Global News Podcast - Britain agrees to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

The UK is to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after 50 years but will keep military base on Diego Garcia. Also: Lebanon says two soldiers have been killed by Israel, as Israel continues its Hezbollah offensive.

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 Thursday the 3rd of October.

After more than 50 years, Britain has agreed to hand back the Chagos Islands. The US will retain its military base on Diego Garcia, so will the islanders be able to go home? Nine people have died in an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, while the Lebanese army says two of its soldiers have been killed by Israel in separate incidents in southern Lebanon. And a typhoon is battering Taiwan's second largest city. Also in this podcast... Just the other morning, there was a male bear, boar, that attacked a sow and killed her. Tragedy strikes Fat Bear Week.

Could the Chagos Islanders finally be able to return home more than half a century after they were forced out of their Indian Ocean paradise? More than 1,500 people were evicted and their pets slaughtered as part of a secret deal by the British to give the Americans a military base on the biggest of the islands, Diego Garcia. Most of the islanders were dumped in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but some moved to the UK, to the town of Crawley, south of London. In 2008, I went to meet them and their families. In Ireland, when you wake up, you have no need to put your hand in their pocket.

You have everything. You grow all your vegetables, you make your cattle, you go fishing. There's no need to spend any money. The women gathered here still remember life in the Chagos and the day they were forced to leave. One says soldiers threatened to kill her if she didn't come quietly. Hengrid Permal is head of the Chagos Islanders Community Association. They didn't come here by choice.

They were removed from the island in a very bad manner. Everything that was there has been crushed. But we just want to make sure that you people understand that we are not renouncing our rights on these three islands ever. The sound of a Chagos Islander singing when I met them in the UK some 15 years ago. In the past few hours, Britain has announced it will hand over sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius, though the US will retain its base on Diego Garcia. Our correspondent Andrew Harding has reported extensively on the islands. He told me more about the decision.

It is historic. I think that's beyond doubt, beyond question. The British government has agreed to give up sovereignty over what it's considered for decades as British territory, undeniably, unquestionably British territory. But the world is changing. Britain has, I think, become increasingly aware that it's losing alliances, losing friends because of its refusal to acknowledge the fact that in recent years, the UN, the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice had all told Britain, Mauritius owns these islands. You are there illegally. You need to hand them over. And so this deal today, it's still not signed as a treaty.

But I understand that apart from a few details needing iron out, it is a done deal now. And it means that Britain will no longer be in violation, technically, in violation of the International Court of Justice. It will no longer be ignoring global international opinion, particularly on the African continent, where, of course, decolonization is seen as such a fundamental issue. It's a fundamental part of the UN's charter as well. And Britain had been seen to be holding out against that, refusing to give back Mauritius what it took from Mauritius when Mauritius was granted independence back in 1968 by the UK government. And so we come to this deal, which is, and you may notice when you're reading it, very much pitched in terms of international security, with the focus particularly on Diego

Garcia, the one atoll in this vast archipelago, big enough to sustain a military base, a submarine base, and an airport, an airstrip that the Americans use and have used consistently as a very important part of the way they project power across Asia and in the Indian Ocean. So the deal means that America will keep control of its military base for 99 more years. So the Mauritian government has guaranteed it 99 more years, whereas the British lease was actually expiring. So in just 12 years time. So this deal would not have happened unless the Americans, unless Washington, D.C., decided, OK, we can let this go forward. Our global security profile and our interests will be safe with Mauritius' government in control of these islands.

So presumably Diego Garcia will remain closed off. Will those who are forced out of their homes decades ago, will they be able to go back to the other parts of the Chagos Islands? They'll be able to go back. In fact, I was on a trip back in 2022 when a handful of islanders went back with the Mauritian government on a Mauritian boat in a very provocative, some would call it a publicity stunt, but designed to basically test British resolve and say, these are our islands. We're going back. The problem for those islanders, many of them are getting very old. The islands have been abandoned. They are your classic tropical island. They are very hard to sustain a sort of modern lifestyle there. People live, they called it paradise back in the 50s and 60s when they lived there. But Britain has always argued that it would be too expensive to allow people the right of return and a decent standard of living. The Mauritian government insists it will help those people that want to go

back to go back. But will they actually start living there long term? That remains to be seen. And just remind us of the time when Britain basically just forced them out. So Britain had done this secret deal with the Americans and British troops turned up on the islands and people have spoken eloquently and movingly about how they were simply told to pack up their houses, get on board boats. Their dogs were all collected and killed by the British authorities. They weren't allowed to take their pets with them.

