Global News Podcast - Armed men open fire at Haiti hospital reopening

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Armed men in Haiti kill at least two journalists and a police officer, after opening fire at the reopening of its biggest public hospital. Also: Syria’s rebel factions agree to merge under the defence ministry.

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Give to Doctors Without Borders today. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 25th of December, these are our main stories. In Haiti, at least three people have been killed and others injured after armed men opened fire at a news conference at the country's biggest public hospital. In Syria, an agreement is brokered among rebel factions to dissolve and then merge under the current defence ministry. Resident-elect Donald Trump says he'll order the US Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty.

And? And… Fundamentally, I would say it's not too slow, obviously, because our ancestors chose to live this way and we're still here. How our brains might work more slowly than we think. An attack on medical staff in Haiti has left at least three people dead and many others injured. It happened during a media conference at the reopening of the country's biggest public hospital. This is the moment suspected gang members shot in the direction of journalists from the hospital's gate. Haiti has been engulfed by gang violence and much of the capital is under the control of

the gangs. I got more details from our Americas regional editor, Leonardo Rocha. The journalists had been invited to the hospital known as the General Hospital in the capital port of Prins to arrive there from eight in the morning local time. They'd been there for a couple of hours waiting for the arrival of the health minister when they just heard gunfire, fires being shot. Gangs just approached the gates and was shooting randomly at them. So people were hiding for their lives. Many were injured. There are pictures online of many people lying on the floor either dead or online of many people lying on the floor either dead or injured. And it went on for a while before police came and controlled the situation and these armed

gang men escaped. We know that two journalists were covering the events and policemen were killed and they were there just to announce the reopening of this hospital which had been in control of the gangs. They had control of this hospital from March to July. They just destroyed the building and the government had taken control, rebuilt and they were just reopening it now. So do we know why they did this? Was it a targeted attack? Well, there have been recent attacks against both journalists and hospitals.

So journalists associations are saying they're being targeted by both the police who accuse them of talking or working with the gangs. They probably have to talk to gang leaders that control most of the capital to do their work, but they're also being attacked by gangs because they spoke to rival gang leaders. And there have been attacks on hospitals which are difficult to comprehend in a poor country like that. Just a week ago a gang just burned to the ground a private hospital in Porto Princeton but people had been warned and the hospital was evacuated so no one was killed in that incident. I mean it sounds like the situation is still absolutely desperate in Haiti. It is and we were expecting a better situation

because in April a transition council was installed. Two months later, this international police force led by Kenyan police officers was deployed there. And there was a lull but then a couple of months later, the violence just started. I think the gangs are just stamping the ground. There have been massacres. There have been killings. And it's a very poor country.

And they hope that the political solution would bring an end to the violence but that's not happening. Leonardo Rocha Less than a month after Ahmed al-Sharah led the uprising which brought down the Assad regime in Syria, he appears to be making progress towards achieving one of his main objectives, bringing an end to the rebel groups which divided the country during the civil war. The new Islamist authorities, which were formed from his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS, have said that he has reached an agreement to dissolve these groups and to integrate them into the defence ministry. He called for this two days ago, but despite his plea

for unity, ethnic tensions are still spilling out onto the streets. A Christmas tree was burned down in a Christian majority town in central Syria. According to the monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, foreign fighters set fire to the tree. It sparked protests in Damascus. Our correspondent Lina Sinjab is in Damascus and I asked her how significant Ahmed Al-Sharah's dissolution of Syria's rebel groups is. This is a major step forward in ensuring stability in the country if of course they succeed to all joint force and be under one army which is the official army in the Ministry of Defence.

