Global News Podcast - Biden in largest single-day act of clemency

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

US president commutes around 1,500 sentences and pardons 39 people. Also: inside Syria's abandoned presidential palace, recreational use of cannabis banned in Japan, and the secret to being happy at work.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If Hitler isn't defeated, it's the end of the free world. Purple Heart Warriors, listen now by searching for dramas wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles. At 14 Hours GMT on Thursday 12 December. These are our main stories. Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of around 1500 people. The largest presidential act of clemency in a single day in modern US history. The funeral has taken place of the Syrian activist Mazan al-Hamada, whose tortured body was found in the notorious Sadnaya prison.

We'll also report from inside Bashar al-Assad's former presidential palace in Damascus. And South Korea's president vows to fight to the end, defending his short-lived imposition of martial law last week. short lived in position of martial law last week. Also in this podcast, Romania and Bulgaria finally become full members of the European Union's Schengen Free Travel Area and... People these days are really thinking about purpose and progress in the context of their careers but also their broader lives, right? How they fit in with each other. New research on the art of being happy at work. Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden issued a controversial pardon to his son Hunter.

Now just weeks before he leaves office, he's commuted the sentences of nearly 1500 people. The White House described it as the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. So who are these people and why are they being pardoned? Rowan Bridge is our Washington correspondent. It's worth understanding what the terminology means here. So when they talk about commuting somebody's sentence, effectively what you are doing is reducing the punishment that they will face. And in these cases, those people who've had their sentences commuted, we're all facing long prison sentences. And the White House said that they would have been given lesser ones

if they were charged under today's laws and practices. And according to the White House, they're all people who were put under home confinement during the COVID pandemic. Mr. Biden said that, as he put it, America was built on second chances and what he was doing was extending mercy to people who demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation for their crimes. He's also pardoned 39 other people. Is there a distinction there? Yeah, so a pardon effectively clears your criminal record. It is wiped clean. In these cases, the 39 people you're talking about, they

were all sentenced to non-violent crimes. So things like, for example, possession of marijuana. But as you sort of mentioned this in the introduction, the pardons interestingly come after Mr. Biden himself issued this controversial pardon of his own that was a blanket pardon to his son Hunter Biden. He had been facing potential jail time for crimes relating to gun possession and tax evasion until his father intervened. The White House says it's still considering calls for clemency, so it's perfectly possible we may see more events like this before Joe Biden leaves the White House on January 20th. Also worth noting that Donald Trump has talked about potentially pardoning some

of the January 6th rioters who rioted after the 2020 election when he comes into office on January 20th. So we may see yet more controversial pardons coming up in the next few weeks. Rowan Bridge in Washington. Next to Syria, where the funeral of the activist and former political prisoner Mazen al-Hamada has been taking place in the capital Damascus. Hamada endured months of brutal torture after being detained in 2011 before being released after two years in prison and seeking asylum in Europe. His graphic testimony made him a figurehead of the resistance against Assad regime.

He returned to Syria in 2020 but was arrested immediately. His body was found in the morgue of a military hospital on Monday, a day after rebels stormed into the capital, ending Assad's rule. Footage posted online by a journalist showed mourners at the funeral singing a patriotic song. The mourners were chanting in Arabic, oh dear homeland, even your soil is kind, even your hell is paradise. The Islamist HTS group that's now in charge is being welcomed with reservations by Syrians and many nations around the world.

But because of its former links to Al-Qaeda, the group is aware it must take actions to instil confidence in the international community. As the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, visits the region, it seems to be doing just that. HTS has said it will close Assad's prisons and work with others to secure chemical weapons sites. And as a symbol of how quickly life is changing in Syria, our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has returned to the very centre of ostentatious power, Bashar al-Assad's former presidential palace in Damascus. We've just arrived at the presidential palace, the big one on the hill, overlooking Damascus.

Now there are fighters from Hayat al-Tak-Sham, the group that overthrew the assads here on the gate. It is quite an extraordinary feeling walking into this great echoing marble hall of the palace. There's a red carpet and some kind of burnished copper ceiling. I mean nothing's really been badly damaged here, but off the main, this main huge marble entrance hall there are some rather grand reception rooms which are now covered in debris, that's where the fighters have been sleeping, you can see that. There are blankets and leftovers of food and things like that. It used to be that coming in here, you would have to have permission. It was quite an event.