And suddenly they were dumped pretty unceremoniously in Mauritius. Some made their way by plane to Gatwick Airport, which is why there's now a community in Crawley, near by plane to Gatwick Airport, which is why there's now a community in Crawley near to Britain's Gatwick Airport, because again, they were simply dumped there. And some ended up in the Seychelles. And there is a huge global community of exiles, huge, but a significant community who don't agree on all things about who should own the islands, what should be done with them, but all feel this keen sense of longing for that island paradise that many felt was

simply denied to them by Britain. And one can only imagine what they are feeling today. Yes, enormous joy. I know some of these people have campaigned all their lives for decades since the 1960s in courts, in public opinion, to try and tell the world this is not fair. We were stripped of our rights to live on our islands. Even, remember, the Americans didn't want them to leave. It was the British who chose, you must leave. Andrew Harding. And in the past few hours, the chairman of the campaign group Chagossian Voices has criticised the deal between Britain and Mauritius, saying the islanders had been excluded by the governments of the campaign group Chagossian Voices has criticised the deal between Britain and Mauritius, saying the islanders had been excluded by the governments from the negotiations.

Israel's offensive against Hezbollah continues to cause death and destruction in Lebanon. After announcing the loss of eight of its own soldiers yesterday, the Israeli army is today accused of killing two members of the Lebanese army, which is separate from Hezbollah. Lebanon said one was killed during an evacuation and rescue operation with the Red Cross, the other in an Israeli strike on a military post. The Lebanese army says it fired back the first time that has happened. More explosions have also been heard in the capital, Beirut.

Matthew Hollingworth is the World Food Programme's director for Lebanon. It's a pretty horrific situation. I mean, most people wanted a de-escalation. They wanted to avoid a war. I mean, this country's already had six wars since 1978 with Israel and six invasions. And now you've got literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people with very little. They've had orders to evacuate in leaflets and messages on the phone and telephone calls from the IDF. It's very similar to what we were experiencing in Gaza seven or eight months ago.

And that is creating fear amongst the entire population. We'll hear from our correspondent in Beirut in a moment. But first, an update on the Israeli offensive from our Jerusalem correspondent, Yolanda Nell. The latest statements from the Israeli military talk about some 200 Hezbollah targets being struck across Lebanon without going into full details of all the different locations. It is mentioned how this particular council building was hit in southern Lebanon, killing about 15 Hezbollah operatives. According to the Israeli military, they say that a number of weapons were stored in that building. And in general, what they say is that they're going after weapons, rocket launch sites, other what they call terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon. We know as well that in the past few hours there have been sirens going off still in the north of Israel, warning those who remain there of incoming rocket

and drones as well that have been intercepted. So Hezbollah remains capable of making those kinds of launches against Israel. The fighting on the ground continues. We know that that has been quite fierce, that there have now been some of the encounters that were expected between Israeli soldiers and the Hezbollah fighters who are on their home terrain. That's their stronghold in the south of the country, and they are holding out there against incoming Israeli troops. We're expecting that Israeli ground invasion to expand because we know now that there has been another military division. There are now three military divisions that have been sent

to the north of the country along with some reservists, but we're not getting so many details about that for security reasons. Your land now in Jerusalem. Well, in Lebanon, nine people died overnight when a health centre linked to Hezbollah was hit. As we record this podcast, we got the details from Sally Nabil in Beirut. I'm right here where an Israeli airstrike

has hit a medical centre overnight. The medical centre is in a residential building right behind me. We know that seven medics have lost their lives and there are a number of other medics who have been injured. We've been talking to people in the area here who told me that this residential building is pretty busy and even this area is crowded with people.

As soon as the strike hit, which was very loud, everybody in central Beirut could hear it. All the residents were out. Children were screaming. One of the people inside told me, I felt that my heart is going stop. It was pounding very, very loud. So it was and still is a scene of chaos here. They are clearing the rubble behind me. This is why it sounds very noisy. And we've talked to one of the civil defence members and they told us that it seems that the Israeli airstrike

has precisely targeted this medical centre. Although everybody inside was civilian, as they put it, but usually the Israelis say we target places that are close to Hezbollah military infrastructure, although Hezbollah denies storing or manufacturing weapons in residential areas. Sally Nabil in Beirut. As well as battling in Lebanon, Israel is also still fighting in Gaza and considering how to respond to the missile barrage from Iran on Tuesday night.

Iran said it was retaliating for the killing of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and the assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Hanir in Tehran in July. The Iranian president, Massoud Pazashkian, says his country doesn't want war but is ready to respond to further Israeli attacks. The security of the region is the security of all Muslims, and we do not want any war of bloodshed. Since I assumed the presidency, every speech I've made has emphasised our quest for peace and security. No nation or region can prosper in the midst of war.

