Global News Podcast - Blast off for first privately-funded spacewalk

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

The SpaceX mission will break the record for most people in vacuum of space at once. Also: women in Afghanistan speak out about the Taliban law silencing them in public, and Australia's plan to get children off social media.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 hours GMT on Tuesday the 10th of September.

A privately funded rocket has blasted off on a mission to carry out the first spacewalk by civilian astronauts. The UN condemns a lethal Israeli airstrike on a humanitarian zone in Gaza. And China's crackdown on corruption in football sees 43 people banned for life. Also in the podcast, why has chocolate become so expensive? And what he's explaining here is that these are all small family farms. They're not industrial processes at all. And they're producing all this cocoa. We visit farmers in the Ivory Coast and the row over the use of music in video games.

A privately funded SpaceX mission has taken off from Florida with the aim of going further from Earth than any manned craft for more than half a century. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, 2, 1. Ignition. If all goes to plan, the Polaris Dawn mission will feature the first ever privately funded spacewalk, as reflected in a message from Mission Control. Dragon, SpaceX, today you embark on a journey not just for yourselves but for all humanity. Each of you has trained tirelessly and prepared rigorously for this moment. This moment

will be reached higher than space never before. As you gaze towards the North Star, remember that your courage lights the path for future explorers. We trust in your skills, your bravery, and your teamwork to carry out the mission that lies ahead. Know that the entire team back here is with you every step. Godspeed, Polaris Don crew. May you make history and come home safely. LBCE, message received. We appreciate the kind words. We wouldn't be on this journey without all 14,000 of you back at SpaceX and everyone else cheering us on. We're going to get to work now. Jared Isaacman, the American billionaire who is bank rolling and commanding the Polaris mission.

Our science correspondent, Pallab Ghosh, told me the crew of four is hoping to make history. We know that the private sector have done a lot. You've had billionaires going to space before. SpaceX is now supplying and resupplying the space station with crew and astronauts. But to date, they've just done the things that NASA has already been able to do, perhaps slightly cheaper. But now for the first time, they are going to do things that NASA has not done before. You could think of it as a training wheels coming off. And they're going to be doing ambitious things, things that have not been done before, not just in this mission, but Isaacman has paid for three more. So this does mark a turning point in the role of the private sector in space. Yeah, and tell us about

this spacewalk. It sounds like it could be quite complicated. Well, there have been lots of spacewalks before, but this is different because the Dragon capsule does not have an airlock. You'll know from your science fiction films that astronauts go into airlocks. The air is taken out of the airlock, but the rest of the crew will safely have their atmosphere and they don't even need to have the helmets. They might have them on for precaution. Then the doorway opens to space and the astronauts doing the spacewalk go outside. Dragon does not have an

airlock. So everyone is going to be exposed to the vacuum of space. And the entire capsule is going to be exposed to the vacuum of space. So can the capsule bear it? Can all four crew bear it for two hours? This is the first time that it's been done before. So let's see what happens. Another bit of jeopardy is that they'll be going through a region of space around the Earth called the Van Allen belts. That's higher in level in radiation. They'll be safe, but it's higher than normal. It's the kind of thing that astronauts will have to get used to if they're going to take more long duration flights into space. So what's the effect going to be on their bodies? In all, there's 37 different experiments that they're going to be carrying out in this five day mission. Pushing the boundaries. I mean, if it's successful, is this just the start of a

whole range of private missions that we're going to see? Well, in the bigger picture, it's up to the private sector, not just to resupply the space station, but to help NASA get to the moon, get to the moon again and again and again, and perhaps even go on to Mars. NASA needs the private sector, world space agencies need the private sector to make space affordable. And who knows, maybe our children will be going to the moon, Mars or beyond. Our science correspondent, Pallab Ghosh. Throughout the 11 months of war between Israel and Hamas, people in Gaza have been forced to move to different areas to try to escape the fighting. The Israeli authorities have often directed them to so-called humanitarian zones, but that doesn't mean they're safe. Overnight,

a missile attack hit a tented encampment at Al Mawasi near Khan Yunis, tearing huge craters and burying families under the sand. The Hamas-run health ministry says 19 people were killed. This man described what happened. I was sleeping and suddenly I found thick smoke in front of me and I couldn't see who was in front of me. Without any warning, the bombing happened in seconds, and we woke up and had to run.

The depth of the hole is 20 metres in the ground, and the water came up from under the ground while we were sleeping. I woke up to check on my children, and I didn't see anything in front of me except a dead person here and another one buried there as a result of the fire from the missiles. Israel has questioned the Hamas casualty figures and said it had struck a Hamas command centre. Joe Floto, the BBC bureau chief in Jerusalem, told me more about the attack. We had some accounts of witnesses who were there in al-Mawassi saying that they saw these huge fireballs go up into the night sky just around half past midnight.