And now there are fighters wandering around. I mean, our driver's left the car and he's going around filming like mad. This is my first time here. This palace is for the people. But the people never set eyes on it. And they never went in. It's like a dream. Even now we don't believe it. Even now, some people think that he's still here and they are afraid of him because he terrified the people. Even now, some people at home feel like they are watching a dream. If I just walk out this way, and across the checkerboard, marble floor, marble tables, walnut doors, crystal chandeliers. I mean, this is a very opulent place. There's this anteroom.

So it's an anteroom. It's a sitting room as big as a tennis court. And the way it worked was that before the interview, Asad would take you off for private time for a chat. And because he looked a bit gawky, sometimes people in the West thought he's a bit weak, he's gonna be pushed around. When you met him he was extravagantly polite, a rather tall skinny man in an expensive suit. He never seemed to be the guy actually who would be at home in the torture cell watching

people screaming their last but I always did feel that he wouldn't think twice about giving the order to send the person to the torture cell or to the jail or to the gallows. And of course Bashar al-Assad, his family, his acolytes, his security people, they did that thousands and thousands of times. A special report from inside former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's palace in Damascus was by Jeremy Bowen. Despite growing calls for him to resign or be impeached, the South Korean President, Yun Suk-yul, is digging in. He survived an impeachment vote in parliament and attempts by police to raid his compound.

And now, in a televised address, he's accused the opposition of creating a national crisis. For the past two and a half years I have only looked to the people fighting against injustice, corruption and the tyranny disguised as democracy. I fervently appeal to you all to unite in the path of protecting the Republic of Korea and our liberal democracy, which we have guarded with blood and sweat. I will fight with the people until the very last minute." These residents of Seoul gave their reaction to the president's speech. I thought it was utter nonsense. The president has already taken actions against democracy. I think this is unacceptable and it's closed to a dictatorship.

I think the president did a good job and the impeachment shouldn't happen. I heard the martial law troops left the National Assembly only after two hours. So the martial law declaration was merely an expression of the authority of the president. The Democratic Party, which is currently holding the country back, is the real issue. So what impact is the president's speech likely to have?

Yuna Koo is from the BBC's Korean service. It's likely to deepen the divide within the ruling People's Power Party because after the president's speech, the ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon called the YUN statement as confession of insurrection during a party meeting, which angered many YUN loyalists. Some of them were shouting and calling Han to step down from the podium. Still, Han urged party members to vote in favor of the second impeachment motion, which is planned to be voted on Saturday. The opposition party earlier failed to pass the impeachment bill, as most of the ruling party members didn't participate in the voting process except three ruling

party members. However, in order for this vote to proceed, they need at least eight people from ruling party. Now, as the public have been criticizing the ruling party for not participating, there have been several ruling party members who openly said that this time they will participate in the voting process and some of them even said they will vote in favor of the bill. Yanake, a law criminalizing the recreational use of cannabis has come into effect in Japan because of concerns about increasing drug abuse among young people. More details from our Asia Pacific regional editor, Mickey Bristo. The new rules legalise the use of medical products based on cannabis, but for the first

time criminalises its recreational use. The possession, cultivation and sale of marijuana were already illegal but now using the drug can land you in prison for seven years. Some hope the law will help tackle growing drug use but it does put Japan out of step with a number of other countries that have over recent years legalised the recreational use of cannabis including Canada, Germany and Thailand. Mickey Bristow. The world's richest man, Elon Musk, is now even richer. He's become the first person in history to amass a fortune of more than 400 billion dollars, which is more than that of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos combined. It's a remarkable turnaround for Mr. Musk as just two years ago his fortune fell to

just $137 billion. More details from our New York Business correspondent, Michelle Flurry. Shares in Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company rose to a new record high on the same day that the tech-heavy Nasdaq index hit 20,000 points for the first time in its history. Tesla shares have rallied 69% since the election of Donald Trump. But it was a sale of shares at his privately held firm, SpaceX, valuing the company at $350 billion

that supercharged his wealth. The move boosted the founder's net worth to $439 billion, according to Bloomberg. Last week, a Delaware judge rejected Musk's multi-billion dollar Tesla pay package. But even if it is revoked, Trump's buddy will still be the world's richest person. And as Mr. Musk prepares to lead efforts to deregulate and streamline government operations, it's perhaps a sign that wealth and power in America have become even more closely intertwined.