The agreement that came from different factions is a big success for Ahmad al-Sharah. He's been calling on this for days and today was officially announced that they're all going to dismantle and be under the Ministry of Defense. The Prime Minister said that the ministry would be restructured to include the rebel fighters and former defectors from the Bashar al-Assad group who fled the country and defected during the days of the uprising. So if that is successful and comes all to all of these factions and fighters come under one unified army, it will ensure stability and safety

across the country. Now in this equation, there's still the Kurds are missing. The SDF or Syrian Democratic Forces, mainly of the Kurds that are supported by the Americans have not joined force yet. And it's still not clear how the relationship will unfold between them and the new leadership. And what about the foreign fighters mentioned earlier? What can be done about them? Well, there are some foreign fighters still affiliated to different groups and it is believed that two of them are the ones who set fire in the town of Skalbi in Hama province,

which really caused a lot of anger among the Christian community that they protested and you know took to the streets calling like for their departure of the country and that's gonna be the challenge for both Ahmed Al-Sharah and the new army and the different you know factions who are going to join the army are they going to tell them to leave and will they be able to send them away from the country because they've been with them, working with them for 40 years in their fights, they've been with them in approaching Damascus and liberating from Assad. So it's going to be a big challenge to send them back and where to, you know, because many of those are called as terrorists by other organizations and other countries.

So that's going to be a big question in the near future. Leena Sinjab in Damascus. A day after President Biden took almost 40 prisoners off death row, President-elect Donald Trump has emphasised his backing of the federal death penalty. He says he'll order the Justice Department to pursue it vigorously as soon as he's inaugurated. One of those whose death sentence was commuted on Tuesday had killed a woman, Donna Major, during a robbery at the bank where she worked back in 2017. Here's what her daughter Heather Turner had to say after hearing of President Biden's decision.

I'm very frustrated. I'm hurt. I feel that this decision comes without regard to the victims and their families and all that they have walked through since you know the murders took place. Billy Allen is one of those who had his sentence commuted to life without parole. He maintains his innocence but was sentenced after a bank robbery left a security guard dead. To some people, justice is the death penalty and things like that. But one thing I think most people can kind of take someone's insurance in is the fact that what they haven't seen or what they haven't heard is the fact that the majority of people in prison, especially

on Federal Defraud, where I'm at, have made dramatic changes in their lives. These aren't the same people who came to prison. These are people who decided to, you know, sit here, look at who they were and say, hey, look, you know what, I can be better and I plan to do better. So what's behind the stark contrast regarding President Biden's approach and that of President elect Trump? I asked our North America correspondent, Roanbridge. I think ultimately it's an issue of conscience for both men and what you see reflected in them is the division within American society over the whole issue of the use of the death

penalty. Joe Biden, head of this decision, was lobbied by pressure groups and also the Pope came out calling for commutation and Joe Biden is a practising Catholic. And in his statement he said he couldn't allow these executions to go ahead in all good conscience. Donald Trump in some ways personifies the view that these crimes are so heinous that they deserve the death penalty and you saw from his reaction how strongly he felt about the issue. He's actually looking on the campaign trail. He was talking about expanding the use of the death penalty

and for more death penalty cases to to go across his desk. I mean interesting isn't it that this came so soon after President Biden's move. Do you think President-elect Trump wanted to draw a line between the two of them? Yeah, I mean I think as I say the issue is a divisive one in America and it's a wedge issue that people feel strongly about on both sides. You know, the campaign, the Trump campaign did come out and comment on this yesterday when Joe Biden first announced it, but nothing has the megaphone that Donald Trump has when he says something. And often that will be through Truth Social, his social media platform.

And obviously, the decision itself kind of dominated the coverage yesterday. I think Donald Trump realised that if he gave it 24 hours, then that would get much greater play than if he said it yesterday. And I think that's why you've seen him coming out with those statements today. And President Trump, he can't change President Biden's decision, can he? No, I mean, you can't retrospectively undo those commutations. So those 37 men and people who were on death row will all serve now life without parole. There are three people still on death row that Joe Biden didn't commute their sentences. But Donald Trump has made

it clear that he wants to restart the use of the death penalty. Joe Biden put a moratorium on its use. And if you look at his track record in office before, death penalty, Joe Biden put a moratorium on its use. And if you look at his track record in office before, you know, Donald Trump put to death more people using the death penalty than any other president in more than a century. There were 13 people who were executed using the death penalty, including during the transition between him and Joe Biden, which was indeed a break with precedent over the way those cases have been handled in the past. Brewnbridge. 34 months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the conflict has killed or wounded more than a million men on both sides and forced

millions of Ukrainians to leave their country. That loss was underlined in President Zelensky's Christmas Eve video address. Tonight is a very special evening. It's Christmas Eve, and this is our third Christmas during the war. Our large Ukrainian family cannot celebrate it fully the way we would like to, the way it should be. Not all of us are at home, unfortunately. Unfortunately, not everyone has a home. And unfortunately, not everyone is still with us. As troops in Ukraine prepare for harsh winter conditions, Russia continues to make gains in the east of the country. Russian troops are now within a few miles of the city of Pokrovsk, a key military hub. Our correspondent in Ukraine,