If Israel decides to retaliate, then it will face harder reactions. Well, after the Iranian attacks, the US National Security Advisor said the Americans would work with Israel to ensure Iran suffered, quote, severe consequences. But since then, President Biden has called for a proportionate response and said he didn't support attacking Iran's nuclear sites. Itamar Yar is a former deputy head of Israel's National Security Council and now CEO of Commanders for Israel's Security, a group of former senior Israeli security officials. What's his view? I believe that Israel will not attack the Iranian nuclear facilities without some kind of at least US cooperation. And this cooperation does not exist

at least now. Simon Gass was formerly the UK ambassador to Iran, he gave us his analysis. I have taken it up until now that Iran has not wanted to take the final step towards development of a nuclear weapon. I think what Iran has wanted is to be close enough to it that they could build one if they wanted to. So the question now is whether Iran feels sufficiently threatened that it decides actually that isn't what we want, what we actually need is a nuclear weapon in our hand and I don't know whether that is what they will decide but that is obviously a potential risk. But hasn't

Western diplomacy and Western policy towards Iran failed? We shouldn't forget that we had a nuclear deal with Iran. If that deal had been stuck to Iran would only have 300 kilograms of very very low enriched uranium and we wouldn't have to be worrying about this problem in the same way. 300 as against?

As against now probably five and a half tons, which is much more enriched was a good deal which would have kept the lid on Iran's nuclear programme for a prolonged period of time. And I don't think any of us should be so exquisite as to say to Israel, oh dear, you've made a horrible mess of it now and now you're in deep trouble. You know, they have done what they think that they need to do to preserve the security of their country. And clearly there was an Iranian threat, which was manifested by the firing of ballistic missiles earlier this week.

So one cannot deny that. The only thing that I would add, though, is that none of us know when the music's going to stop and where everybody will be at that point. Israel has achieved some extraordinary military successes so far, and no doubt they will do more. But in the end, this is about getting Israelis back into their homes in northern Israel. That is not going to be easy to do. It's about finding a longer term solution to Gaza. That is not going to be easy to

do. And you may strike Iran, but don't think that you're going to be able to topple the regime and absolutely change Iran's view of the world and its capabilities, because I don't think that you're going to be able to topple the regime and absolutely change Iran's view of the world and its capabilities because I don't think that will happen either. So I'm not saying that I disagree that Israel has a point about how it deals with the world. We shouldn't claim that diplomacy could have solved all of these problems because manifestly it has not, but there will be a future which has to be grappled with.

I am pretty confident that Tehran is a very worried place at the moment. They found themselves in an impossible position. If they didn't respond to the killing of Nasrallah, they would look weak. And that always worries the Iranians that people will take them lightly. On the other hand, if you do respond, what is the risk that you pull the roof in down on your own head? I think they would like to de-escalate. But my word, that's going to be very difficult to do. Simon Gass, former UK ambassador to Iran, talking to my colleagues Amal Rajan and Nick Robinson. Britain's National Health Service has begun sequencing the entire genetic code of up to 100,000 newborn babies, decoding the biological information that can hold the key to medical diagnosis. More details from our medical editor Fergus Walsh. Just a day old, Amelia is among the first babies to have their entire genetic

code sequenced to look for rare diseases. Her mum didn't hesitate when offered the test at Birmingham Women's Hospital. It was a no-brainer because Emilia will be tested for 200 different genetic conditions, so she will benefit, but also will contribute to the wider research population, which will affect other children. Emilia's blood sample, taken from her umbilical cord, is being sent to labs in Cambridge, where her genome will be sequenced. Faulty genes in our DNA can cause thousands of rare diseases but only treatable conditions will be identified. The 200 conditions which have been selected for the programme cause substantial health problems

early in childhood and the treatments and interventions which are available for all of these conditions can have a dramatic impact on that child. They can reduce the symptoms and in some cases they represent a cure. Age nine Joshua is no longer able to walk or talk. His condition MLD is one of those which will now be screened for. His mum has clear advice to parents offered the test. Do not even hesitate. If you can save your child's life, that is more important than anything in this world. And speaking as a parent who is losing their child day to day,

please take the opportunity to find out. Had Joshua's condition been picked up at birth, he could potentially have been cured. Now the damage done is irreversible. Where's Joshie? Back at hospital, Gemma says she hasn't picked a name yet for her son, but he is part of the screening programme. All the babies involved in this study will be contacted again when they reach the age of 16 to see if they want to continue with the research. That could involve looking for other faulty genes which later in life can increase your risk of getting certain cancers, heart disease or even dementia. That will raise ethical questions about what information