Michelle Fleury. Still to come on the Global News podcast. The last thing you want to do is ruin it and get people to feel like you butchered one of the greatest novels ever written in human history. But I think quickly that fear becomes a motivation the challenge of being invited to dramatize an epic novel That many thought unfilmable My name is Ken Morioka, and I somehow found myself trapped in my grandpa Allen's 18 year old body in World War II. Purple Heart Warriors, the new time-bending drama series from the BBC World Service.

Maybe the whole reason I was there was to change something. Listen now by searching for dramas wherever you get your BBC podcasts. BBC podcasts. Moving European citizens between most EU member states without the need for paperwork or passports has been a feature of the bloc for almost 40 years now. The agreement that made that possible, Schengen, has faced a backlash recently with a number of nations reimposing restrictions on border crossings because of concerns about migration. But today the Schengen group has welcomed two new members, Romania and Bulgaria. So what difference will this make? A question for our correspondent Nick Thorpe on the Romania-Hungary border. In terms of passenger traffic it should mean a huge difference from January the 1st. Basically where I'm standing at Noduloc, Hungary border. In terms of passenger traffic it should mean a huge difference

from January the 1st. Basically where I'm standing at Nodulok, this is a big motorway crossing on the Romania-Hungary border, there's a long line of cars and of trucks. Sometimes trucks wait 10-15 hours here. A truck driver I was talking to earlier said his record was five days waiting at this border crossing. So with the ending of border controls here, the ending of passports, it's a huge practical change. Also psychologically for Romanians and Bulgarians for many years they felt like second-class citizens of the EU. Now they feel finally that they're becoming full members. Yeah they've wanted this for a long time haven't they? Why did it take so long? There was a lot of opposition especially from Austria and the Netherlands

so Romania and Bulgaria did satisfy the conditions for Schengen membership but Austria argued that just too many illegal migrants were crossing up through the Balkan route through Bulgaria and Romania to reach Austria and beyond and that Romania and Bulgaria weren't doing enough. So basically in order to convince the Austrians what Romania and especially Bulgaria have done is to reinforce their border with Turkey and they've also reinforcing proving that their police forces both at border crossings but also internal areas of the countries have been cracking down and trying to stop or lessen the flow of illegal migrants to Northern Europe.

So Nick, given what I was saying about a number of countries re-imposing border restrictions within Schengen this year, this is a big day for the European Union as a whole. It's really central to the whole vision of the European project. It's seen the Schengen zone as one of the real achievements of it. So even though there are these temporary restrictions, temporary controls brought in by countries like Germany for example, those are only temporary restrictions. The big border crossing where I'm standing here, that in theory should be largely dismantled. There will be temporary

controls in future but nothing like these really long delays hopefully we've seen for so long. Our Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe. This week marks the first anniversary of the inauguration in Argentina of a new populist libertarian president Javier Millet. During the election he was often seen as something of a joke with his cloned dogs and his promise to burn down the central bank. A year in what has he achieved? Well he's cut public spending massively not without pain and reduced inflation and voters are not showing signs of buyers remorse. It's a test case of populism in action being widely viewed elsewhere. Lucia Cholaquin Herrera is a journalist in Buenos Aires who writes for the New York Times. She gave Evan Davis her assessment of Javier Millet's first year

in office. Overall what I would say is that in contrast to his promises which were, as you have said, burning down the central bank, tolerizing the Argentine economy, eliminating the Argentine peso and attracting investments for the public sector to strengthen during his presidency. I would say that he has in fact shrinked the state that has happened. But there is another step that we have yet to see, which is this step that he has said over and over that he was to turn Argentina into a liberal in terms of economics, an extremely liberal country with open borders for imports and exports. So what we can say is that he has somehow completed what seems to be the first day of his economic programme, but there are still

a lot of questions on whether his plans are sustainable. Let's just go through it though. He slashed the size of government and Argentina did have a bit of a habit of paying for government by printing pesos, thus causing inflation all the time. And inflation has come down, has it? Inflation has come down. Last month was 7.7% monthly, but you have to think that this month last year was over 20%. So it is indeed a big achievement. Now tell me this, the political support for him at this point, as I have heard, is not really diminishing. People are not saying, I wish we'd never voted for the guy.