Will Vernon, sent us this update. Things aren't going very well at all for Ukraine. Russia is advancing in the east of the country. In the last few days they've seized a number of villages. They're getting closer to that strategic city of Pokrovsk. And Russia is advancing pretty fast. Last month they seized an area roughly the size of London. At a huge cost, it must be said, but nonetheless they are advancing. As well as that, night after night, Ukrainian cities are being barraged by missiles, drones, guided bombs. Russia has been targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure. It is bitterly cold here and most of the power

grid is damaged or destroyed. Yesterday there were emergency blackouts in Kiev, in Dnieper, other Ukrainian regions too, so that the Ukrainians could try and repair some of that damaged infrastructure. The mood here is gloomy. Ukrainians feel abandoned by the West, frankly. A few days ago we were in an event in Kiev, a special Christmas demonstration where people gathered to commemorate the plight of Ukrainians who are held in captivity in Russia. There are thousands still held there, 8,000 perhaps even more than that, and people were saying, look, at this time of year when people are sitting down to their Christmas dinner or gathering with their

loved ones at New Year, Spare a thought for Ukraine and for those thousands of Ukrainians who are being kept many in very brutal conditions. A lot of what happens to this country in 2025 depends on Donald Trump. You know, it's interesting speaking to Ukrainians. There's actually a kind of note of very cautious optimism about the new president. They, many Ukrain Ukrainians are pretty disappointed by Joe Biden. They feel that he hasn't given enough support to Ukraine. They think that he gave only enough weapons and money, really, to keep Ukrainians fighting and dying and not enough for victory.

But many of them see Donald Trump as someone who likes to win, someone who likes to do a deal. And the hope here in Ukraine is that as soon as Donald Trump realises that Vladimir Putin is in no mood whatsoever to compromise or negotiate in any meaningful way, that perhaps Mr Trump will swing his support behind Kiev. Will Vernon. Still to come in the Global News Podcast. As government we should do what our people love, our people love spinning. It's a working class sport that attracts all ages and I'm going to make sure spinning

is a rightful place just like rugby and football. Could the South African motorsport car spinning be about to go mainstream? The country's sports minister hopes so. country's sports minister hopes so. money across borders without hidden fees. You always get the real-time mid-market exchange rates. See exactly what you pay every time. Join millions of WISE customers worldwide. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and T's apply. When an emergency strikes, every second counts. For doctors without borders teams around the world, seconds can often mean the difference between life and death. So we don't waste a single one.

Every second and every dollar is a critical resource. That means more vaccines given, more wounds bandaged, more surgeries performed, and more life-saving research done. With your support, we can respond rapidly to emergencies and make every second count. We're counting on your support. Give to Doctors Without Borders today. World of Secrets is where untold stories are exposed. And in this new series, we investigate the dark side

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skillfully that you don't realize. World of Secrets, the bad guru. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hey Toronto, this holiday season let's focus on making memories, not waste. But when you do have to dispose of an item, the City of Toronto has your holiday sorting sorted. Remember that rinsed aluminum trays go in the blue bin, food waste goes in the green bin and ribbons that can't be reused go in the garbage.

Curious about where that holiday waste item goes? Visit toronto.ca slash waste wizard or download the TO Waste app to find out more. In Mozambique protests are continuing in the capital Maputo, after the country's top court upheld October's disputed presidential election results. The country's interior minister announced on Tuesday that at least 21 people had been killed in the unrest. Demonstrators have been marching through the city, while in the centre many businesses are again closed and roads are blocked by rocks and fires. The president-elect Daniel Chapo from the long governing Fulimo party has called for dialogue.

Fernando Lima is a freelance journalist based in Maputo and the BBC's Tim Franks asked him what's happening. The scene is really wild not only in Maputo but in all the provinces across the country. The situation of course is worst in Maputo as the capital city, and it's the most popular urban center in the country. People are on the streets, very busy looting warehouses, taking food away. And there's no signs that police or the military will be intervening on the site. This means that looting will continue, also attacks on police stations and houses being perceived as belonging to Frelimo, the top members across the country.

