lot of money. The money is coming from President Trump himself and other private donors. In fact, he posted on social media, I am honored to be the first president to finally get this much-needed project underway with zero cost to the American taxpayer. Now, CBS News, the BBC's partner here in the States has reported that major companies such as Google, Lockheed Martin, have contributed funds along with some wealthy individuals. And donors will reportedly be eligible for recognition associated with the ballroom. It seems the form of that recognition is still being discussed, perhaps having their names etched into the brickwork. But there is much debate over whether, and perhaps this is a more serious aspect of this,

all the correct procedures have been followed, and the Washington Post, for example, is reporting that the review process for such a major construction at the White House has not been completed. It would normally take several years. It would involve a body known as the National Capital Planning Commission, which vets work on renovation or the upgrading of federal buildings. And a White House spokesperson said the Commission

would be part of the process at the appropriate time. And have we got any reaction? yet from politicians in the US about this? We've known about this for some time. So there isn't a huge amount of new reaction, although I did spot one very pointed response on X from Joe Walsh, who's a former Republican member of Congress. He says, if I run for president in 2028,

I'd run on taking a bulldozer to Trump's ballroom and utter desecration of the people's house. And he goes on. In fact, I'd invite the American people one weekend to bring their own sledgehammers and crowbar. bars to the White House to help tear that abomination down. That was Peter Bowes. Still to come, a US study finds a sharp production in nut allergies

after parents followed new guidance. We used to say to avoid peanut because we were concerned that early peanut introduction might actually cause allergy. That's actually not the case. The opposite is true in children who don't have a history. of already reacting to these foods. Norval Morso is one of the most famous indigenous artists ever. Looking at his paintings, it's easy to see why.

Colors are intense. Color is medicine. But look a little closer, and you'll see something else. Fakes. We believe it's a world's biggest art fraud. There are thousands of fake Norval Morso paintings. Beneath some of these forgeries. Assults.

abuse, and even an unsolved murder. I want my pain back. I know you kill that boy. Forged. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. The Gaza ceasefire is holding, but only just. In recent days, Hamas fighters have clashed with the Israeli army and Palestinian opponents within Gaza. It's clear that the organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip for the last 18 years still believes it has a role to play politically and for the moment at least in

restoring law and order mid the chaos left behind by the war but what's the future for Hamas our former Middle East correspondent Paul Adams assesses the group's legacy and what its continued presence might mean for the future of Gaza Gaza's ceasefire hangs by a thread at the weekend Israel and Hamas exchanged blows blamed other for the breakdown. This didn't sound like the start of a new era, more like the continuation of the old. Elsewhere, Hamas is back on the streets, imposing its will, often brutally, punishing anyone it sees as having collaborated with Israel. None of this says aid worker Hanya al-Jemal should come as much of a surprise. She spoke to us from her parents' home in Daryl Bala

in the middle of the Gaza Strip. So when the ceasefire, how happened, we knew that once the fighting is going to stop, that, you know, it's going to be payback time and a lot of people are going to pay for what they did. So as Palestinians, as Gazans, none of us is shocked. And in a way, none of us feel sorry for these. Because it's been two years with complete break of the social fabric, complete loss of law and order. So it became, in a way, it became survival of the fittest. And that brought up, brought out very ugly phenomenons that were. were coming to show up. But is this just the war's ugly endgame or the shape of things to come? Hamas has, after all, given its qualified backing to Donald Trump's ceasefire plan. It's not easy to find anyone to speak from among Hamas's severely depleted ranks, but Dr. Ahmed Yusuf, who once advised the assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah, remains close to the organization.

I'm talking to many of them, and they have said that they are not interested in ruling. in Gaza anymore. We know that it was a terrible mistake that happened and caused all the kind of genocidal war. But really, really, the people is not interested anymore to go to violence and to act of war. But tell that to Hamas's opponents,

long-time critics like lawyer Muman Al-Natur in hiding somewhere in Gaza. If I fell into Hamas, Hamas's hands now, they'd shoot me in the head and make a video, he says, in a voice note from a battle-scarred building. I want the end of Hamas. I don't want them to remain in Gaza. I don't want them in government. And I don't want them in security. I don't want to see their ideas spread in mosques in streets or in schools. But that's exactly where Hamas has been since a chaotic, violent takeover in

2007. Embedding itself quite literally into every corner of Gaza's crowded landscape, tunneling under homes, hospitals and schools, creating places to shield its leadership, manufacture weapons, and after its fighters burst into Israel in October 2023, hide hostages. The irony is that Israel inadvertently helped Hamas to achieve all of this. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Qatar to send Hamas vast, sums of money, in theory, to pay for things like the salaries of civil servants. Much of it went on tunnels and weapons instead. Michael Milstein is a former advisor on Palestinian affairs for Israel's military intelligence.