They're saying, you know, he promised to break everything to start again, and that's what he's doing. And his supporters, at least half the population, seem relatively content with that. Absolutely, Evan. That is exactly what is happening. And it is, I think, probably the most positive aspect for the balance of this anniversary. People voted for Javier Millet. Of course, many of them did it because they trusted that his program was feasible and the best option for the country, but

there was also a large part of the population that elected Javier Millet because they felt like the old recipes in traditional politics were not working anymore or they felt the politicians had not delivered for them over the past few years. And all of a sudden comes this libertarian TV pundit, anarcho-capitalist, who has no experience in public office but has these great promises for people. And they elect him and he wins. And a year after, many critics would say that they expected that the country would be down in flames or with large protests every day on the streets, that social life would be very hard, and in fact that's not what has happened. On the streets, is it that you're finding now people who are begging,

starving, nowhere to live, no money, is that something that you would say after the massive austerity on the streets around you say in Buenos Aires? Yes, it is very impressive. I don't remember saying something like this for over 20 years here in Argentina. The biggest hit has been on working class, the cost of public transportation, of education, of health, of any basic medication, of food is incredibly high in comparison to last year. More families living on the streets, you see a lot of people who you speak to them and you realise that they used to have a home, that they even used to have a job. So he's obviously had some successes getting inflation down. He wanted to shrink the state,

he shrunk the state. The public still support him, but he's not managed to shrink the state without cost to people. It's been very painful for many people. But very interesting that all eyes of what one might call the populist right around the world are on this guy, aren't they, and what he's doing. His figure has indeed become very important in the global landscape of the right-wing movements in the world and the alliances that he's building and the kind of leadership that he's partaking are impressive for a person who was pretty unknown two years ago even to Argentines. That was the Argentine journalist Lucia Cholakian Herrera. Vaping is a popular and many believe less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes. But there are also concerns

about the long-term effects of the habit. And now Mexico has become the latest country to impose a ban on e-cigarettes. Here's our Mexico correspondent Will Grant. By 110 votes in favour, with five against and two abstentions, the Senate in Mexico passed the controversial reform to ban the production, distribution and sale of e-cigarettes and vapes. The move must now be approved by a majority of Mexico's 32 states before it becomes law. In the capital, the Mexico City Congress has already passed it. One of the senators backing the change to the law invoked children's health, saying

health is a fundamental right which the Mexican state was obliged to guarantee. However, opposition parties said it was a step too far and accused some lawmakers of hypocrisy, saying they were voting against it as e-cigarette users themselves. Vapes have become hugely popular in Mexico in recent years, as in much of Latin America, given their reputation as less harmful than tobacco. Consumers and vendors frustrated at the move held a protest outside parliament in Mexico

this week, arguing that a ban would criminalise users and push vapes onto the black market. Given the governing party's control of most states, it's expected to be approved at the state level, and President Claudia Sheinbaum has also said she backs the ban. At the same time, the reform approved by the Senate also formally banned the illegal use of fentanyl, a measure first proposed under the previous president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The synthetic opioid is believed to be responsible for the majority of the around 100,000 drug overdose deaths a year in the around 100,000 drug overdose deaths

a year in the United States and is considered a serious public health issue in many Mexican border cities where its consumption is noticeably on the rise. Will Grant, now a question. Are you happy in your job? The reason I ask is that after a decade of interviewing and studying more than a thousand workers from all walks of life, researchers at Harvard University believe they crack the code to being happier at work. The secret apparently is to focus on progress over perfection in your career, which leads to greater fulfillment than chasing a dream job that ticks all of your boxes. Michael Horne co-authored the research, he spoke to Roger Herring. We were actually surprised by this. We purposely

got people from all different ages, stages, different parts of the economy and so forth and we were expecting quite frankly to see lots of different pushes and pulls that caused them to make switches and boil down to 14 forces that caused them to say hey Hey, this isn't working for me. 16 forces that pulled them to something new. And there was a lot more commonality than diversity or divergence, if you will, dependent on the stage or role or part of the economy that you were in.