And those who ran to the scene were confronted with some devastation of tents that were flattened and obliterated and some very large craters in the sand. It's a largely sandy area. This is an area of sand dunes close to the sea. Now, the Israeli Defense Forces say that they use precision ammunition, munitions rather. They claim that they were going after significant Hamas members, and they've listed three people who they say were part of, senior members of the military side of Hamas. Yeah, it's not the first time that al-Mawasi has been targeted by the Israelis. Tell us about the rules of targeting a humanitarian zone. Israel has always said that a humanitarian zone is where they will allow

international organisations and NGOs to accumulate and warehouse a lot of humanitarian assistance, and they've built some tent cities there and some field hospitals. But Israel always says it will reserve the right to attack its enemies wherever they may be, and they accuse Hamas of cynically hiding in those humanitarian areas because, deliberately, in order to shield themselves from Israeli fire. Now, for the people there, many thousands of families are sheltered in al-Mawassi and they've been displaced from other parts of Gaza. It is a miserable existence.

They're living under canvas or in improvised shelters under the very, very strong sun of this time of year. And for them, nowhere is safe. So this kind of airstrike just increases the anxiety for those families who are all desperate for this war to end, as you say, entering its 12th month now. Joe Floto in Jerusalem. When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan three years ago, they started rolling back the freedoms that women and girls had gained over the previous two decades. Last month, they cracked down further, banning women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes.

Our correspondent Yogita Lamai has been to Afghanistan to find out about the impact of this harsh new edict, starting with a psychologist's perspective. Most often when I talk to friends, to my students, to colleagues, there is no hope. And it's better to die than to live in this situation. These are societal thoughts. It's getting a lot and a lot day by day. Every time these incremental restrictions on women have been announced in Afghanistan, in the past what we have seen is small groups of women marching on the streets, shouting slogans, asking for the right to study and the right to work. This time around, though, we have seen no demonstrations of those sort. We know the Taliban has clamped down on them.

We've come to meet a woman who used to be a part of those protests. She has to move houses every few weeks for her safety. She asked for her voice to be changed so she wouldn't be identified. I thought it was my duty to join the women who were protesting for our rights. The Taliban beat me and dragged me into a vehicle saying, why are you acting against us? This is an Islamic system. They took me to a dark, frightening place and insulted me with terrible words. We were treated like animals. And that's why we couldn't continue protesting. After being released from detention, we weren't the same people we were before.

She broke down as she spoke. Now, Afghan women have been showing their dissent by posting videos of themselves online, singing songs, criticizing the Taliban's actions. I've come to the Taliban government's media center. I'm here to meet the Taliban government's deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, and I'm going to ask him about the new law. There are people in your own country, there are even people who are working for your government who say that your interpretation of the Sharia is wrong, that the Sharia does not deny women basic rights. How can you justify a law that doesn't allow their voices to be heard in public?

The laws that have been introduced have been approved by the supreme leader in accordance with Islamic Sharia. Any religious scholar can check their references. Most of the girls and women we've spoken to in your country say they are prepared to wear whatever it is that your government prescribes as long as you allow them to study. And because they're not being allowed to do that, they're being driven to the point of depression, even suicidal thoughts. Isn't it your responsibility as a government to listen to those voices and act on it? Absolutely. Our sisters' education is an important issue. We are trying to resolve this, which is the demand of a lot of our sisters. We have mentioned it several times in the past too,

that our leadership is working on it. A solution will be found. It's been three years now since girls were locked out of schools. Do you really expect people to believe that you are committed to actually doing it? We are awaiting the decision of our leadership. It's been evident for a long time that there are divisions within the Taliban on the issue of women's education. And while for most women and teenage girls, that means that they're blocked from getting an education, from college, from work of any sort. During our visits to this country, we have often heard that there are pockets

where there are government-run efforts to include women specifically in the public health sector. I'm at a training course for midwives that's run by the Taliban Public Health Department and all of the women in front of me, there are about a dozen of them. All of them are young women who appear to be in their 20s. My family feels proud of the work that I do. It gives me positive energy. I'm happy to be able to serve the people of my country, 27-year-old Safiya told us.

What I'm seeing in front of me, this is not likely to bring hope for a majority of women and teenage girls, but it is perhaps evidence that there are people within the Taliban government who are trying to facilitate and enable the exceptions to the stringent laws where it's possible. Yogita Lamai reporting from Afghanistan. Football is one of China's most popular sports, but now the communist authorities there are taking action on corruption. After a two-year investigation, the regulator has placed lifetime bans on dozens of players and officials. Our Asia-Pacific editor Celia Hatton is following the story.