There was a kind of perception among the Israelis that we can actually promote a kind of economic peace in Gaza. We can turn Hamas from a militant, radical, ideological Islamist group to a political party or something like a regime. And unfortunately, all the things that you described, they were a part of a broader policy, which relied on the assumptions that you can really change the basic DNA of a radical organization and that you, by money, by economy, you can really achieve stability and that the Palestinians, they are not important. Dr. Milstein doubts that Hamas will change, despite the devastating blows of the past two years. He predicts another Gaza war within the next five.

But Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel's internal security service, Shinbet, says there is a way to prevent this from happening without going back to war. It has to be said that his is a minority view. Unless we shall defeat the ideology, they will flourish. So the only way to defeat ideology is not by the use of power. It's only by creating and presenting to the Palestinian and to the Israeli people and new horizon, horizon of two states. Back in Gaza, the former Hamas advisor, Dr. Yusuf, tells me that Hamas is ready to change, even to rebrand itself. So if there tomorrow is going to be the election, or anything like this, I'm sure Hamas will come under different names.

Giving the ambition is more peaceful and more willing to be part of political life. And the violence is not going to be part of any political party. There's very little that will convince Israelis that this is a realistic prospect. And the scenes playing out in the Gaza Strip in recent days don't exactly point in that direction either. But Hamas for now remains the dominant force in Gaza. One way or another, Israel is going to have to deal with it. That was Paul Adams reporting. Buckingham Palace and the British government have been under pressure

to formally strip Prince Andrew of his title of Prince, as stories continue to emerge about his links with the convicted sex offender, Geoffrey. This week, much attention is focusing on the publication of a posthumous memoir by Virginia Dufray, setting out her allegations of sexual assault against the prince, which he's always denied. Now, the ghost writer of that memoir, Amy Wallace, has been speaking to the BBC. Our royal correspondent, Daniela Ralph, has more. It's an interesting interview, very much about the detail of her relationship with Virginia Dufre, how they went about writing the book, how they fact-checked every single allegation

and accusation that Virginia Dufre made. The book itself is an incredibly... bleak and painful picture of abuse when you read it. It's not full of fresh allegations, but what it is is a collection of how Virginia Dufre felt over the past couple of years reflecting on the experiences that she had had as a young woman. And there is real power in reading that. Amy Wallace, who was her co-writer, she describes herself as the ghost writer, has spoken about Prince Andrew. And she has said that she believes that Virginia Dufre would be really pleased that he's had to give up his titles and honours.

I know that she would view it as a victory, that he was forced by whatever means to voluntarily give them up. And it also just a step in the right direction. You know, Virginia wanted all the men who she'd been trafficked to against her will to be held to account. And this is just one of the men, but even though he continues to deny it, his life is being eroded because of his past behavior. The problem they've got is that Friday night, the statement of Prince Andrew saying that he was giving up his honours and titles has really turned the heat up rather than dialed it down. And Buckingham Palace are now in a situation of trying to work out how to cool things off in this fog of day-to-day damaging stories about Prince Andrew. There's another one in the Times about how he is paying for Royal Lodge, the accommodation he lives in in Windsor Great Park. They have seen a lease agreement suggesting that perhaps he isn't paying the full amount of rent that we believed he was.

It is an endless drip of stories. And Buckingham Palace now have this thorny, difficult area where they are trying to manage family loyalties or what's left of them around Prince Andrew with protecting the reputation of the whole royal family. Daniara Ralph. The Brazilian oil giant Petrobras says it's been given the green light to start drilling for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River,

which means the five-month project can begin immediately. The decision follows a five-year battle by Petrobras to secure permission for the well off the coast of the world's largest tropical rainforest. Critics say it cast doubt over Brazil's ambitions to champion a greener agenda. Iony Wells is our correspondent in Sao Paulo. The site where Petra Brass will drill in the sea is about 500 kilometres from the mouth of the Amazon River. The company says it demonstrated that it had a robust environmental protection structure in place. Oil exploration in the region has been supported by Brazil's president, Lula de Silva.