This is interesting for people who are not ready to make the switch. You can actually say, Hey, do I desire that my energy is really reset or actually like how my time and energy is used? And do I want to reset what I do? In other words, the skills and capabilities that are used on the job or not. And once you understand that, you can start to hammer out what does progress

for you really look like? And how do you make subtle shifts to get more of it? I'll give you a quick example. One individual, they liked the hours that they worked. They liked the time that they were spending. They felt like they were being asked to do things in the job that were outside of the scope of what they wanted to be known for. And literally just telling the manager about how it was diverging from their real strengths and where they could really make a difference. They were able to make some slices in the role, if you will, focus more on where their strengths were, what they wanted to be known for. They didn't actually have to switch jobs and they were able to excel and find greater happiness in

the role. But aren't there many people who do their job because it earns them money? They can do it. It's not something they necessarily want to excel at or to reset or do any of these things you're talking about, but they just want to be happy, I don't know, serving meals in Chipotle, for example. Yeah, and this is the really cool thing, right? The research found that whereas we've been using a playbook for the last quarter century, that's really focused on progression. You know, you have to start at the individual contributor entry level role, move up to manager, move up to director and so forth. That actually people these days are really thinking about

purpose and progress in the context of their careers, but also their broader lives, right? How they fit in with each other. And so what we found to your point is maybe I don't get all my purpose from my job and that's quite quite all right, as long as it allows me to have greater satisfaction in my broader life and how it fits in with work. And the reality is right now, a lot of people don't strike that balance for them. And so recognizing that progress looks different from others

and that the advice, climb the ladder at all costs, doesn't work for some people, actually helps them find greater satisfaction. Michael Horn from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. And finally to a new television series. That is the trailer for a new big budgetbudget Spanish-language production on Netflix. It's an adaptation of A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, a strange and sprawling epic that many thought unfilmable, including its author.

The late Colombian Nobel laureate never wanted it turned into a movie. James Menendez spoke to the principal director of the series, the Argentine filmmaker Alex Garcia Lopez. The last thing you want to do is ruin it and get people to feel like you've butchered one of the greatest novels ever written in human history. But I think quickly that fear, you know, becomes a motivation. And then when I spoke to Rodrigo Garcia, the son of Gabo, he said to me, I'll give you all my blessing and don't let the weight of my father's book bring you down.

Because for many people, the book is synonymous with magic realism. Just give our listeners a sense of how did you convey that magic realism, that the sort of reality of life combined with the sort of magic and mystery of this fictional town, Macondo? Before I arrived in Colombia, which I had never been to before, I worked for about a year coming up with my vision for the project of this adaptation. And then I go to the Caribbean for the first time in my life and I realized I had to throw away all my ideas and all my visions out the window because I suddenly was in front of a Caribbean culture, which I knew very little about. It was my new relationship and discovery with the Caribbean culture where I spent a long time.

I was going back and forth for over six months trying to submerge myself in the culture, meeting people while at the same time kind of reading about Gabo and a lot about his childhood, going to his house, seeing where the place that he grew up with. The story is very much based in his youth, in his upbringing by his grandmother and grandfather. And Gabo himself said he tried to tell this story many times and he could never find the angle until he realised that he needed to tell the 100 salted in the same way that his grandmother would tell him these cuentos, these stories. So when you have things like the famous bag of bones in the house, is it to just do it

in a matter of fact way as if it isn't anything particularly remarkable? Exactly. And yet obviously it is at the same time. Exactly. And that's because it comes from an ideology of a mixture of cultures. In my humble opinion, it's that sort of, to me, what the term magic realism started to mean to me, which is not a genre, it's almost a culture, it's a way of telling stories for the culture of the Caribbean, because you have these influences of indigenous tribes,

and they obviously have their own beliefs in supernatural, in spirits, in death, in the beyond. So, suddenly for them to be telling these stories, you know, Gabo once said, everything that happens in 100 years old was based on reality. My grandmother would get really annoyed at every time the electrician would come to the house, the house would get filled up with yellow butterflies. And so the approach to me was just to do it in camera to not use the visual effects. Alex García López, the principal director of the Netflix series, 100 years of solitude. 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 or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Sydney Dundon. The producer was Nicky Verrico and the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. Heart Warriors, the new time-bending drama series from the BBC World Service. Maybe the whole reason I was there was to change something. Listen now by searching for dramas wherever you get your BBC podcasts.