should be shared. But for now, the focus is on the start of life and giving parents greater reassurance about their baby's health. Our medical editor Fergus Walsh. And still to come on the Global News podcast... My mother was brutally killed and it's very painful for us. She was murdered, but finding her inside a pigsty is even more tragic. A shocking trial in South Africa where a white farmer stands accused of shooting dead two women and feeding them to bed. 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. Just over two months after ten people were killed in Taiwan by Typhoon Gemi, another powerful storm has hit the island. Typhoon Kraton brought winds of more than 220 kilometres an hour, as well as heavy rains, forcing schools and offices to shut for a second day. At least two people have died. Our correspondent in Taipei, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, gave me an update. Down in the south in the second city, Taiwan's second city, Kaohsiung, which is a large city,

about two and a half million people, and it's Taiwan's main port city, they are getting it really hard right now from this typhoon. It came ashore there about three hours ago. Well, I'm just watching pictures here on the local television news showing very, very powerful winds that have ripped off metal roofs. I'm strong enough at the Kaohsiung port to actually lift empty shipping containers, you know, big steel shipping containers, into the air and toss them across the port side there. So they're getting it very hard in Kaohsiung at the moment. This storm is moving very slowly. It hovered off shore for more than two days before crawling its way on shore

this morning. And it is moving at really just a walking pace, four kilometres an hour. So it is going to move very, very slowly north across the island over the next 24 to 36 hours. It will then weaken. It is predicted to break up in the next couple of days. But at the same time, because it's moving so slowly, it is dumping huge amounts of rain over the south now, but expected to come right across the island tonight and start dumping large amounts of rain right along the west coast and even up here in Taipei.

And I guess some parts of Taiwan will still be recovering from previous storms this season. Is the island able to cope? So far, it looks like it's doing OK. I mean, typhoon Gemi, as you said earlier in the year, caused a lot of flooding in southern Taiwan. Because of that, they really put the warnings out early. They were sandbagging streets and houses. They were reinforcing coastal defences. Also, this typhoon came in from the southwest, from the Taiwan Straits. Very unusual for a typhoon to come from that direction. So people were preparing, and a lot of preparations have gone into reinforce things, people moving cars out of underground garages, things like that.

So, so far, so good, but it is still early days. We still have quite a long time to go until this typhoon breaks up and we're in the clear. Seeing a report of a fire at a hospital in Taiwan, is that related to the weather? It's not directly related as far as we know, but as many as eight or nine people have died in this hospital fire. I mean, part of the reason, perhaps, you know, tangentially is that it was difficult to carry out a rescue because obviously typhoon conditions make it difficult to move people around. But it looks like this was electrical fire and it wasn't directly caused by the typhoon. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Taiwan. The US Central Intelligence Agency has launched a

new drive to recruit informants in China, Iran and North Korea. It posted messages on its social media accounts in Mandarin, Farsi and Korean, instructing users how to contact it securely. Celia Hatton reports. Telling applicants the agency is open for business, recruitment advertisements asked potential informants to make contact using trusted encrypted portals or an anonymous web browser known as the Tor network, which is often used to access the dark web.

This latest effort follows a campaign to enlist Russians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, which the CIA says was a success. China is not pleased. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, accused the US of waging a systematic disinformation campaign against Beijing. Our Asia-Pacific regional editor Celia Hatton. The case of two black women who were allegedly shot dead and fed to pigs by a white farmer and two of his workers, has caused outrage in South Africa. The two women were allegedly gathering food on the farm near Polokwane in northern Limpopo province

when they were shot. The state prosecutor says their bodies were given to pigs in an apparent attempt to dispose of the evidence. Our correspondent Nomsa Maseko reports from Polokwane. Farm owner Zakaria Yohannes Olifir, his employees Adrian DeVert and William Mosura faced an angry community as they appeared in court on Tuesday. They stand accused of killing Maria Makatu and Kudzain Jovo and then dumping their bodies in a pigsty. Inside the packed courtroom, the relatives of the victims and community members were demanding that the suspects be denied bail.

The grim discovery of the partially devoured bodies happened in August. Families of the victims are still in shock. Ranti Makhatu is the eldest of Maria's four children. My mother was brutally killed, and it's very painful for us. She was murdered, but finding her inside a pigsty is even more tragic. I think I'll sleep better if suspects are denied bail. The murders of the two women led to protests outside the court, in a country already plagued by high levels of violent crime.