However, the plans have been opposed by many environmental organisations. Some fear that the proximity to the Amazon River and rainforest, coupled with sea currents, could mean any oil spills would have disastrous impacts on the Amazon's biodiversity. Others have pointed out it could undermine Brazil's climate leadership ahead of hosting the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon in November, and that the International Energy Agency has been clear no new oil projects can be approved if net zero is to be reached by 2050. Ione Wells. Drug overdoses have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in recent years. Fentanyl drove the number of fatalities even higher. Now nationally, narcotics-related fatalities have fallen. But in Nevada, those statistics have continued to rise. And some of the most vulnerable to overdose are female addicts who are pregnant or have just given birth. In Las Vegas, a pioneering project is helping them get their lives back on track. Linda Presley went to visit them and find out.

more. This is Cole. He is 11 weeks old. He looks very, very happy and healthy. He came out perfect and had no issues whatsoever. And he's a little tiny, but other than that, super healthy, doing good. Kristen is Cole's mom. She's 37. I was actually on prescription pain pills for a long time. I got on them when I was about in my mid-20s. Like many Americans, Kristen's story of addiction began when she was prescribed medication after surgery. When the authorities placed controls on opioids like Oxycontin and they became more difficult to access, Kristen bought fake prescription pills.

This was fentanyl. Once, she overdosed and found herself in an ambulance. When Kristen became pregnant, she went to a doctor. I said, you know, I've been taking this. Can you help me? Like, I'm pregnant. And you know what they told me? to continue doing what I was doing.

Oh, what, to keep taking fentanyl? Yeah. Buying it on the street? Because he said he couldn't help because I was pregnant, so there's nothing that they could do. So I had to just continue going on that way. Kristen knew that wasn't right. You feel like the worst person in the whole entire world.

You feel like you're not hurting just you. You're hurting someone who has no choice. When she was three months pregnant, Kristen walked through the doors of Empowered. My name's Andrea Peter. and I am executive director of the Empowered program and then I also founded this program. Andrea is a pharmacist and in 2016 she was working in a newborn intensive care unit where more and more babies were being omitted whose mothers were drug users, dependent on opiates like fentanyl and a synthetic stimulant methamphetamine.

We started seeing a large influx of infants that were treated for withdrawal. So, you know, at difficult time eating, diarrhea, difficult times sleeping. These babies had what's called neonatal abstinence syndrome and were withdrawing from the drugs their moms had taken during pregnancy. These babies were a symptom of a larger issue. And so we were able to obtain some grant funds and start the empowered program. It supports women in their journey to recovery from addiction. The first thing we ask is what's your most urgent need.

And sometimes that varies from I need hygiene items, I need clothing. I want to start a medication for an opioid use disorder. I want prenatal care. But once you've heard somebody say, I need food, I'm hungry. And once you help them navigate that most urgent need, it builds that trust. Empower has been a lifesaver. So the number one cause of pregnancy-associated death is overdose in Nevada,

which every time I look at that statistic, it's preventable. Women with an opioid use disorder may be guided towards treatment like buprenorphine. This is a medication that stops cravings and withdrawal. It's going to be much less severe on the baby than if they'd continue taking fentanyl on the street, for example. Oh, absolutely. Kristen's taking a form of buprenorphine. So far, that's going well, allowing her to be in the moment with her baby Cole. Yeah, I'm just trying to do this right.

He's gorgeous. Thank you. I like to think so too. I think I made a pretty cute baby. That was Linda Presley. The number of children with food allergies in the United States has fallen in the years since new guidelines were introduced, which suggested the foods involved shouldn't be avoided, but introduced. early. According to the journal Pediatrics, after the change in guidance eight years ago, there was a 43% drop in the number of children with a peanut allergy. Dr. Stanislaw Gabrishevsky

from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is the lead author of the study. Our study focused on food allergy and specifically a food allergy called IGE immediate food allergy, which is just a fancy term for anaphylactic food allergy. It's a life-threatening allergy where if you're allergic, you eat a food, and you may develop immediate symptoms such as hives, swelling, trouble breathing, vomiting. We focused on a subset of children just between the ages of zero to three in an electronic health record database. So in our study, before the early introduction guidelines, we saw about a 0.8 prevalence of peanut allergy, and that went down to about 0.5% in one of our analyses.

So that roughly translates to about one case prevented for about every 300 infants. What do you think parents should take away from this new research? A long time ago, we used to actually say to avoid peanut because we were concerned that early peanut introduction might actually cause allergy. When we found out that actually not the case and had the leap study show us that the opposite is true, it has been reassuring to find that by encouraging early introduction, we can actually prevent food allergy. And so I think this should empower parents, caregivers, families, general pediatricians, allergists, and other stakeholders to feel empowered to introduce allergens like peanut early

as a means of preventing food allergy. Of course, in children who don't have a history of already to these foods. That was Dr. Stanislaw, Gabri Sheffsky, from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, speaking to Sean Lay. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, all the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global Newspod. This edition was mixed by Zabihula Karush and produced by Stephen Jensen and Wendy Urquhart. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Charlotte Gallagher.

Until next time, goodbye.