It's a big investigation. 43 people have been handed lifetime bans from football. That includes a South Korean player, Son Joon-ho, who was over in China playing for a Chinese team. He was actually detained inside China for 10 months before being allowed to return to South Korea earlier this year. The ban also includes two former Chinese national players, a former national youth player. And the authorities say that this entire investigation has so far netted 128 criminals. They've dismantled 12 online gambling games, identified 120 matches affected by match fixing, involving everybody from referees to coaches to even club managers. Now, there's one team that's kind of swirling around in all of this, and that's the Shandong Taishan Football

Club. This is the club that actually won the Chinese Super League in 2021. Quite a few people associated with that team are within that bigger group associated with this corruption crackdown. So that team certainly isn't looking very good today. Now, I know the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been clamping down on corruption in business for a long time. Is corruption in football a particular problem in China? Yeah, and it really is embarrassing for the Chinese authorities because Xi Jinping is also a huge football lover. So back in 2015, he said that he wanted the Chinese men's team. I should say, actually, the Chinese women's team is a lot more

successful and a lot cleaner than the men's side of things. But he said he wanted the men's team to play in, to host and to win a World Cup. And we are leagues away from that right now. So this ongoing corruption investigation in football has been going on for a while and it's netted huge names. So we have Li Tie, he's the former head coach of the Chinese national team. He's confessed to bribery and he's awaiting sentencing. And we also have the former chair of the Chinese Football Association. He's been handed a life sentence in prison after he confessed to taking $11 million in bribes. Our Asia-Pacific regional editor, Celia Hatton. And still to come on the Global News Podcast...

I think there's not many restrictions on what's posted on TikTok and Instagram and stuff. You can see some crazy things that kids should not see on those platforms, so I think that's good. Australia's plan to keep children off social media. Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. The killer and former boyfriend of Ugandan marathon runner Rebecca Cheptege has died. Dixon Ndiyama sustained serious burns when he attacked the Olympic athlete at her home 10 days ago.

Our senior Africa correspondent Anne Soy has the details. The hospital in the western city of Eldoret has confirmed that Dixon Ndiemma, the former boyfriend of Rebecca Chetegei, died last night. He had been admitted. He was in intensive care after suffering 30% burns. From that attack, he allegedly committed against his former girlfriend at her home. It is alleged that they had an altercation. They'd been having a dispute over the ownership of land. And the estranged boyfriend apparently hid behind a chicken coop.

And when Cheptigei went there, he doused petrol on her and set her on fire. She suffered 80% burns, according to doctors, and succumbed later in hospital. It casts a spotlight on disturbing cases of femicide in Kenya, women who have died in the hands of their lovers. We have had three athletes, at least, three elite female athletes who who have died allegedly in the hands of their lovers or husband, in the case of Agnes Tirob, who died in 2021 here in Kenya as well.

Ansoy in Nairobi. Now, have you noticed your favourite chocolate bar getting more expensive or staying the same price but becoming smaller, so-called shrinkflation? Well, there is a simple reason for this. The price of cocoa, the vital ingredient in chocolate, has more than trebled in the past couple of years. Some blame financial speculators, but there have also been problems affecting cocoa growers, as John Murphy reports now from the West African nation of Ivory Coast. So that's the sound of two young men sitting on wooden seats, getting through a pile of cocoa beans.

They spike them with their machetes, cut them open and scoop out the seeds that are inside, which are white in colour. But the actual cocoa pods are yellows and greens and oranges and reds. It's quite a pile. It's the first stage in a long journey towards transforming these beans into many people's favourite confectionery, chocolate. Ivory Coast produces about 45% of the world's cocoa. Our guide through this plantation is Imekui, president of the local cooperative. And what he's explaining here is that these are all small family farms. They're not industrial processes at all. It's very small scale, pretty poor obviously, and they're producing all

this cocoa. In Ivory Coast, the price farmers get for their cocoa is fixed by the authorities to smooth over price fluctuations. This April, it was increased by 50% after the huge increases on the international market. Now farmers are supposed to get about $2.50 per kilogram of dried, brown, fermented cocoa. Many say it's not enough. There's no culture for chocolate here.

We don't have the culture of eating it. Dr Christiane Cadieux is from the University of San Pedro, a port city which is the world's busiest in terms of cocoa exports. The Ivorian government wants to transform the country's cocoa industry, she says, and not just export the raw material. There are some small chocolate production units, but they tend to have little contracts with pharmacies, universities and small shops because Ivorians don't have this culture of consuming chocolate. The point is to try to add value and not see it all go abroad.

Wow, first impression. It's the smell. Yeah. Smell of chocolate, eh? Yeah. Back in the commercial capital Abidjan, we're in Chocovie, one of Côte d'Ivoire's few chocolate makers. Oh, a bowl of chocolate has been brought out.