This has also led to stronger calls for legislation to combat racially motivated crimes. Madzunga Farisani is the head of the gender desk at the South African Council of Churches. They're role modeling. What they're doing, they're role modeling even to their own children that it's okay to kill a black person. A black person is not a fully fledged human being. You can go ahead and kill a black person. Some people are saying, oh, 30 years down the line, we thought apartheid is over. Apartheid is not over yet. The bail application was postponed to November to enable authorities to conduct further investigation. Mashudu Marabi Djangi is the spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority.

Yes, we're going to oppose the bail. This is a serious offence we're talking about and then we've got defeating the ends of justice. Is this a first for this province where you've seen such a gruesome type of murder?

In relation to farm attacks or farm murders? No, we had several cases where some have been shot and then the accused were saying that the people will look like baboons or monkeys. So it's not for the first time even this type of cases here in Limpopo. Would you say that some of these cases are perhaps racially motivated? We can even think so, as we are saying that the victims are black people. Would you say that some of these cases are perhaps racially motivated?

We can even think so, as we are seeing that the victims are black people and we are talking about women who have been killed here. The suspects will remain in custody while families of the victims and the community wait for justice. Nomsa Maseko reporting from Polokwane. It is arguably the most high-profile time of the year for wildlife conservation, Fat Bear Week in the US state of Alaska, as the animals gorge on salmon to prepare for their winter hibernation. People from around the world vote for the fattest brown bear in the Katmai National Park, which is bigger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined.

Richard Hamilton explained how the competition works. It started 10 years ago just as a fairly basic one-day event with just over a thousand votes and then in the decades since then it's just mushroomed into a worldwide competition. Last year they had 1.4 million people putting in their ballots from more than 100 countries. It's a knockout format. So there's 12 bears chosen each year and they're pitted against each other. You vote on the website, you look at photos on the website, and you also watch the live stream camera. I just went on there, but because it's midnight in Alaska, it's just pitch black and you can just see some drops of rain, but you can hear some of the birds and sounds of the wilderness.

And in the day, I think it's spectacular by all accounts. It's a remote volcanic wilderness that includes a lovely place called the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. It's a natural habitat for thousands of brown bears as they devour salmon along the Brooks River, and they fatten up to weights of around 600 kilos and that's because during the hibernation during the winter months they lose up to a third of their body weight and one bear famously ate 42 salmon in six hours but this year the competition has been marred by

a tragic incident that's right a male bear mauled a female one and it was all caught on camera. So the competition was delayed by a day. So bear number 402 fatally mauled, bear number 469 on the Brooks River. And this is the harsh reality of nature. Matt Johnson is the programme manager at Katmai National Park. Just the other morning, there was a male bear, boar, that attacked a sow and killed her. She was supposed to be in the contest, and so we had a bit of a bad situation going into Fat Bear Week. It's very unusual in the bear world for another bear to kill another bear.

It usually doesn't happen. It's only happened one other time in the history of Fat Bear Week. And it's a rare occurrence in the park itself. There are about 2,000 brown bears here. It doesn't happen all the time. But also earlier in the summer, a mother bear and her cubs were near a waterfall and they got washed over, swept up to a larger bear. The cub was injured and the larger male bear actually ended up killing the cub. But the event is continuing. Who are the favourites?

So there are 12 bears chosen. One of the likely winners is Grazer, which is a mother. She won last year and another one is Chunk, who's yet to win, but he lost out last year. There was a voting scandal in 2022 when there was thousands of spam votes, but that was quickly corrected. Richard Hamilton. As one of the presenters of the Global News podcast, I sometimes have trouble getting to grips with difficult names. It's an issue which was discussed by our colleagues on the Today programme as newsreader Jane Steele gave presenters Nick Robinson and Amal Rajan

a tip about how to get it right. Corrie Caulfield, one of the newsreaders that has worked here in the past, she said to me her best tip, which I have passed on to so many people, is instead of... It's tempting to think if you just say something over and over again you'll remember it. But she told me the best way is to give it a tune and sing it because it sort of trains your brain and it takes over. She has given an example.

So here was one that I saw and I thought, I'm going to have to think of a tune to go with it, was the Sri Lankan president. He's not the president anymore. And his name is Gotabaya Rajapaksa, right? Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Exactly. If you can put a tune to it. In fact, our tune we put to it was Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Because it fits the emphasis. Gotabaya Rajapaksa. You'll never get it wrong. Amol Rajan, or should la la. Amol Rajan. Or should that be Amol Rajan? And that is all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Martin Williams

and produced by Tracy Gordon. Our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Thank you.