Vinansi Womondlana, the opposition leader who lost the election, at least he was declared the loser in these disputed elections in October. He has called for the protests to continue. I mean, he has used very strong rhetoric. I mean, he has talked about wanting there to be chaos on the streets of Mozambique. What do you think his strategy is here? of Mozambique. What do you think his strategy is here? The strategy is to increase chaos in the streets of Mozambique in order to force the government or government institutions to some sort of agreement. A few hours ago, he said that he's willing to go for negotiations with international mediation, with exception not intervention of SADC. SADC is the regional group of countries that have been silent into comments about the violence in Mozambique or

the post-election outcome, including the fact that a lot of different organisations acknowledge heavy fraud during the election. So it's open to negotiations with international mediation, but no intervention of SADC, the regional group of countries in southern Africa. Fernando Lima reporting from Maputo. Ever since Massa Amine died in police custody in Iran two years ago, the authorities have been clamping down on internet communications to try to stop a repeat of the protests which engulfed the Islamic Republic after her death. The young woman was arrested for allegedly violating rules requiring women to wear the hijab or headscarf and reaction

to her demise led to a ban on the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp. Well now that ban is being lifted five months after Masoud Peseshkian became president. Nushen Kavazamin from BBC Persian told me why. This happened because President Masoud Peseshkian, even during his presidential campaign in summer, he was a very fierce critic of the ban on social media, on WhatsApp and on Instagram that many, many Iranians, millions of Iranians are on Instagram and millions are using WhatsApp. He argued that this has harmed people, this has harmed businesses, especially small businesses. And filtering, as they call it in Iran, which is the ban on the internet, has also cost the government.

So that is why he vowed during his campaign that he's going to tackle the issue. And apparently today he managed to convince the Supreme Cyber Space Council and the members basically to vote to lift the ban. So presumably they're willing to take the risk of people communicating again online and perhaps coming together to protest. Well, that seems to be the case, but critics and the hardliners are not going to sit quiet and there's going to be some sort of a backlash from them. In fact, this morning there was this report saying that around 160 MPs signed a petition

without mentioning their names against the removal of the ban. So, I mean, we need to wait and see what is going to happen. Also, after the news broke out, the minister of communication took to X and said, this is our first step towards the removal of internet filtering. By that, I'm not quite sure what he means, but there's going to be a definite backlash and reaction from hardliners. But of course, it's encrypted, isn't it, WhatsApp, so they won't be able to get in there and see what people are saying, or will they? I haven't seen any reports or any indication that they have been able to see what people are saying and doing. So it has remained very safe for the users and it's been secure for

the users in Iran. BBC Persians, Nushen Kavazamin. Now, we humans might think we're pretty smart, but researchers say our brains are actually remarkably slow. In fact, they're able to process only 10 bits of data per second compared to the many millions, even billions, processed by a computer. Oliver Conway found out more from one of the researchers, Professor Marcus Meister from the California Institute of Technology. There are a couple of interesting aspects about this comparison. One is just how hugely different those two numbers are. But another important consideration is that there are parts

of the brain that do process information at very high rates and they tend to be the parts that are out in the sensory periphery, as we say, for example, in the eye or processing signals directly from the ear, because those raw data that come into the brain arrive at a very high rate that's actually similar to the ethernet rate of a gigabit per second. And your brain somehow draws all that in and filters it and ultimately extracts just 10 bits per second in order to make decisions that are important for your behaviour as you're you know driving a car or riding your bicycle or reading text or speaking to me. So a huge amount of information coming in but basically our brains are only dealing with a tiny amount. Why?