Ça, c'est nature. Nature, natural. Cassava, cassava, yeah. 95% cocoa, this one. Viviane Coamé set up her small company three years ago. She caters for a middle-class market, expatriates like diplomats, and makes chocolate gifts for companies. She said that running toward the brown gold, we committed a lot of mistakes.

Brown gold, as it was known, yeah. Yeah, and we made a lot of mistakes. But now we are working to improve things, including fair trade and preventing deforestation. So I think now we should be more positive and not being too much critical about it. There is definitely some value to be extracted from Ivory Coast's brown gold. The question is who gets it

and whether those who actually grow it can benefit. That report by John Murphy. Now, how do you stop children spending too much time on their mobile phones? Schools have tried banning pupils from bringing phones into class, while parents have attempted to put limits on screen time. Now, Australia's Prime Minister is proposing a different approach. Anthony Albanese wants to set a minimum age thought to be 16 before anyone is allowed to use social media. These people in Melbourne had mixed feelings about the idea.

It sounds like an unnecessary overreach by the government. If people don't want their kids to use social media, you should just not give them social media, not give them devices and ask them not to use it. I don't think the federal government has to be involved in banning that sort of thing. Well, I think there's not many restrictions on what's posted, like on TikTok and Instagram and stuff. You can see some crazy things that kids should not see on those platforms, so I think that's good. For more on this, Rob Young spoke to Faith Gordon, Professor in Law at the Australian National University.

Everyone will agree that something does need to be done about, you know, the lack of accountability, for example, of social media companies. This has been a big discussion for quite some time in Australia. But one key feature in all of this at the moment is that we're hearing very little from children and young people themselves on this issue. We really need to know what the government's proposals are about actually how this would operate in reality. You know, it's likely that a ban would be very difficult to implement. When you've been conducting research in this area, is it your conclusion that when people under the age of 15, for example, go on social media, it is just on balance a negative experience for them, that it is worth just making sure they can't go on?

Those of us that do research directly with children and young people will hear about the negative, but also the positive sides of social media. Many children and young people that I have spoken to as part of my research have identified that online spaces provide them with a sense of community and a sense of belonging. Particularly, I have found children and young people who identify as being part of the LGBTQI plus community have highlighted that sometimes that's their only sense of belonging and community is found online. We need to be really careful that we're not cutting children and young people off from a source of information,

whether it be on health or other aspects that they're exploring at the moment. We really need to be aware that there are many positive benefits. You know, children and young people are digital natives. Technology, as it's evolving, is going to be very much part of their future. So education as well is at the core and children and young people make many suggestions about how the adults in their lives as well as you know their peer group um should be receiving education and they want to see that much more led and designed by young people themselves so you, this proposal, we need to be careful about, you know, excluding children from spaces where they actually report

as having a sense of belonging and need for those spaces. Faith Gordon talking to Rob Young. Next to a 1980s classic. Leave no track. Don't look back All I desire Temptation Well, that is Temptation by Heaven 17,

and it's at the centre of a row over how much video games makers should pay for music. The song's co-writer, Martin Ware, said he was outraged by a low offer from Rockstar Games, which is due to release its Grand Theft Auto 6 next year. It's highlighted the debate over whether artists are being ripped off or given an opportunity to reach new audiences via video games, as I heard from the BBC's Jasmine Sandar. Essentially, this is just a dispute between music artists and gaming companies. And a lot of music artists are getting really frustrated and upset when they're seeing that the money they're being offered or the royalties that they're making from the music are so disproportionately low in comparison to how much game developers and gaming companies are making from their products. And how has Martin Ware reacted to all this? Well, he expressed his fury on X as quite an inflammatory post.

He said he was excited when he received the email and when he scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the offer of only $7,500. He was very annoyed at that, especially in comparison to how much Grand Theft Auto 6 grossed, which was around $8.6 billion. And he ended his post with a few expletives as well, which I don't think are very radio friendly. Yeah, I suppose it's difficult to measure the

impact of music on a game's revenue. How have Rockstar Games responded to this current rail? We have contacted Rockstar Games to comment, but we've not heard back from them yet. In the meantime, we've spoken to the Musicians' Union and Naomi Pohl, who's the General Secretary of the Union, told us that the fee offered to Martin does actually look really low. She said that they would expect there to be tens of thousands to be paid for the master and also tens of thousands to be paid for the publisher potentially as well. The BBC's Jasmine Sandar. Now, this time tomorrow, we'll be digesting the aftermath of the US presidential election debate. The vote itself is in eight weeks' time.

And ahead of the poll, we'll be doing a special podcast in collaboration with our friends at AmeriCast. So if you have any questions you want answered about the election, then please send them in. You can email globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or tweet us at globalnewspod. And if possible, please record your question in a voice note. Thank you. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast very soon. This one was mixed by Chris Lovelock and produced by Stephanie Zachrisson.

Our editors, Karen Martin and I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions.

Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. To hear more stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.