That's what the whole article is about, but it doesn't offer definitive answer. It offers a number of attempts or ways in which one can look at that. So one way you might ask this is, how can we get away with just 10 bits per second? And the answer is kind of tautological that it seems to be sufficient for survival in this world. So the more isn't necessary. So fundamentally, I would say it's not too slow, obviously, because our ancestors chose to live this way and we're still here. And the fact that we filter out all this extraneous information has an interesting implication for things like connecting human brains to computers that people like Elon Musk are working on. Yes, Elon Musk, as you probably know,

has gone on the record as saying that his internal life is much faster than anything he can possibly communicate with his speech or by typing on a keyboard. And therefore he feels that he needs to connect himself directly with wires from his brain to some computer system that he can communicate with artificial intelligence at the proper bandwidth that allows him to fully realize his capacities. Now, I can't vouch for Elon Musk's mental capacities, but he does promise in this interview that this will be a device that's useful for everyone in order to communicate at a higher rate with computers. And as we review in this article, it seems much more likely that electronic interface to Musk's brain will still be operating at 10 bits per

second because that's just the natural speed limit of human thought. Professor Marcus Meister. Now to the sport of motor racing, but not as you may know it. Car spinning is a unique southern African motorsport which is growing in popularity. Originating in townships during the apartheid era, it involves driving cars at speed in circles and performing stunts in and out of the vehicles. Thousands of fans attend meetings and it's now getting more investment and recognition as BBC Sport Africa's Echlin V Wiedaan has been

finding out. The sport of spinning with its high energy and eye-catching car stunts has become a must watch event for thousands of South Africans and it's not for the faint hearted. The sport has evolved from its rise in townships during the 1980s, when criminals would show off stolen cars and celebrate the lives of the recently deceased. Now it's a thriving subculture. You're actually controlling a car that's not in control, so you need to know how to actually firstly drive a car.

Some Keliso Tubane, known as Sam Sam, is a top South African spinner. There are maybe some safety precautions that we need to go to because anything can happen all the time. So we do actually go through some practice so that when we go to events, we know what we're doing and we know how to actually avoid anything that can actually go bad. Spinning meetings are loud and well attended, with families drawn to events to watch how their favorite drivers

leave the seat of the wheel to clamber onto the top of the car. My name is Kailyn Michaela Olifant and I am 23 years old. I actually started at a younger age when I used to like attend spin shows with my family, watch the people spinning, and then I decided I want to get into sport when I was 14 years old. My dad bought me the car and I started spinning. Kayla Olyfanti is already a big name in South Africa and she's known for one move in particular. So my signature move is the suicide slide, but I do it with one leg so I'm basically

working my one leg only and hanging out with the rest of my body, tangling on the floor. Car spinning could enter the mainstream in South Africa thanks to support from sports minister Gaten Mackenzie. A former gangster, he spent a decade in prison and was a spinner in his youth. His ministry announced a sum of five million rand will be spent on promoting spinning, which he feels could become one of the country's biggest sports. I've been to empty rugby games, empty cricket games. I've not been to an empty spinning event.

As government, we should do what our people love. Our people love spinning. It's a working class sport that attracts all ages. It interests our children, mothers, fathers, grandparents. They all come and I'm going to make sure spinning take it to the rightful place, just like rugby and football. Recognized as an official code by Motorsport South Africa in 2014, Spanning is now shedding the negative stereotypes linking it with the criminal underworld.

And Mackenzie says it's a sport which could in fact temporarily reduce crime rates, citing an area in Cape Town. Let me use Mitchell's Plain as an example. They're shooting all day every day. But when there's a spinning event, the shooting subsides or it stops. So spinning has a role to play. Unlike most motor sports which tend to be dominated by the elites of society, car spinning draws its popularity mainly from working class communities, giving hope and joy to those

in trying circumstances. I hope that wasn't Eshlen Vidan there, but that was him reporting. And before we go, here's Jackie Leonard to tell us about the year's Happy Pod News Review. Yes, we will be looking back at some of the happiest news stories of 2024, from that astonishing chopsticks manoeuvre when a SpaceX rocket booster was caught as it came back to Earth. Then there's the achievement of thousands of people involved in bringing the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral back from the ashes, a tremendous development in the treatment of cervical cancer and the young Irish rappers who went massively viral with an absolute banger of a tune. You heard me, it's a banger.

All in the next edition of the Global News Podcast. Thanks, Jackie. And that's it 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 or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Isabella Jewell. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye. and send money across borders without hidden fees. You always get the real-time mid-market exchange rates. See exactly what you pay, every time.

Join millions of WISE customers worldwide. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.